In an opinion piece for The New York Times on Feb. 4, Evgeny Morozov declares the days of cyberspace exploration over, snuffed out by the world of social media and search engine optimization. Drawing a parallel to 19th century Paris, Morozov invokes the metaphor of the Flâneur — a careless wanderer of the streets — to the early days of the Web when users could freely surf with anonymity. Morozov concludes that Facebook and Google have replaced this era of freedom with one dominated by the voyeurism of the crowd and driven by advertizing dollars. Morozov cautions that the new concept of "frictionless sharing" — from the articles we read to the movies we watch  — has comprised our freedom to surf. 

Program on Arab Reform and Democracy (ARD) scholar Elias Muhanna, the blogger behind qifanabki.com, has been nominated for a special award for an outstanding contribution to new media by the Next Century Foundation.

The Next Century Foundation writes:

"The prize is awarded to individuals that contribute to different forms of new media, in particular internet news, blogging and citizen journalism... ELIAS MUHANNA's Qifa Nabki blog is about Lebanese politics, history, and culture...He offers some of the best analysis of Lebanese politics to be found anywhere - clever, eloquent, sharp and non-ideological. And he writes some wonderful satire too.""

ARD warmly congratulates Elias Muhanna on this nomination. To read his blog, please click on the link below.

One year after the Arab Spring, American public diplomacy is still facing the now-established conundrum of linking words and actions. The rise of Islamist political parties as the new leaders in the Arab world is the latest challenge for U.S. public diplomacy, but it is also an opportunity.

Since the attacks of September 11, the United States has been matching its military activity in the Middle East with outreach to Muslim and Arab communities. By and large, this outreach has not been successful. As several public diplomacy experts have been arguing for a number of years now, the limited impact of this outreach is due to the negative perception of U.S. foreign policy towards the Middle East by citizens in the region. When actions and words do not match, words are perceived with a hefty dose of suspicion.

When the Egyptian revolution began on January 25, 2011, U.S. foreign policy took some time to catch up with sentiment on the Egyptian street. To make matters worse, the “Made in USA” tear gas canisters that protesters in Tahrir Square angrily displayed to the cameras of the international media were a further reminder of the United States’ cozy relationship with the Mubarak regime.

Since then, the U.S. has improved its words and actions by declaring both rhetorical and policy support for the Arab world’s revolutionaries (albeit in varying degrees), and as a result, public opinion about the U.S. in the region has improved. The 2011 Arab Public Opinion Pollshows a significant increase in favorability towards the U.S., compared with the 2010 poll, from 10% to 26%. The U.S. must continue to enhance this record.

Back in 2006, after much hype by the U.S. about the importance of free and fair elections in Palestine, the U.S. backtracked when Hamas swept the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in Gaza,withdrawing aid and boycotting the elected Gaza government. As Islamist parties sweep free and fair elections in one country after another in the region—starting with Tunisia, then Egypt—it is fairly safe to declare that in the immediate aftermath of the Arab Spring, the Arab world will be led by Islamists. So far, the U.S. has not repeated the mistake of 2006 with Hamas’ election in Gaza, accepting the results of the elections as democratic and as representing the will of the people.

But this is not enough. Of course, the United States currently has an easier task, since none of the groups that have been elected to-date in the Arab region are on the U.S.’s “terrorist” list. However, merely accepting election results will not cause a significant change in the perception of the U.S. on the Arab street.

The U.S. recognizes the current period as one of opportunity: it is the time to reinvigorate U.S. assistance with civil society, economic aid, and cultural outreach in the Arab world. But the most important “action” of all remains how foreign policy will play out. The Islamist groups that have assumed leadership positions in Tunisia and Egypt, namely Ennahda and the Muslim Brotherhood, have one very old dream: to be recognized as statesmen nationally and internationally. If U.S. foreign policy in this new era is going to be successful, it must be based on treating those leaders as such.

This is not just important on the traditional diplomatic level; it is also important for the success of U.S. public diplomacy. The Islamist leaders now assuming positions as Prime Ministers or House Speakers (and who knows, perhaps also presidents in the near future) reached power through having been elected by their constituents. The U.S. cannot reach out to those constituents while treating their leaders differently. In the past, U.S. public diplomacy towards Egypt appeared insincere because the U.S. attempted to engage the Egyptian people while taking a soft stance towards the Mubarak regime, which had been jailing, harassing, and—as in the case of Khaled Said—killing those same people.

For the first time in the Arab world’s history, there is a real opportunity for the U.S. to match its words and actions towards the region, and to have foreign policy become the basis upon which to formulate a truly engaging public diplomacy.

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The ecological position, according to Morozov has a more nuanced position on technology. It describes the affect that technology has on the whole ecology: the actors, the incentives and the institutions. The Internet is seen not just as a tool but also as a means of transforming both the environment where politics happens and those who participate in politics. A possible long-term effect is that in authoritarian regimes, the Internet may be creating a new, digital, networked public sphere. Marc Lynch suggests that, “The strongest case for the fundamentally transformative effects of the new media may lie in the general emergence of a public sphere capable of eroding the ability of states to monopolize information and argument, of pushing for transparency and accountability and of facilitating new networks across society.”

Morozov suggested that we should not over-estimate the role that is played by the Internet. He suggested, “If a tree falls in a forest and everybody tweets about it, it may not mean that the tweets caused the tree to fall.” For example, Morozov argued that sometimes the system is almost dead when people start protesting. It is not that the protestors actually caused the system to fall. Morozov further questioned whether the Internet is facilitating the emergence of decentralized and leaderless political structures.

In addressing the Internet Freedom agenda, Morozov stressed the following points to policymakers:

• Don't listen to Internet experts, focus on regional experts instead to understand environment and ecology.
• The agenda needs to acknowledge that most work needs to happen at home to regulate surveillance, censorship software, and preserve online anonymity. Change doesn't need to come from autocratic governments, as that misses priorities.

Morozov is the author of ‘Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom’ and is a visiting scholar with the Program on Liberation Technology at CDDRL.