¶ … scholars and agree that social networks (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) are good for democracy. One academic who argues that social media will not aid democratic movements is Evgeny Morozov, whose book, The New Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom points to reasons why dictators in some countries will control the Internet.
There are many reasons mentioned in this article as to why the Internet will not be free from censorship -- cannot be free from censorship -- and why governments are eager to have people believe they have privacy when in fact their communications and tweets and posts are not private. Some of what is presented in the article can be proved or will be played out in reality as time goes on. For example, "Various new sophisticated techniques for data mining" are helping unscrupulous government leaders spy on political opponents; this is one way governments can foil organizers of demonstrations and rallies. And in China, where they have their own version of Twitter...
But is it true? The article quotes a journalist with the respected publication, the Guardian (Tania Branigan), who writes that the reasons the Chinese government allows the Weibo to become popular is because China then can censor what is said back and forth. The Communist Party is happy to have people logging on and learning about what is going on in the public sphere, as though this is the only way the government can discern the mood of the country. But let's take China out of the discussion.
The most simplistic argument that…
