Writing in The New York Times, Thomas Friedman argues that in some parts of the world the Internet is spreading and promoting intolerance. Friedman quotes an Indonesian working at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta who had just visited an Islamic extremist area of Indonesia,
“For the first time I saw signs on the streets there saying things like, ‘The only solution to the Arab-Israel conflict is jihad — if you are true Muslim, register yourself to be a volunteer.’ I heard people saying, ‘We have to do something, otherwise the Christians or Jews will kill us.’ When we talked to people to find out where [they got these ideas], they said from the Internet. They took for granted that anything they learned from the Internet is true. They believed in a Jewish conspiracy and that 4,000 Jews were warned not to come to work at the World Trade Center [on Sept. 11]. It was on the Internet.”
From this Friedman concludes that,
At its worst, it [the Internet] can make people dumber faster than any media tool we’re ever had. The lie that 4,000 Jews were warned not to go into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 was spread entirely over the Internet and is now thoroughly believed in the Muslim world. Because the Internet has an aura of “technology” surrounding it, the uneducated believe information from it even more. They don’t realize that the Internet, at its ugliest, is just an open sewer: an electronic conduit for untreated, unfiltered information.
About the only thing that Friedman is right about is that the Internet makes it possible to spread ideas — whether good or bad, true or false — more quickly than at any other time in history. But other than that is it really that different from media of old? Of course not.
Yes, the myth about Jews being warned off the World Trade Center certainly spread faster, but its widespread acceptance was due to the same mix of credulity and bigotry that made the Protocols of the Elders of Zion such a hit among anti-Semites. In fact this 19th century forgery is still regularly reprinted in Arab newspapers who are also not above reporting variations on centuries-old blood libel myths.
Similarly, entirely without the benefit of the Internet, not a small number of people in Latin America believed that rich American tourists occasionally visited their countries in order to receive organ transplants from babies kidnapped for just this purpose. This paranoia fear and mistrust of other human beings long predates the Internet.
Moreover, Friedman is being condescending when referring to the popularity of such bizarre ideas with the uneducated masses in Muslim countries. Has Friedman really missed the popularity of conspiracy theories in American popular culture? Not a few educated Americans believe that Jews were warned away from the World Trade Center. Hell, one of the members of the U.S. House all but said that she believes President George W. Bush had foreknowledge of the Sept. 11 attack and may have profited from it.
Idiocy does indeed seem to be a global phenomenon, as Friedman describes it, but the blame should lie with the prejudices and lazy reasoning of people that has been a millenia-long problem rather than finding an easy scapegoat in the form of the relatively recent Internet (where such pernicious ideas are frequently debunked for people willing to look at them rationally).
Source:
Global village idiocy. Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, May 12, 2002.