I have no problem with technological solutions to social problems. The key question for me is, ‘Who gets to implement them?’ and, ‘What kinds of politics of reform do technological solutions smuggle through the back door?’
Truly smart technologies will remind us that we are not mere automatons who assist big data in asking and answering questions.
Most other documents leaked to WikiLeaks do not carry the same explosive potential as candid cables written by American diplomats.
Much of the real computer talent today is concentrated in the private sector.
Revolution may not be pro-Western or democratic.
Search without Google is like social networking without Facebook: unimaginable.
Social media’s greatest assets – anonymity, ‘virality,’ interconnectedness – are also its main weaknesses.
The Internet can empower groups whose aims are in fact antithetical to democracy.
To fully absorb the lessons of the Internet, urge the Internet-centrists, we need to reshape our political and social institutions in its image.
You know, anyone who wears glasses, in one sense or another, is a cyborg.
A vibrant civil society can challenge those in power by documenting corruption or uncovering activities like the murder of political enemies. In democracies, this function is mostly performed by the media, NGOs or opposition parties.
Mobile phones are one of the most insecure devices that were ever available, so they’re very easy to trace; they’re very easy to tap.
Military commanders do not want to be tried for war crimes, even if those crimes are committed online.
Making loans accessible to millions of the previously unbankable customers is a noble goal. Getting them hooked to such loans isn’t.
I’m not on Facebook. I have a sort of anonymous account that I check, like, once every six months every time Facebook rolls out a new feature.
I’m rarely invited to start-up parties, but who cares about their trinkets and apps anyway?
If you want to plan a revolution, you never do it in public – the authorities show up and arrest everyone.
In addition to their ‘do no evil’ motto, Googlers have always been guided by another, much less explicit philosophy: ‘computational arrogance.’
In Google’s world, public space is just something that stands between your house and the well-reviewed restaurant that you are dying to get to.
In short, Google prefers a world where we consistently go to three restaurants to a world where our choices are impossible to predict.