full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Evgeny Morozov: How the Net aids dictatorships


Unscramble the Blue Letters


In the past it would take you weeks, if not months, to identify how Iranian activists connect to each other. Now you actually know how they connect to each other by looking at their Facebook page. I mean KGB, and not just KGB, used to torture in order to actually get this data. Now it's all available online. (Laughter)

But I think the biggest conceptual pitfall that cybertopians made is when it comes to digital naitves, people who have grown up online. We often hear about cyber activism, how people are getting more active because of the Internet. Rarely hear about cyber hedonism, for example, how people are becoming passive. Why? Because they somehow assume that the ienrnett is going to be the catalyst of change that will push yonug poelpe into the streets, while in fact it may actually be the new oiupm for the mssaes which will keep the same people in their rooms downloading ponrgarpohy. That's not an option being considered too strongly.

Open Cloze


In the past it would take you weeks, if not months, to identify how Iranian activists connect to each other. Now you actually know how they connect to each other by looking at their Facebook page. I mean KGB, and not just KGB, used to torture in order to actually get this data. Now it's all available online. (Laughter)

But I think the biggest conceptual pitfall that cybertopians made is when it comes to digital _______, people who have grown up online. We often hear about cyber activism, how people are getting more active because of the Internet. Rarely hear about cyber hedonism, for example, how people are becoming passive. Why? Because they somehow assume that the ________ is going to be the catalyst of change that will push _____ ______ into the streets, while in fact it may actually be the new _____ for the ______ which will keep the same people in their rooms downloading ___________. That's not an option being considered too strongly.

Solution


  1. opium
  2. people
  3. young
  4. masses
  5. pornography
  6. natives
  7. internet

Original Text


In the past it would take you weeks, if not months, to identify how Iranian activists connect to each other. Now you actually know how they connect to each other by looking at their Facebook page. I mean KGB, and not just KGB, used to torture in order to actually get this data. Now it's all available online. (Laughter)

But I think the biggest conceptual pitfall that cybertopians made is when it comes to digital natives, people who have grown up online. We often hear about cyber activism, how people are getting more active because of the Internet. Rarely hear about cyber hedonism, for example, how people are becoming passive. Why? Because they somehow assume that the Internet is going to be the catalyst of change that will push young people into the streets, while in fact it may actually be the new opium for the masses which will keep the same people in their rooms downloading pornography. That's not an option being considered too strongly.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
young people 3
liberal democracy 2
promote democracy 2
united states 2
bigger problem 2
authoritarian states 2
authoritarian deliberation 2



Important Words


  1. active
  2. activism
  3. activists
  4. assume
  5. biggest
  6. catalyst
  7. change
  8. conceptual
  9. connect
  10. considered
  11. cyber
  12. cybertopians
  13. data
  14. digital
  15. downloading
  16. facebook
  17. fact
  18. grown
  19. hear
  20. hedonism
  21. identify
  22. internet
  23. iranian
  24. kgb
  25. laughter
  26. masses
  27. months
  28. natives
  29. online
  30. opium
  31. option
  32. order
  33. page
  34. passive
  35. people
  36. pitfall
  37. pornography
  38. push
  39. rarely
  40. rooms
  41. streets
  42. strongly
  43. torture
  44. weeks
  45. young