Internet alone cannot free the Middle East

[Commentary] In much the same way it is now likely that autocrats who survive the current Middle Eastern turmoil will use all possible tricks – from tax fines to cyberattacks – to drive out freedom-minded US Internet companies, just as the Kremlin once kicked troublesome foreign non-governmental organizations out of Russia. None of this bodes well for the prospect of Internet-enabled democratization. Today is not the time to pat ourselves on the back and celebrate the digital edition of the “end of history”. The democratic gains that the Internet has helped to achieve in the Middle East are real, but the dictators will not sit still. [Morozov a visiting scholar at Stanford University and the author of The Net Delusion: How Not To Liberate the World]