The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
by Tim Wu
Knopf, 366 pp., $27.95
The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom
by Evgeny Morozov
PublicAffairs, 409 pp., $27.95
It is indisputable that social media had a part in the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, as well as in the ongoing protests in other Arab and Muslim nations. Facebook and other digital networks can speed political communication and provide efficient tools for organizing protests. In combination with satellite broadcasters such as al-Jazeera, online networks can quickly spread awareness of government abuses. The very newness of social media, and the way they connect people and ideas across borders, may also foster an incipient form of political identity for some. But none of this is quite the same as accepting that Internet use makes the liberation of oppressed societies more likely.