Douglas Rushkoff on Twitter and Totalitarianism

In a new essay, author Douglas Rushkoff praised the power of Twitter and Facebook in Iran–arguing these tools will lead to “the end of totalitarianism.”

At the Daily Beast, the author of “Life Inc.” details how Iranian hackers have subverted a government crack-down on the Internet through proxy servers and the Twitter hash-tag “#Iranelection” to sneak around the censorship. Earlier this year GalleyCat interviewed Rushkoff about publishing conglomeration.

Here’s more from the essay: “On the Internet, content is not king – it never was. The value of Tweets right now is less the information they contain than the solidarity they promote. Like civil rights protesters who sang rousing hymns as they were carried off to jail, Twitterers are bearing witness to what’s happening around them, and calling out into the darkness of cyberspace for confirmation. I’m here. You’re here, too. We are present.”

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