Evgeny Morozov, a journalist and social commentator, has written an important book on a topic that is on the mind of almost every technologically inclined social scientist: the power of the Internet to shape society, and the Internet’s role in promoting democracy around the world.

Calling himself a “cyber-realist,” Morozov takes issue with “cyber-utopians” and “Internet-centrists” who “like to answer every question about democratic change by first reframing it in terms of the Internet rather than the context in which that change is to occur.” He goes on to state the premise of the book:

To salvage the Internet’s promise to aid the fight against authoritarianism, those of us in the West who still care about the future of democracy will need to ditch both cyber-utopianism and Internet-centrism.

In chapter 1, Morozov introduces the subject of his work, with specific emphasis paid to the rise of the Twitter revolution, which he calls an “alleged” revolution. Chapter 3 posits that instead of creating “digital renegades,” the Internet phenomenon is creating “digital captives”--even and especially in the repressive regimes--who are more interested in finding “comfort” online, irrespective of the political realities in the physical world. Chapter 4 hopes to dispel the notion that authoritarian leaders and nations have an outdated view of technology and cling to power using tools like censorship. In fact, they use the Internet to successfully propagate their own views to the wider population. A similar theme is explored in the later chapters, which also discuss Internet surveillance, the inherent loss of privacy associated with social networking media, and how this is exploited by authoritarian regimes.

Digital activism in the context of authoritarian states is not ignored. Morozov, drawing inspiration from Søren Kierkegaard, observes that, given the exploding number of issues that one can associate with online, often without having to do anything more than click a “like” button, no one is really engaging in these causes. A central theme in the book is that technologies like the Internet are ideologically neutral and, as such, can and will be used by everyone.

Morozov takes a historical look at technologies that were supposed to revolutionize society, but did not meet the expectations--the telegraph, the radio, and even the television. In this context, he examines the advent of the computer and the Internet, looking at not just the logic of technology but also “the logic of society that adopts it.” The last chapter draws attention to the seductive appeal of technological fixes: “When technology promises so much and demands so little, the urge to find a quick fix is, indeed, irresistible.” Morozov warns: “The problem with most technological fixes is that they come with costs unknown even to their fiercest advocates” and “usually rely on extremely sophisticated solutions that cannot be easily understood by laypeople.”

He then goes on to use Rittel and Webber’s “tame” and “wicked” problem framework [1] to propose that the greatest problem with Internet-centric initiatives is that wicked problems are framed as tame ones. This prevents policymakers from considering the repercussions of choosing one solution over another. The chapter ends by cautioning cyber-realists to not fall into the trap of being Internet-centrists.

Morozov provides an antidote to the overly optimistic viewpoint that the Internet is a great leveler that is by nature oriented toward spreading democracy. His book is too important to be ignored or dismissed, even by those who hold a differing view of the problems and solutions.