Twitter and Facebook have been widely credited with enabling citizens to upend dictatorial regimes.But while oppressive governments were initially caught off guard by the new media tools, those still in power appear finally to be catching on. In some cases they are happily embracing social networking to play Big Brother in a way never before possible.Many governments struggling with dissent appear to be using a double-barreled strategy to fight back against the so-called Facebook revolutions: classic repression and by promoting their own views using the very same platforms.
Awww, that’s no fun! Without our pretensions of facilitating heroic revolution, we’re just going to be a bunch of generic, self-absorbed jagoffs with expensive toy phones! Hmmph! Oh, well, at least I’ve still got my kewl Che t-shirt.
Seriously, it would have been nice if Koons could have mentioned Evgeny Morozov’s book on this very topic, though.