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I have no problem with technological solutions to social problems. The key question for me is, 'Who gets to implement them?' and, 'What kinds of politics of reform do technological solutions smuggle through the back door?'

Evgeny Morozov

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Evgeny Morozov
Age: 41
Born: 1984
Born: January 1
Computer Scientist
Journalist
Writer
Gets
Implement
Problems
Technological
Question
Reform
Politics
Kinds
Social
Solutions
Problem
Door
Back
Keys
Kind
Doors
Smuggle

More quotes by Evgeny Morozov

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Mobile phones are one of the most insecure devices that were ever available, so they're very easy to trace they're very easy to tap.
Evgeny Morozov
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While free software was meant to force developers to lose sleep over ethical dilemmas, open source software was meant to end their insomnia.
Evgeny Morozov
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Russian young people spend countless hours online downloading videos and having a very nice digital entertainment lifestyle, which does not necessarily turn them into the next Che Guevara.
Evgeny Morozov
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The decentralized nature of online conversations often makes it easier to manipulate public opinion, both domestically and globally. Regimes that once relied on centralized systems of media control can now deliver ideological messages more subtly, with the help of little-known intermediaries like anonymous commenters on websites.
Evgeny Morozov
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Diplomacy is, perhaps, one element of the U.S. government that should not be subject to the demands of 'open government' whenever it works, it is usually because it is done behind closed doors. But this may be increasingly hard to achieve in the age of Twittering bureaucrats.
Evgeny Morozov
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In business, standards establish the rules of the game, creating path dependencies as investments are made and corresponding designs are set in stone and plastic. Inferior standards can prevail due to smart marketing or industry collusion.
Evgeny Morozov
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Creative experimentation propels our culture forward. That our stories of innovation tend to glorify the breakthroughs and edit out all the experimental mistakes doesn't mean that mistakes play a trivial role. As any artist or scientist knows, without some protected, even sacred space for mistakes, innovation would cease.
Evgeny Morozov
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Cloud computing is a great euphemism for centralization of computer services under one server.
Evgeny Morozov
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In addition to their 'do no evil' motto, Googlers have always been guided by another, much less explicit philosophy: 'computational arrogance.'
Evgeny Morozov
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The Internet has made it much more effective and cheaper to spread propaganda.
Evgeny Morozov
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When someone at the State Department proclaims Facebook to be the most organic tool for promoting democracy the world has ever seen - that's a direct quote - it may help in the short run by getting more people onto Facebook by making it more popular with dissidents.
Evgeny Morozov
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There is this absurd assumption that the revitalisation of the public sphere is always a good thing. I think people tend to confuse 'civic' and 'civil,' and they believe that everything that is done by citizens is necessarily a good thing because you build a network, an association.
Evgeny Morozov
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Technology changes all the time human nature hardly ever.
Evgeny Morozov
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This is the real tragedy of America's 'Internet freedom agenda': It's going to be the dissidents in China and Iran who will pay for the hypocrisy that drove it from the very beginning.
Evgeny Morozov
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Free open-source software, by its nature, is unlikely to feature secret back doors that lead directly to Langley, Va.
Evgeny Morozov
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In short, Google prefers a world where we consistently go to three restaurants to a world where our choices are impossible to predict.
Evgeny Morozov
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Truly smart technologies will remind us that we are not mere automatons who assist big data in asking and answering questions.
Evgeny Morozov
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My hunch is that people often affiliate with causes online for selfish and narcissistic purposes. Sometimes, it may be as simple as trying to impress their online friends, and once you have fashioned that identity, there is very little reason to actually do anything else.
Evgeny Morozov
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Information technology has been one of the leading drivers of globalization, and it may also become one of its major victims.
Evgeny Morozov
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Personalization can be very useful in some contexts but very harmful in others. Searching for pizza online, it's probably OK to keep showing the same pizza shop as your No. 1 choice. I don't see any big political consequences out of that.
Evgeny Morozov