Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Observations 2.22

This post is a little different in that I'm not going to say much at all, seriously. It's just that I read this article in The Wall Street Journal last night and the end of it is something I haven't seen anywhere else but yet is so obvious. It really just blew my mind a little when I read it; and please no comments on that. For what it's worth here is the part I am talking about with some italics I added and than a link to the full article.

".... it seems dictators learn fast and are perfectly capable of mastering the Internet. It's only by anticipating their response that those of us who care about democracy in the West can make their tough methods less effective. After all, these regimes have turned mostly to Western companies and consultants for advice about the technology of repression.

Triumphalism about recent events in the Middle East is premature. The contest is still in its early stages, and the new age of Internet-driven democratization will endure only if we learn to counter the sophisticated measures now being developed to quash it."