The net sucks, social media is bullshit: two new books on the 'internet delusion'

Two new books explore the notion that the internet isn't the commercial or democratic force it's touted to be

In 2007, it was Kevin07 T-shirts but by 2008 the talk was all about Barack Obama and his victory on the back of his savvy social media networking. Somewhere around those two election results, the mainstream leapt on the concept that politics could be re-invented as something the people might actually have a say in. And the Great Democratiser – the internet – became its tool. Various forms of click-here activism – aka clicktivism or slacktivism – have since blossomed and the internet is now seen by many as a Damoclean sword thankfully hacking through the difficult Gordian Knots of human interaction and civil/political engagement.

An industry has emerged. Online activist projects like LiquidFeedback in Germany and We The People in the US, along with petition-based activist NGOs like Avaaz or Australia’s own GetUp! have flourished. Numbers have grown and interest has waxed. So-called e-petitions have become part of the political landscape; since 2011 We The People has generated some 180,000 such pokes to power.

But as The Economist noted recently, “critics find e-petitions too unambiguous. Platforms rarely enable users to discuss issues or fine-tune their demands.” One report in Germany concluded that “e-petitions are created by the same well-educated males who create and sign paper ones. Anthony Zacharzewski from UK based think-tank DemSoc argues that “successful politics is not about finding people who agree with you. It’s about making difficult decisions without killing each other.”

Two new books seek to throw a bridge across these swirling waters. All beg to differ with the kind of gung-ho internet solutionism manufactured by internet acolytes, whom one author brands “Cyber Hipsters”.

B.J. Mendelson’s Social Media is Bullshit does not, as the title implies, pull any punches. The Cyber Hipsters line is his as is the concept of the Asshole-based Economy. He seems happy to make enemies. He runs full tilt at members of the internet glitterati such as Clay Shirkey and his ilk. Social media has, says Mendelson, become as restrictive a political and business tool as the rest of the corroded chain that ties us all together. The domination of all the same old big names – the big corporations, the stellar celebrities – simply confirms the internet’s role not as revolutioniser, but as an extender of the status quo.

Mendelson also ditches the idea that internet, social media based marketing and outreach is any other than its own marketing spin. Even big brands, with their deep pockets and global recognition, have bombed in internet marketing campaigns. Few, Mendelson argues, want to admit to it because social media has become so hip that failing at it is akin to tripping over and spilling your made-by-mum-lunch in front of the cool kids at school.

In a short time Evgeny Morozov has become one of the best known philosophers of the digital age. His first book 2011’s “Net Delusion” pin-pointed defects in the political excitement created by the seemingly powerful use of social media during the Arab Spring. Swiftly following is “To Save Everything” which was launched in March.

Morozov’s wide-ranging critique homes in mainly on the metrication of humanity he identifies, driven he says by what he calls the Audit Society. The internet’s (he actually suggests there is no such singular entity) growing attachment to ever-bloating algorithms, raw data and binary codes is, he suggests a little like an Obsessive Compulsive’s attachment to washing their hands: it is never going to end well.

The sense that everything can be Googleified to the extent that social and political policy, civil projects and even human relationships become math equations blipping incessantly on a spreadsheet is a creepy one for Morozov and one that threatens to diminish us all. The Quantified Self is just that, he argues – all quantity no quality – and that is precisely the concern.

Both writers can see a post-internet future but neither seems willing to offer a blueprint of how it might look.

THE SKINNY:

Social Media is Bullshit

BJ Mendelson

St. Martins Press (2012)

High Point – Fruity language and healthy iconoclasm

Low Point – A “how to” section on how to get away with the kind of stuff he criticises others for

To Save Everything, Click Here

Evgeny Morozov

Public Affairs (2013)

Page Count –

High Point – Ability to bower-bird from a range of sources