The Net Delusion: Does free information mean free people?: Evgeny Morozov January 19, 2011

"At the start of the twenty-first century we were promised that the internet would liberate the world. We could come together as never before, and from Iran's 'twitter revolution' to Facebook 'activism', technological innovation would spread democracy to oppressed peoples everywhere. We couldn't have been more wrong. Morozov destroys this myth, arguing that 'internet freedom' is an illusion, and that technology has failed to help protect people's rights. Not only that – in many cases the internet is actually helping authoritarian regimes. From China to Russia to Iran, oppressive governments are using cyberspace to stifle dissent: planting clandestine propaganda, employing sophisticated digital censorship and using online surveillance. We are all being manipulated in more subtle ways too – becoming pacified by the net, instead of truly engaging."

This event marks the publication of Evgeny Morozov's new book The Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate The World.

Evgeny Morozov was born in Belarus in 1984. He is a contributing editor to Foreign Policy and runs the magazine's influential and widely-quoted Net Effect blog. He is currently a Yahoo! fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University and has been a fellow at George Soros's Open Society Institute.

Official Website: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2011/20110119t1830vSZT.aspx