The Double Edge of the Information Sword

摘要

In 1990, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its clandestine propaganda machine, the West became increasingly confident that globalization supported by an information technology network, the Internet, would increase openness, liberalism, and democracy; the core values of the free -world'. Western leaders knew then, just as they know now, a quarter of a century later that the power of the Internet would grow as the technology that controls its use develops. And developed it has. However, no development is all good and the Internet is no exception. It seems that the technology that has enabled us to create a "global village " where people are able to communicate in a way that is open, free and that bypasses the encumbrances of class and ethnicity has also brought with it a very dark underworld, an uncontrolled rhizome or meshwork where propaganda, trolling and hate speeches are rife.