Evgeny Morozov Animated: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom

RSA has released its lat­est ani­mat­ed video, and this time it fea­tures Evge­ny Moro­zov, the Belarus-born researcher, who takes the con­trar­i­an posi­tion that the inter­net can often inhib­it (rather than pro­mote) democ­ra­cy, espe­cial­ly with­in author­i­tar­i­an con­texts like Chi­na and Iran. And what fol­lows (above) is a more sober­ing talk about how author­i­tar­i­an regimes use the web to sup­press civic engage­ment and fledg­ling democ­ra­cy move­ments. This clip is part of a longer 27 minute lec­ture (see full ver­sion here) that peers into “the dark side of inter­net free­dom,” a phrase that hap­pens to be the sub­ti­tle of Moro­zov’s new book.

Moro­zov is cur­rent­ly a vis­it­ing schol­ar in the Lib­er­a­tion Tech­nol­o­gy Pro­gram at Stan­ford, and if you’re won­der­ing how he looks at tech­nol­o­gy and the role it played in Egyp­t’s rev­o­lu­tion, you can watch a quick clip here.