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Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society
In the 2020 CBC Massey Lectures, bestselling author and renowned technology and security expert Ronald J. Deibert exposes the disturbing influence and impact of the internet on politics, the economy, the environment, and humanity.
Digital technologies have given rise to a new machine-based civilization that is increasingly linked to a growing number of social and political maladies. Accountability is weak and insecurity is endemic, creating disturbing opportunities for exploitation.
Drawing from the cutting-edge research of the Citizen Lab, the world-renowned digital security research group which he founded and directs, Ronald J. Deibert exposes the impacts of this communications ecosystem on civil society. He tracks a mostly unregulated surveillance industry, innovations in technologies of remote control, superpower policing practices, dark PR firms, and highly profitable hack-for-hire services feeding off rivers of poorly secured personal data. Deibert also unearths how dependence on social media and its expanding universe of consumer electronics creates immense pressure on the natural environment. In order to combat authoritarian practices, environmental degradation, and rampant electronic consumerism, he urges restraints on tech platforms and governments to reclaim the internet for civil society.
Digital technologies have given rise to a new machine-based civilization that is increasingly linked to a growing number of social and political maladies. Accountability is weak and insecurity is endemic, creating disturbing opportunities for exploitation.
Drawing from the cutting-edge research of the Citizen Lab, the world-renowned digital security research group which he founded and directs, Ronald J. Deibert exposes the impacts of this communications ecosystem on civil society. He tracks a mostly unregulated surveillance industry, innovations in technologies of remote control, superpower policing practices, dark PR firms, and highly profitable hack-for-hire services feeding off rivers of poorly secured personal data. Deibert also unearths how dependence on social media and its expanding universe of consumer electronics creates immense pressure on the natural environment. In order to combat authoritarian practices, environmental degradation, and rampant electronic consumerism, he urges restraints on tech platforms and governments to reclaim the internet for civil society.
304 pages, Paperback
First published September 29, 2020
52 people are currently reading
1130 people want to read
About the author
Ronald J. Deibert
13 books45 followersRonald J. Deibert is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Citizen Lab and Canada Centre for Global Security Studies, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
November 21, 2020
I really loved part 5 (about environmental consequences). It's so often ignored by people.
January 14, 2021
The subtitle underscores a topic of 'reclaiming the internet for civil society'. There is no doubt that the internet has given us huge benefits - never more obvious than during the COVID pandemic - but Ronald Deibert argues that it also presents huge dangers, both from the state being able to gather data on citizens and from corporations indulging in 'surveillance capitalism' - making money out of keeping track of us and our data. Both of these are certainly significant issues that need to be explored.
The majority of the book gives a depressingly dark picture of an internet where we are constantly observed, while the last pages come up with a form of response - the reset of the title. Unlike the stark specifics of the description of the problem, the suggested solution is far more tenuous, coming down primarily to being more 'republican' (with a small r, not the policies of the US political party of the same name).
I'll be honest, I found Reset hard going, not because of the dire state of the internet but more because Deibert's writing style is dense and loaded with soft science/political jargon. The book also can sound like an advertising brochure for his Citizen Lab organisation, which sometimes gets several mentions on a single page. The description of the over-reaching state side of the problem is very one-sided, focussed entirely on civil liberties without any significant consideration of the real need for state intelligence-gathering, or, for that matter, the huge everyday benefits we get from using the internet. At one point only, Deibert admits that states do need to perform intelligence gathering - but at no point does he actual weave that need into the narrative, which is all about the dark side. Similarly, when he gets on to solutions, there's a mention, for example, of the value of end-to-end encryption to keep our conversations private - but nothing about how to deal with terrorists and criminal gangs using this same technology.
Deibert rightly points out that the 'You've nothing to fear if you've nothing to hide' argument is wrong, although he doesn't mention that one of the biggest reasons for this at the moment is that if you work for an organisation like a university, you need to hide any deviation from left wing true-believer status if you are to succeed. But outside the action of repressive states (something that happens with or without the internet) he then fails to give good examples of individuals suffering, despite having nothing to hide - the examples tend to be about organisations. Deibert is also effective on the need to restrain the behaviour of corporates, making their sharing and use of our information more transparent (and in pointing out the GDPR just imposes on us far more irritating clicks with very limited real protection). Once again, however, the solutions aren't really there. I don't blame him - it's very difficult to frame solutions that don't become state censorship, but we are where we are.
A particular irritation for a non-US reader is the framing of the solution as republicanism, with examples mostly drawn from the US and its constitution - to those of us outside of North America this can sound like so much US imperialism and exceptionalism. I don't live in a republic, and I certainly wouldn't like to live in one run the way that the US is.
Overall, then, an important topic, but an unbalanced book that doesn't address potential solutions in any useful way.
The majority of the book gives a depressingly dark picture of an internet where we are constantly observed, while the last pages come up with a form of response - the reset of the title. Unlike the stark specifics of the description of the problem, the suggested solution is far more tenuous, coming down primarily to being more 'republican' (with a small r, not the policies of the US political party of the same name).
I'll be honest, I found Reset hard going, not because of the dire state of the internet but more because Deibert's writing style is dense and loaded with soft science/political jargon. The book also can sound like an advertising brochure for his Citizen Lab organisation, which sometimes gets several mentions on a single page. The description of the over-reaching state side of the problem is very one-sided, focussed entirely on civil liberties without any significant consideration of the real need for state intelligence-gathering, or, for that matter, the huge everyday benefits we get from using the internet. At one point only, Deibert admits that states do need to perform intelligence gathering - but at no point does he actual weave that need into the narrative, which is all about the dark side. Similarly, when he gets on to solutions, there's a mention, for example, of the value of end-to-end encryption to keep our conversations private - but nothing about how to deal with terrorists and criminal gangs using this same technology.
Deibert rightly points out that the 'You've nothing to fear if you've nothing to hide' argument is wrong, although he doesn't mention that one of the biggest reasons for this at the moment is that if you work for an organisation like a university, you need to hide any deviation from left wing true-believer status if you are to succeed. But outside the action of repressive states (something that happens with or without the internet) he then fails to give good examples of individuals suffering, despite having nothing to hide - the examples tend to be about organisations. Deibert is also effective on the need to restrain the behaviour of corporates, making their sharing and use of our information more transparent (and in pointing out the GDPR just imposes on us far more irritating clicks with very limited real protection). Once again, however, the solutions aren't really there. I don't blame him - it's very difficult to frame solutions that don't become state censorship, but we are where we are.
A particular irritation for a non-US reader is the framing of the solution as republicanism, with examples mostly drawn from the US and its constitution - to those of us outside of North America this can sound like so much US imperialism and exceptionalism. I don't live in a republic, and I certainly wouldn't like to live in one run the way that the US is.
Overall, then, an important topic, but an unbalanced book that doesn't address potential solutions in any useful way.
June 22, 2021
The internet. It is either one of the best inventions that humanity has ever made or one of the worst. Sometimes it is difficult to know which is the right answer. It has put people with similar interests in contact with each other and who have benefitted greatly from that relationship. The flip side is that it is an easy and secure way for those with a more criminal perspective to exploit and steal from the innocent.
As the growing quantities of digital data swirl around the internet in what feels like an ever-increasing exponential curve, just who is looking at this data? It turns out that there is a vast unregulated industry that has a keen interest in what you are looking at and the sites that you are visiting. These consist of surveillance companies and government security agencies, dark PR agencies, hackers for hire, and others interested in manipulating things to their own agenda.
Like a couple of the other books that I have read recently, some of the things revealed in this book are quite terrifying. And I mean really terrifying. It is a problem that is not going away and coupled with the internet giants that control a lot of the data that we produce and consume, they seem unable or unwilling to do much about it. Probably as the current status quo is too profitable for them.
So where do we even start dealing with these issues?
Diebert has a whole chapter dedicated to suggestions on way to tackle these issues, called Retreat, Reform Restraint. In this, there are many different ways that he thinks might work, such as better international cooperation, a relinquishing of the grip that the global corporates elites have on us, and a suggestion that I hadn’t considered, removing anonymity from users.
He is an engaging writer, and it comes across in the text that he knows his stuff, making this an authentic read. He has got some solid ideas about the ways that we need to reclaim the internet once again for the good of humanity. Always remember, if you are not paying for something then you are the product.
As the growing quantities of digital data swirl around the internet in what feels like an ever-increasing exponential curve, just who is looking at this data? It turns out that there is a vast unregulated industry that has a keen interest in what you are looking at and the sites that you are visiting. These consist of surveillance companies and government security agencies, dark PR agencies, hackers for hire, and others interested in manipulating things to their own agenda.
Like a couple of the other books that I have read recently, some of the things revealed in this book are quite terrifying. And I mean really terrifying. It is a problem that is not going away and coupled with the internet giants that control a lot of the data that we produce and consume, they seem unable or unwilling to do much about it. Probably as the current status quo is too profitable for them.
So where do we even start dealing with these issues?
Diebert has a whole chapter dedicated to suggestions on way to tackle these issues, called Retreat, Reform Restraint. In this, there are many different ways that he thinks might work, such as better international cooperation, a relinquishing of the grip that the global corporates elites have on us, and a suggestion that I hadn’t considered, removing anonymity from users.
He is an engaging writer, and it comes across in the text that he knows his stuff, making this an authentic read. He has got some solid ideas about the ways that we need to reclaim the internet once again for the good of humanity. Always remember, if you are not paying for something then you are the product.
January 26, 2024
I am one of those curmudgeons who is quietly celebrating the side-effects of the global pandemic: the almost magical decline in global transportation and its salutary effects on the environment: air so clean children in an Indian village can see the Himalayas for the first time; Arctic waters so quiet that whales can hear each other across a bay or even across an ocean; millions upon millions of automobiles standing unused in driveways and not belching carbon dioxide in office commutes; international air travel and cruise lines ground almost to a halt.
Electronic commerce flows effortlessly even as physical commerce grinds to a halt
At what cost?
Ron Diebert tells us at what cost: ever-rising volumes of data traffic flowing over global digital networks. And rising volumes of data traffic are supplied by dirty electricity from coal plants in India, China, and the United States.
Huge volumes of fresh water are consumed to cool the data farms in temperate climates.
And ever larger quantities of rare earth minerals mined in dangerous open-pit mining operations in Africa, in China’s south and near the Mongolian border, even Australia.
To be fair, the cost of data flows cannot be laid at the feet of the pandemic. The transition to the digital highways began years before and accelerated with the dramatic rise in bandwidth, the decline in data storage costs, and the ever improving algorithms to transmit video.
Our “contact free” shopping experiences on amazon are what we see. What we do not see are the electricity consumption, the evil working conditions, the polluting courier trips, and the enormous generation of waste in making the slick electronic devices we are addicted to. Not to mention the lost jobs in local commerce.
The waste generated by our cupidity is merely one of several evils Ron Diebert tracks in “Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society.”
Most obviously there is the device addiction which interferes in our human relationships.
There is the role surveillance plays in commerce and capitalism, and the role surveillance plays in covert government operations and the abuse of such power.
Diebert returns to the concept of “surveillance capitalism” and how our preferences and digital wandering have become the means by which global giants like Google, Alibaba, Tencent, and facebook predict our purchasing behaviour.
I agree with him that that it is a serious infringement on our privacy, and a risk to our democracies. But we all surveil. I do it in my business. You do it in your home and neighbourhood. Our need to surveil, I think, goes even deeper than Diebert credits us.
Diebert correctly shines a light on the data spies corporate, government, and freelance. So much of what we say and think can be used against us for nefarious purposes, as we’ve recently witnessed in the tampering of cellphones by the Saudi government, the social credit system of the Chinese, and Russian GRU-financed hackers.
These data networks are not all for the good. There are some very bad actors. Diebert does not go into the gigantic porn industry. Nor does he wade into the money laundering occurring on a global scale. There are the tax havens, and the tax cheats, many of whom are using the global connections to steal or hide their fortunes.
Quite rightly, Diebert goes along with many other commentators that the answers to some of these problems include better international governance. As if that were likely.
He blames the lack of international coordination on the vice like grip of the corporate elites on commerce, somewhat like Naomi Klein. To some degree I’d agree, but watching the chaos in Washington DC this week I’d say that a lot of Americans are on board with fewer constraints, and less cooperation.
If you breath the word “socialism” in polite American society you are branded a radical and a Communist. Forget about cooperation from these people.
Diebert pleads for restraint in our consumerism and electronic habits; restraint in our government spy agencies; and constraint of the corporate data behemoths.
Electronic commerce flows effortlessly even as physical commerce grinds to a halt
At what cost?
Ron Diebert tells us at what cost: ever-rising volumes of data traffic flowing over global digital networks. And rising volumes of data traffic are supplied by dirty electricity from coal plants in India, China, and the United States.
Huge volumes of fresh water are consumed to cool the data farms in temperate climates.
And ever larger quantities of rare earth minerals mined in dangerous open-pit mining operations in Africa, in China’s south and near the Mongolian border, even Australia.
To be fair, the cost of data flows cannot be laid at the feet of the pandemic. The transition to the digital highways began years before and accelerated with the dramatic rise in bandwidth, the decline in data storage costs, and the ever improving algorithms to transmit video.
Our “contact free” shopping experiences on amazon are what we see. What we do not see are the electricity consumption, the evil working conditions, the polluting courier trips, and the enormous generation of waste in making the slick electronic devices we are addicted to. Not to mention the lost jobs in local commerce.
The waste generated by our cupidity is merely one of several evils Ron Diebert tracks in “Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society.”
Most obviously there is the device addiction which interferes in our human relationships.
There is the role surveillance plays in commerce and capitalism, and the role surveillance plays in covert government operations and the abuse of such power.
Diebert returns to the concept of “surveillance capitalism” and how our preferences and digital wandering have become the means by which global giants like Google, Alibaba, Tencent, and facebook predict our purchasing behaviour.
I agree with him that that it is a serious infringement on our privacy, and a risk to our democracies. But we all surveil. I do it in my business. You do it in your home and neighbourhood. Our need to surveil, I think, goes even deeper than Diebert credits us.
Diebert correctly shines a light on the data spies corporate, government, and freelance. So much of what we say and think can be used against us for nefarious purposes, as we’ve recently witnessed in the tampering of cellphones by the Saudi government, the social credit system of the Chinese, and Russian GRU-financed hackers.
These data networks are not all for the good. There are some very bad actors. Diebert does not go into the gigantic porn industry. Nor does he wade into the money laundering occurring on a global scale. There are the tax havens, and the tax cheats, many of whom are using the global connections to steal or hide their fortunes.
Quite rightly, Diebert goes along with many other commentators that the answers to some of these problems include better international governance. As if that were likely.
He blames the lack of international coordination on the vice like grip of the corporate elites on commerce, somewhat like Naomi Klein. To some degree I’d agree, but watching the chaos in Washington DC this week I’d say that a lot of Americans are on board with fewer constraints, and less cooperation.
If you breath the word “socialism” in polite American society you are branded a radical and a Communist. Forget about cooperation from these people.
Diebert pleads for restraint in our consumerism and electronic habits; restraint in our government spy agencies; and constraint of the corporate data behemoths.
May 26, 2025
Włos się jeży...
January 31, 2022
This book is rich with alarming case examples of everything wrong and unethical in the way society allows the internet to be used today. Reset by Ron Diebert, a critically acclaimed author on digital threats to society since publishing Black Code in 2013, adds unique insight from the cyberforensic work of his Citizen Lab that adds evidence and depth to the dialogue on Surveillance Capitalism ignited by Shoshanah Zuboff’s book by the same name in 2019 and brought to the masses on Netflix screens in the 2020 documentary “The Social Dilemma”.
What is unique about this book is its firm grounding in events of the very recent past that make vivid the threats in the digital world to society, democracy, and the human condition as we know and cherish it. Alongside this is Diebert’s underpinning argument that a republican (small “r”) philosophy of restraint become the common ground amidst the clash of ideas on what to do next about the terrible mess we’ve made of the internet.
He likens Zuboff’s work to Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” which alerted the world to the pervasiveness of pesticides in our ecosystems and ignited a movement to avert ecological collapse. Reset thereby offers the next step. The evidence is clear, all parties must agree that a level of restraint on internet-based companies, on governments, and especially on spy agencies and their contractors, is a given. What’s left to discuss is where and by whom that restraint is exercised.
He summarizes all of the policy proposals thus far, suggesting that any one or more could work, so long as the philosophy and principle of restraint is accepted as pre-requisite and underpins all proposals. The policy options on offer are:
-Companies must use algorithms to catch fake news
-Give internet users a legal right to not be tracked
-Require companies have algorithmic accountability to users
-Incorporate human rights due-dilligence into technology company operations (and this informs content moderation)
-Require more transparency in social media advertising (especially on political advertising)
-Create “civic media” as a social media alternative as a public good rather than commercial good
-Treat social media companies as publishers, subject to the same accountability and constraints as news agencies
-Regulate social media as large utilities like electricity and water (permitting a monopoly that is highly regulated)
-Or in contrast to the point just above, break the social media companies up so there is more competition and alternatives
-Creation of an FDA (food and drug administration) type of agency for facial recognition software
-Being more conservative about giving technology export licenses to spyware companies
Among all the important topics and examples raised by the author, including shocking cases of national spy agencies using borderline illicit hacker-for-hire spyware companies, sloppy data brokers leaking your personal data and passwords to any of their customers signing up for a free trial, and android apps targeting children harvesting their data for targeted advertisements, the passage I wish most people to take home and understand about the relevance to their daily lives and work is the following:
“All social media have a higher - and a lower-level function. The lower level function is the apparent one. An application you use to tease your brain is, for most people, nothing more than a game. But the game is just the window dressing for a higher-level, more important function: to observe and acquire data about you, your device, your other applications, your contacts, your pictures, your settings, your geolocation, and so on.”
This reality about the higher and lower-level function of social media is in fact true for any internet-based business. Google and Facebook have a monopoly on tracking you across the web, but just about every company with a website, app, or platform that you will use on any given day is part of that data harvesting and reselling market. It's something that has become all too pervasive, with too few internet-based service providers offering privacy-friendly business models and most depending on surveillance capitalism for their revenue. This is an important takeaway not just for individuals but for businesses and organizations that use digital technology to interact with people and clients online. Without realizing it, we’re all picking up and using tools infected with surveillance capitalism and subjecting each other to their perversions of what used to be innocuous human activities. If I could ask for anything more in Diebert's list of proposals, it's for more support for the development of different internet-based business models that don’t rely on harvesting and reselling personal data to achieve business success.
Reset will shake you up. It will open your eyes, and leave you wondering what comes next. This book, and the incredible cyberforensic cases it draws on, give irrefutable proof that we MUST make the internet better for humanity’s sake. Whether that better internet can be remade on top of the corrupt digital infrastructure we have- or must take place in Web 3.0, is yet to be seen.
What is unique about this book is its firm grounding in events of the very recent past that make vivid the threats in the digital world to society, democracy, and the human condition as we know and cherish it. Alongside this is Diebert’s underpinning argument that a republican (small “r”) philosophy of restraint become the common ground amidst the clash of ideas on what to do next about the terrible mess we’ve made of the internet.
He likens Zuboff’s work to Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” which alerted the world to the pervasiveness of pesticides in our ecosystems and ignited a movement to avert ecological collapse. Reset thereby offers the next step. The evidence is clear, all parties must agree that a level of restraint on internet-based companies, on governments, and especially on spy agencies and their contractors, is a given. What’s left to discuss is where and by whom that restraint is exercised.
He summarizes all of the policy proposals thus far, suggesting that any one or more could work, so long as the philosophy and principle of restraint is accepted as pre-requisite and underpins all proposals. The policy options on offer are:
-Companies must use algorithms to catch fake news
-Give internet users a legal right to not be tracked
-Require companies have algorithmic accountability to users
-Incorporate human rights due-dilligence into technology company operations (and this informs content moderation)
-Require more transparency in social media advertising (especially on political advertising)
-Create “civic media” as a social media alternative as a public good rather than commercial good
-Treat social media companies as publishers, subject to the same accountability and constraints as news agencies
-Regulate social media as large utilities like electricity and water (permitting a monopoly that is highly regulated)
-Or in contrast to the point just above, break the social media companies up so there is more competition and alternatives
-Creation of an FDA (food and drug administration) type of agency for facial recognition software
-Being more conservative about giving technology export licenses to spyware companies
Among all the important topics and examples raised by the author, including shocking cases of national spy agencies using borderline illicit hacker-for-hire spyware companies, sloppy data brokers leaking your personal data and passwords to any of their customers signing up for a free trial, and android apps targeting children harvesting their data for targeted advertisements, the passage I wish most people to take home and understand about the relevance to their daily lives and work is the following:
“All social media have a higher - and a lower-level function. The lower level function is the apparent one. An application you use to tease your brain is, for most people, nothing more than a game. But the game is just the window dressing for a higher-level, more important function: to observe and acquire data about you, your device, your other applications, your contacts, your pictures, your settings, your geolocation, and so on.”
This reality about the higher and lower-level function of social media is in fact true for any internet-based business. Google and Facebook have a monopoly on tracking you across the web, but just about every company with a website, app, or platform that you will use on any given day is part of that data harvesting and reselling market. It's something that has become all too pervasive, with too few internet-based service providers offering privacy-friendly business models and most depending on surveillance capitalism for their revenue. This is an important takeaway not just for individuals but for businesses and organizations that use digital technology to interact with people and clients online. Without realizing it, we’re all picking up and using tools infected with surveillance capitalism and subjecting each other to their perversions of what used to be innocuous human activities. If I could ask for anything more in Diebert's list of proposals, it's for more support for the development of different internet-based business models that don’t rely on harvesting and reselling personal data to achieve business success.
Reset will shake you up. It will open your eyes, and leave you wondering what comes next. This book, and the incredible cyberforensic cases it draws on, give irrefutable proof that we MUST make the internet better for humanity’s sake. Whether that better internet can be remade on top of the corrupt digital infrastructure we have- or must take place in Web 3.0, is yet to be seen.
January 23, 2021
This is an important book to capture the modern concerns on the effects of technology on society across the planet.
I feel everyone in government, especially those in democratic countries need to read this book. It does not matter if the government employee directly works with technology the impacts will certainly be present.
It is hard to come away from this book with anything actionable. The unfortunate scenario is our society has become deeply integrated into the internet, making it extremely difficult to even reduce participation.
What the book does offer is awareness. Awareness of how our choices and actions matter with respect to engagement with social media and "always on" digital devices.
In the past few months I have found myself drifting away from engaging in social media. I rarely post on instagram or facebook. I have mitigated my mindless scrolling through the "Digital Wellbeing" app that limits use outside of 5am-4pm and time caps use per app. At home I have Pihole DNS servers that block ads and trackers (also have unbound DNS resolver) with wireguard VPN to use the servers when not at home.
Still looking to gradually reduce my participation through use of DuckDuckGo for web searches and Signal for messaging.
One area I found disingenuous was the section on the environmental impact. The claims of CO2 impact per email assumes we are using carbon generating electricity sources, my province is primarily nuclear supplemented with gas (not good), solar and wind - coal plants have all been shutdown. Also the water usage by data centres appears to be claiming that the freshwater is consumed rather than returned to the environment. My understanding is water usage for data centres like nuclear power plants is for cooling heat exchangers and is returned to the environment with an increased temperature.
I feel everyone in government, especially those in democratic countries need to read this book. It does not matter if the government employee directly works with technology the impacts will certainly be present.
It is hard to come away from this book with anything actionable. The unfortunate scenario is our society has become deeply integrated into the internet, making it extremely difficult to even reduce participation.
What the book does offer is awareness. Awareness of how our choices and actions matter with respect to engagement with social media and "always on" digital devices.
In the past few months I have found myself drifting away from engaging in social media. I rarely post on instagram or facebook. I have mitigated my mindless scrolling through the "Digital Wellbeing" app that limits use outside of 5am-4pm and time caps use per app. At home I have Pihole DNS servers that block ads and trackers (also have unbound DNS resolver) with wireguard VPN to use the servers when not at home.
Still looking to gradually reduce my participation through use of DuckDuckGo for web searches and Signal for messaging.
One area I found disingenuous was the section on the environmental impact. The claims of CO2 impact per email assumes we are using carbon generating electricity sources, my province is primarily nuclear supplemented with gas (not good), solar and wind - coal plants have all been shutdown. Also the water usage by data centres appears to be claiming that the freshwater is consumed rather than returned to the environment. My understanding is water usage for data centres like nuclear power plants is for cooling heat exchangers and is returned to the environment with an increased temperature.
October 18, 2021
"However, the time has come to recognize that our communications ecosystem — as presently constituted around surveillance capitalism — has become entirely dysfunctional for those aims. It’s disrupting institutions and practices and unleashing new social forces in unexpected ways, many of which are having malign effects. Emergency measures now in place could turn superpower policing practices into totalitarian-scale population controls that quash individual liberties while creating unbridled opportunities for corruption and despotism. Runaway technological innovation for its own sake continues on a disastrous path of unbridled industrial consumption and waste, obscured by the mirage of virtuality. Leaving it as is, with all of its intertwined pathologies intact, will all but ensure failure. A reset gives us a rare opportunity to imagine an alternative, and begin the process of actually bringing it about. To be sure, it won’t be easy, nor will it happen overnight. But fatalistic resignation to the status quo is no real alternative either" (p.33).
September 12, 2025
An interesting read for most of the book, but lost me a bit in the final section. While I agree with his statements about big tech and the need to curtail them, I don't agree with his solutions, or some of the inherent parts of the worldview from which he argues.
All in all not bad for a book I read on account of a girl.
All in all not bad for a book I read on account of a girl.
February 14, 2022
Engaging without relying on sensationalism, this is a comprehensive evaluation of the real-world effects of how we use the internet. I particularly appreciated the chapter on the environmental effects of our digital habit, as well as Deibert’s policy recommendations that address systemic conditions that could make healthier our relationship with the internet. Highly recommended for everyone thinking about the role of the internet in civil society.
April 26, 2022
i had to read this for a class and it was boring
January 20, 2021
Every year my dad buys me the CBC Massey Lectures book, and last year was no exception! Reading Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society after the events of January 6, in which white supremacist and fascist Americans, incited by their own president, stormed their own Capitol Building, was a trip. As Ronald J. Deibert unpacked the problematic aspects of our reliance upon social media, all I could think about was the role social media played on and around January 6—the way far-right platform Parler was used to plan the riot, the way people on Twitter immediately began identifying rioters, and the way now, afterwards, social media has been used to discuss, dissect, and evaluate the event.
I joined “social media” in 2007 when Facebook opened up to non-college students. Graduating high school, it felt like a nice way to stay in touch with my peers (I barely talk to anyone from high school now, of course). The following year, I joined Twitter, which I would say is the main social network I use these days. However, I am old enough to remember the golden age of the web: after the days of walled gardens like CompuServe and AOL, but before the days of walled gardens like Facebook, Twitter, etc. (For an excellent read on how platforms have replaced protocols, check out the unfortunately prescient The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain.) I’ve lived through many iterations of social media and networks, some of which I’ve participated in, while others I have eschewed as not for me. I don’t think I would be alone in shuddering with the accuracy with which Deibert identifies our dependence upon not just our phones but social media in particular.
Oh, by the way, my best friend and I have a podcast and we released a two-part episode about The Social Dilemma (recorded before I read Reset). Listen if you want to hear more of my thoughts on social media—now for my thoughts on this book.
I’m always impressed by how variable the Massey Lecture books are in style. This comes with the diversity of speakers, of course. Some are telling a story; others, like Deibert, sound like they are lecturing on public policy to a group of university students. This is fine, but if you have regularly enjoyed the Massey Lectures in the past, you might find this one a departure in terms of density and jargon.
The first parts of the book will sound dire, especially to anyone who is new to the topics and ideas Deibert covers. I was already very aware of much of the surveillance Deibert mentions, so that didn’t faze me. Nevertheless, when you put it all together the way he does in this book, it forms a startling picture. We have abdicated so much of our privacy already, and one of the central questions of Reset is whether or not we can possibly reclaim that privacy in a meaningful way.
Perhaps one of the most important parts of this book, for me at least, comes near the end. Deibert addresses the environmental impact of how we currently use these technologies—from Bitcoin to Google searches, the Internet consumes power and water, and the devices that give us access demand an ever-increasing supply of precious minerals and dangerous substances. I love that he brings this up, because it is something we often overlook as a result of our view of the Internet as existing within “the Cloud”—the Cloud has a physical existence, albeit a distributed one, and it costs energy and resources to maintain. Deibert’s reminder that our technology problems dovetail with the larger problem of climate change is a nice way to help us understand how, to move forward as a civilization, we can’t just fix one thing. We can’t just fix the Internet without doing it in an environmentally responsible way—nor will we be able to tend to the environment if we continue to use the Internet like we do now.
At the end of the book, Deibert actually addresses what he means by the title, what he envisions as a possible future for our online lives. In doing so he slides from sociology and philosophy of technology over into political science and political philosophy. He gives us some basic tutoring in concepts of liberalism, republicanism, etc., before deploying these as foundations for reimagining our Internet society. Although I appreciate the connections he tries to make, this part feels rushed. Maybe I’ve been too lucky to read so many good history books that explore these ideas, but Deibert doesn’t do the topic justice. Moreover, in his attempt to ground his ideas for the Internet in a philosophical/political framework, he inadvertently erases certain layers of nuance. For example, his philosophy is inextricably Western in its foundations. Yet if we ever have hope of truly remodelling the Internet to be more equitable, more inclusive, and more privacy-centric, how can we do so if we don’t embrace Eastern, Middle Eastern, Southern, and especially Indigenous perspectives?
Basically, I think Deibert does an excellent job communicating the problems of our Internet, particularly social media. The solution frameworks he lays out are vague. This is not so much because he doesn’t seem to have ideas for improvement. Rather, whether as a result of space/time constraints or a flaw in his actual thinking, his solution frameworks are heavy on theory but light on nuance, practicality, and intersectionality.
All in all, this is a good read. But I think it really addresses this issue from a particular perspective. If you want to learn more about this stuff, you need to go further and read other voices. You need to hear from people who have been harassed online, and we need to listen to the voices of marginalized people, including Black people, Indigenous people, and LGBTQ+ people. I agree with Deibert that this is a battle to be fought at an organizational and governmental level—but Reset only provides a starting point, not a roadmap.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
I joined “social media” in 2007 when Facebook opened up to non-college students. Graduating high school, it felt like a nice way to stay in touch with my peers (I barely talk to anyone from high school now, of course). The following year, I joined Twitter, which I would say is the main social network I use these days. However, I am old enough to remember the golden age of the web: after the days of walled gardens like CompuServe and AOL, but before the days of walled gardens like Facebook, Twitter, etc. (For an excellent read on how platforms have replaced protocols, check out the unfortunately prescient The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain.) I’ve lived through many iterations of social media and networks, some of which I’ve participated in, while others I have eschewed as not for me. I don’t think I would be alone in shuddering with the accuracy with which Deibert identifies our dependence upon not just our phones but social media in particular.
Oh, by the way, my best friend and I have a podcast and we released a two-part episode about The Social Dilemma (recorded before I read Reset). Listen if you want to hear more of my thoughts on social media—now for my thoughts on this book.
I’m always impressed by how variable the Massey Lecture books are in style. This comes with the diversity of speakers, of course. Some are telling a story; others, like Deibert, sound like they are lecturing on public policy to a group of university students. This is fine, but if you have regularly enjoyed the Massey Lectures in the past, you might find this one a departure in terms of density and jargon.
The first parts of the book will sound dire, especially to anyone who is new to the topics and ideas Deibert covers. I was already very aware of much of the surveillance Deibert mentions, so that didn’t faze me. Nevertheless, when you put it all together the way he does in this book, it forms a startling picture. We have abdicated so much of our privacy already, and one of the central questions of Reset is whether or not we can possibly reclaim that privacy in a meaningful way.
Perhaps one of the most important parts of this book, for me at least, comes near the end. Deibert addresses the environmental impact of how we currently use these technologies—from Bitcoin to Google searches, the Internet consumes power and water, and the devices that give us access demand an ever-increasing supply of precious minerals and dangerous substances. I love that he brings this up, because it is something we often overlook as a result of our view of the Internet as existing within “the Cloud”—the Cloud has a physical existence, albeit a distributed one, and it costs energy and resources to maintain. Deibert’s reminder that our technology problems dovetail with the larger problem of climate change is a nice way to help us understand how, to move forward as a civilization, we can’t just fix one thing. We can’t just fix the Internet without doing it in an environmentally responsible way—nor will we be able to tend to the environment if we continue to use the Internet like we do now.
At the end of the book, Deibert actually addresses what he means by the title, what he envisions as a possible future for our online lives. In doing so he slides from sociology and philosophy of technology over into political science and political philosophy. He gives us some basic tutoring in concepts of liberalism, republicanism, etc., before deploying these as foundations for reimagining our Internet society. Although I appreciate the connections he tries to make, this part feels rushed. Maybe I’ve been too lucky to read so many good history books that explore these ideas, but Deibert doesn’t do the topic justice. Moreover, in his attempt to ground his ideas for the Internet in a philosophical/political framework, he inadvertently erases certain layers of nuance. For example, his philosophy is inextricably Western in its foundations. Yet if we ever have hope of truly remodelling the Internet to be more equitable, more inclusive, and more privacy-centric, how can we do so if we don’t embrace Eastern, Middle Eastern, Southern, and especially Indigenous perspectives?
Basically, I think Deibert does an excellent job communicating the problems of our Internet, particularly social media. The solution frameworks he lays out are vague. This is not so much because he doesn’t seem to have ideas for improvement. Rather, whether as a result of space/time constraints or a flaw in his actual thinking, his solution frameworks are heavy on theory but light on nuance, practicality, and intersectionality.
All in all, this is a good read. But I think it really addresses this issue from a particular perspective. If you want to learn more about this stuff, you need to go further and read other voices. You need to hear from people who have been harassed online, and we need to listen to the voices of marginalized people, including Black people, Indigenous people, and LGBTQ+ people. I agree with Deibert that this is a battle to be fought at an organizational and governmental level—but Reset only provides a starting point, not a roadmap.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
March 29, 2021
This is the expert we need, laying out research and history and implications and a way forward. His analysis of what the internet has done to civil society and the role of “surveillance capitalism” that gives us “free” access to apps that mine and sell our data is thorough and a call to action.
This book isn’t reactionary but factual. And, the last chapter paints a way forward. We’ve been here before, where technological advances have moved faster than our understanding of the collateral damage.
The text, filled with examples, is very readable. The first four chapters lay out how the marketplace exploits our data, individual impact and addiction, the political abuse of power the data fosters, and the horrific impact on the environment that the internet and our devices have. (Did you know sending an email has the same carbon footprint as driving your car a kilometer?)
Deliberate ends with a note of hope that we’ve been here before and we can collectively again reclaim the public sphere so it works for all of us and for our planet. A high goal, but he points out the similarities to climate change and a need to act local, think global with an awareness of individual impact and the need for systemic change.
This book isn’t reactionary but factual. And, the last chapter paints a way forward. We’ve been here before, where technological advances have moved faster than our understanding of the collateral damage.
The text, filled with examples, is very readable. The first four chapters lay out how the marketplace exploits our data, individual impact and addiction, the political abuse of power the data fosters, and the horrific impact on the environment that the internet and our devices have. (Did you know sending an email has the same carbon footprint as driving your car a kilometer?)
Deliberate ends with a note of hope that we’ve been here before and we can collectively again reclaim the public sphere so it works for all of us and for our planet. A high goal, but he points out the similarities to climate change and a need to act local, think global with an awareness of individual impact and the need for systemic change.
November 26, 2020
This book qualifies as an essential reading for understanding the contemporary world.
A very readable book that details the danger of the world in which we live in terms of our exposure (by using advanced communication technology and revealing all the details of our lives, whether with our knowledge or not) to be prey for full commercial exploitation and manipulating our ideas and views as well as violating our privacy.
Communication technology and social media faced a real test in the time of COVID-19 and did not prove that it is an effective way to prevent the spread of an epidemic. On the contrary it had many negative effects!
And what is the solution?
It is "restrain" in the opinion of the writer; the creation of mechanisms to impose control and regulate the social media, especially to limit our exploiting users commercially and violating privacy and human rights .
The book authored by the founder of the “Citizen Lab” (Munk Global Affairs School, UofT), is very well illustrated by real life examples and cases that proves its thesis.
A very readable book that details the danger of the world in which we live in terms of our exposure (by using advanced communication technology and revealing all the details of our lives, whether with our knowledge or not) to be prey for full commercial exploitation and manipulating our ideas and views as well as violating our privacy.
Communication technology and social media faced a real test in the time of COVID-19 and did not prove that it is an effective way to prevent the spread of an epidemic. On the contrary it had many negative effects!
And what is the solution?
It is "restrain" in the opinion of the writer; the creation of mechanisms to impose control and regulate the social media, especially to limit our exploiting users commercially and violating privacy and human rights .
The book authored by the founder of the “Citizen Lab” (Munk Global Affairs School, UofT), is very well illustrated by real life examples and cases that proves its thesis.
March 5, 2021
Non-fiction books are always harder for me to get into, so I already have a natural bias; however, I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of voice and expression that Deibert brought to his equally exciting content matter. While the final chapter did drag, his lectures were insightful, fear-inducing in the best way, and extremely well-written. Coming away from this book, you truly feel like you have a new outlook on the operations of our world. I would recommend this book to everyone: not only is it a great read, but the horror stories will significantly decrease your screen time.
January 16, 2021
A superbly well written book offering the kind of insight that only someone in the unique position that Diebert holds could illuminate. This should be required reading for just about any adult living in the modern world. Diebert and Citizen Lab are more important than ever (and a point of Canadian national pride to boot).
Read
January 3, 2022The second book by Mr Citizen Lab on all the bad things happening on the Internet, in particular those bad things committed by powerful actors, and their impact on civil society. The sort of stuff I follow because of a professional and personal interest, but it's a good book to have read as a reference.
October 27, 2021
I feel like maybe the entire book would be interesting for
a) boomers who don't fully understand technology
b) people who don't take an active interest in discourse around problems with big tech and the public policy debate about how to address it
But as a millennial who does take an active-enough interest in problems with big tech and the public policy debate about how to address it, I would say that chapters 1-4 were pretty boring. They can basically be summarized as follows:
1. "did you know your phone and social media tracks everything you do, and that information is sold to companies?"
2. there is a discussion on how algorithms exploit cognitive biases that is worth reading if you have not already done reading about that kind of thing (ie extremism rabbit holes that social media algorithms cause), but if you take an active interest in tech problems then this should come as no surprise
3. "did you know that authoritarian regimes use technology to maintain control and abuse human rights"
Just like any other tool, technology can be used to control, oppress, etc. This is no surprise.
4. tying tech to ecology. If you've already read about environmental degradation from mining and watched some documentaries on electronics waste then you can skip this.
If you're me, you already knew about these things, or at least had a fairly good idea of them. Even if you are not a millennial, you probably did not need as many examples as were presented in chapters 1-4. The editing could have cut out at least half of it. But I understand that this is a CBC Massey Lecture and not an essay and thus is expected to be more rambly.
My recommendation: skip to the final chapter 5. Even that could have been edited down in some parts, but generally, provides two things I enjoyed:
- Some political theory vibes about frameworks for grounding future policy around technology. Deliberately slowing things down as a way to improve democracy à la Republicanism and Daniel Kahneman. The intro had touched on Innis etc and I kind of wish Deibert had gone more into it. But that's a personal preference because I like that sort of more abstract/foundational political theory and didn't get enough of it in school.
- The consolidated list of concrete policies we can take. Really liked this and would have liked to see it expanded. Had a lot of stuff in it that I'd read about or thought about previously, but tied them together with the framework and in relation to each other very well.
I agreed with most of the things proposed in chapter 5, but would like to pick a bone with:
- Deibert's claim that international is not the way to go with regulations. Like hello, tech is by its very nature borderless. That's why the climate change metaphors worked so well. And while it's true that many international bodies are limited nowadays, and while I do see a worrying trend with international agreements where you dial back regulations to the most watered down version that everyone agrees on, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't push for regulation on an international stage in addition to stronger ones domestically.
- Deibert's writing off of media literacy. I think this media literacy absolutely central. Teach it in schools, but also teach it to adults. Spend a lot of time on it. Critical thinking too. We can spend lots of resources and money moderating online content but at the end of the day, the human brain is the best filter. Media literacy should be worked on until people are able to filter information from media quickly and effortlessly. I did really like his civic virtue education pitch too; I think it goes hand in hand with media literacy education.
Overall: a good book, but expect that it was written by a boomer for boomers, as it were. There are some pretty cringey instances of "the dictionary definition of [X tech word] is..." that almost made me throw the book into a fire, but I'm glad I didn't, because I did quite enjoy the last chapter.
a) boomers who don't fully understand technology
b) people who don't take an active interest in discourse around problems with big tech and the public policy debate about how to address it
But as a millennial who does take an active-enough interest in problems with big tech and the public policy debate about how to address it, I would say that chapters 1-4 were pretty boring. They can basically be summarized as follows:
1. "did you know your phone and social media tracks everything you do, and that information is sold to companies?"
2. there is a discussion on how algorithms exploit cognitive biases that is worth reading if you have not already done reading about that kind of thing (ie extremism rabbit holes that social media algorithms cause), but if you take an active interest in tech problems then this should come as no surprise
3. "did you know that authoritarian regimes use technology to maintain control and abuse human rights"
Just like any other tool, technology can be used to control, oppress, etc. This is no surprise.
4. tying tech to ecology. If you've already read about environmental degradation from mining and watched some documentaries on electronics waste then you can skip this.
If you're me, you already knew about these things, or at least had a fairly good idea of them. Even if you are not a millennial, you probably did not need as many examples as were presented in chapters 1-4. The editing could have cut out at least half of it. But I understand that this is a CBC Massey Lecture and not an essay and thus is expected to be more rambly.
My recommendation: skip to the final chapter 5. Even that could have been edited down in some parts, but generally, provides two things I enjoyed:
- Some political theory vibes about frameworks for grounding future policy around technology. Deliberately slowing things down as a way to improve democracy à la Republicanism and Daniel Kahneman. The intro had touched on Innis etc and I kind of wish Deibert had gone more into it. But that's a personal preference because I like that sort of more abstract/foundational political theory and didn't get enough of it in school.
- The consolidated list of concrete policies we can take. Really liked this and would have liked to see it expanded. Had a lot of stuff in it that I'd read about or thought about previously, but tied them together with the framework and in relation to each other very well.
I agreed with most of the things proposed in chapter 5, but would like to pick a bone with:
- Deibert's claim that international is not the way to go with regulations. Like hello, tech is by its very nature borderless. That's why the climate change metaphors worked so well. And while it's true that many international bodies are limited nowadays, and while I do see a worrying trend with international agreements where you dial back regulations to the most watered down version that everyone agrees on, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't push for regulation on an international stage in addition to stronger ones domestically.
- Deibert's writing off of media literacy. I think this media literacy absolutely central. Teach it in schools, but also teach it to adults. Spend a lot of time on it. Critical thinking too. We can spend lots of resources and money moderating online content but at the end of the day, the human brain is the best filter. Media literacy should be worked on until people are able to filter information from media quickly and effortlessly. I did really like his civic virtue education pitch too; I think it goes hand in hand with media literacy education.
Overall: a good book, but expect that it was written by a boomer for boomers, as it were. There are some pretty cringey instances of "the dictionary definition of [X tech word] is..." that almost made me throw the book into a fire, but I'm glad I didn't, because I did quite enjoy the last chapter.
August 27, 2023
Przed przeczytaniem tej książki byłem już po lekturze innej, o podobnej tematyce, dotyczącej samego oprogramowania Pegasus, więc trochę byłem już w temacie. Wielka inwigilacja jest nieco lepsza niż tamta publikacja, bo skupia się nie tylko na jednym programie szpiegującym, tylko na wszystkich zagrożeniach czyhającym na nas w internecie i technologiach na nim opartych, szczególnie mediach społecznościowych. To, że jesteśmy obserwowani, a nasze dane(różnego rodzaju)gromadzone i sprzedawane i wykorzystywanie w najrozmaitszych celach, gdzie zwiększenie zysków tej czy innej platformy jest najmniej niebezpieczne, wiadomo już od dawna, za sprawą coraz częstszych skandali, ujawnianych przez dziennikarzy czy niezależnych ekspertów, takich jak autor tego reportażu, który przewodniczy Citizen Lab. To co dziś uderza to skala na jaką jest to robione. Autor podaje cały szereg przykładów, potwierdzających to, że medium takie jak internet, który miał służyć globalizacji i usunięciu barier międzyludzkich, a także miał dać dostęp każdemu do nieograniczonej wiedzy, okazał się być kijem o dwóch końcach. Faktem jest, że w zamian za obietnice lepszego życia sprzedajemy naszą prywatność i dajemy koncernom cyfrowym, a także dziesiątkom firm zbierającym dane dostęp do naszego życia(robię to nawet teraz, udostępniając ten post). Cena jaką za to ponosimy, jak dowodzi Wielka inwigilacja może być dla nas za duża do udźwignięcia i odbić się dużym kacem. Jak tego uniknąć nie tracąc wszystkich dobrych rzeczy, jakie daje nam technologia? Odpowiedzią może być angielski tytuł tej książki. Reset! Zmiana nawyków korzystania z sieci i nowymi regulacjami prawnymi i szeroko posunięta powściągliwość w używaniu internetu. Idąc za autorem trzeba powiedzieć, że należy odzyskać sięć dla ludzi, by stał się narzędziem do jej dalszego rozwoju, a nie puszką Pandory, którą nieostrożnie otworzyliśmy. Jest to do zrobienia! Zobaczycie to po przeczytaniu tej książki. Serdecznie polecam!!!
Za książkę dziękuję @wielkalitera
Za książkę dziękuję @wielkalitera
June 1, 2023
Interesting, but he doesn't really succeed in tying together the 3 main themes of the book: surveillance capitalism (a la Shoshana Zuboff, state-sponsored spying, and the environmental impact of smartphones and data centers. The first two he tries to lump together, which glosses over the vast differences between the profit-driven motivation of Facebook, Google, et al and the aims of totalitarian regimes (e.g. China, Saudi Arabia, etc.). Sure, both are collecting vast amounts of data, but one is trying to sell you a toothbrush and the other is hacking up journalists. The only slippery slope here is one of false equivalence.
He rightly points out that just because things are "digital" or "virtual" doesn't mean that there isn't also a real-world environmental impact. However, a lot of the issues (e.g. mining) he points out have nothing whatsoever to do with the Internet or related technologies, and lot more to do with labour practices and health and safety regulations. Even if smartphones were banned tomorrow, there would still be a need to mine resources for electric cars, solar panels, windmills, etc. He focuses on electricity from coal-burning plants, but those are already on the way out in most places (with a few unfortunate exceptions), so unless he's advocating for poor people to never have air conditioners or refrigerators, we're still going to need more electricity regardless.
He does make a strong case of the dangers of government surveillance and censorship. He then concedes as an afterthought that criminals and terrorists are also using the same tools and methods for nefarious ends, but offers no thoughts on how to combat them. It's clear that they are much less of a concern to his worldview, as he has no tolerance for any government measures to stop them.
He rightly points out that just because things are "digital" or "virtual" doesn't mean that there isn't also a real-world environmental impact. However, a lot of the issues (e.g. mining) he points out have nothing whatsoever to do with the Internet or related technologies, and lot more to do with labour practices and health and safety regulations. Even if smartphones were banned tomorrow, there would still be a need to mine resources for electric cars, solar panels, windmills, etc. He focuses on electricity from coal-burning plants, but those are already on the way out in most places (with a few unfortunate exceptions), so unless he's advocating for poor people to never have air conditioners or refrigerators, we're still going to need more electricity regardless.
He does make a strong case of the dangers of government surveillance and censorship. He then concedes as an afterthought that criminals and terrorists are also using the same tools and methods for nefarious ends, but offers no thoughts on how to combat them. It's clear that they are much less of a concern to his worldview, as he has no tolerance for any government measures to stop them.
April 1, 2022
I think this book was a 5/5 introduction to the topic of surveillance capitalism. It covers the social engineering techniques used to make us complicit in the stealing and selling of our own private info, the repercussions of the misuse of this data by world leaders (both Western and not), and some strategies that modern governments can employ to reign in these technologies. There is also a great but somewhat misplaced chapter on the negative environmental externalities associated with the information age - an age which has so separated action from consequence that most of us never even consider the carbon emissions associated with watching a Netflix video, or sending a Facebook message.
While this book is a great introduction to the topic as a whole, I found that - having previously read/watched some material on surveillance capitalism - it was a little... topical? It's layout was haphazard and it ricocheted from example to example, (I assume) in order to build a healthy dose of fear in the reader. I came into this book with that healthy dose of fear, so while I gained a couple facts here and there, I was ultimately left in the same state I started.
I guess the conclusion to this review is the following: if you haven't been introduced to surveillance capitalism, read this book or listen to his Massey Lectures. If you have: maybe pick another book (or some papers) that digs a bit deeper into some of these topics.
While this book is a great introduction to the topic as a whole, I found that - having previously read/watched some material on surveillance capitalism - it was a little... topical? It's layout was haphazard and it ricocheted from example to example, (I assume) in order to build a healthy dose of fear in the reader. I came into this book with that healthy dose of fear, so while I gained a couple facts here and there, I was ultimately left in the same state I started.
I guess the conclusion to this review is the following: if you haven't been introduced to surveillance capitalism, read this book or listen to his Massey Lectures. If you have: maybe pick another book (or some papers) that digs a bit deeper into some of these topics.
October 19, 2024
Reset is jampacked with facts and case studies on a range of adverse effects of the internet on our civil liberties, democracy & environment. Reset is divided into 5 long chapters, the first 4 exploring all the different problems caused by technology with the last suggesting how we can solve these problems.
Whilst I found the book to be very informative while I was reading it, I have to admit that I finished reading it a few weeks ago and only remember a few things from the last chapter. This could be because the book is very dense in information and writing style. So I would actually recommend reading this book very slowly and mull over each chapter rather than taking it on as a casual read.
I have to point out that I really appreciate the last chapter where Deibert maps out a potential framework for how to deal with the issues that arise from the internet as it is easy to write about the problem but much more difficult to suggest a solution. That in itself is a reason for me to give Reset 5 stars as it very rare to find a book in the social sciences section that actually suggests solutions to the issues it discusses!
Whilst I found the book to be very informative while I was reading it, I have to admit that I finished reading it a few weeks ago and only remember a few things from the last chapter. This could be because the book is very dense in information and writing style. So I would actually recommend reading this book very slowly and mull over each chapter rather than taking it on as a casual read.
I have to point out that I really appreciate the last chapter where Deibert maps out a potential framework for how to deal with the issues that arise from the internet as it is easy to write about the problem but much more difficult to suggest a solution. That in itself is a reason for me to give Reset 5 stars as it very rare to find a book in the social sciences section that actually suggests solutions to the issues it discusses!
Read
October 8, 2020Review by Cristina D'Amico:
As our lives move increasingly online, we must pause and reflect on how we work, play and communicate on the internet. This year, Ronald J. Deibert will deliver the 2020 CBC Massey Lectures on this very topic. In his latest book, Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society Deibert outlines the dangerous impacts of our current "communications ecosystem on civil society." Deibert is well-suited to do this work; he is a professor of political science and the founder and director of the Citizen Lab, a digital security research group housed in the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs. The book begins with a stark assessment of costs of the internet and social media, before pinnacling at Deibert's recommended course of action for our current situation.
Keep reading: https://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2020/...
As our lives move increasingly online, we must pause and reflect on how we work, play and communicate on the internet. This year, Ronald J. Deibert will deliver the 2020 CBC Massey Lectures on this very topic. In his latest book, Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society Deibert outlines the dangerous impacts of our current "communications ecosystem on civil society." Deibert is well-suited to do this work; he is a professor of political science and the founder and director of the Citizen Lab, a digital security research group housed in the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs. The book begins with a stark assessment of costs of the internet and social media, before pinnacling at Deibert's recommended course of action for our current situation.
Keep reading: https://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2020/...
May 31, 2021
That damn technology....can’t live with it, can’t live without it. In “Reset”, Ronald Deibert raises alarm bells at many aspects of increasing dependence ( addiction?) to our phones, tablets, apps, as our screen time swallows up more and more of our waking hours. The book is based on the CBC Massey Lectures , and Deibert covers the political , economic and social consequences of our Internet world. Of special interest is the environmental impact of our obsession, from mining the rare earths required for our instruments to the mammoth energy required to make our cellular networks run. Once outlining the problems of “ fake news”, the decline of civility, the privacy risks, and other vital issues, Deibert tries to offer solutions. This is much harder work, as he bases his solution on the principle of restraint. I find this optimistic, because it is a difficult task to fight any addiction. Restraint is often easier said than done!
July 13, 2024
Nothing new here but maybe I'm being too critical. A good book for more detailed examples of cyber security threats though theoretically, no points that are groundbreaking.
To sum up the book:
"Social media, and our entire communications ecosystem as a whole, profoundly transform the cost-benefit ratio and the opportunity structures for political elites to undertake surveillance: they radically erase the distance between those who exercise authority and the human objects of their control, both domestically and abroad. The very tools that civil society relies on to organize, educate, and publicize have become its most vulnerable points of insecurity, the pathway its adversaries exploit to get inside and neutralize it."
Main points:
- technology as an extension of power
- today's communication environment enabling nefarious actors to use technology in unprecedented ways
- solution moving forward, focus on retreat, reform, and restraint (in the Republicanism tradition).
To sum up the book:
"Social media, and our entire communications ecosystem as a whole, profoundly transform the cost-benefit ratio and the opportunity structures for political elites to undertake surveillance: they radically erase the distance between those who exercise authority and the human objects of their control, both domestically and abroad. The very tools that civil society relies on to organize, educate, and publicize have become its most vulnerable points of insecurity, the pathway its adversaries exploit to get inside and neutralize it."
Main points:
- technology as an extension of power
- today's communication environment enabling nefarious actors to use technology in unprecedented ways
- solution moving forward, focus on retreat, reform, and restraint (in the Republicanism tradition).
February 3, 2025
Another book on this topic is behind me. I feel like they all discuss the same things, just in different words. However, this one stands out with its broader scope and the way it presents online security and privacy—not as fear-mongering, but as a clear depiction of reality that we often overlook. I really appreciated this approach.
Since cybersecurity is a subject I’m already familiar with, this book didn’t have a major impact on me—it mostly confirmed my previous beliefs and added a few new insights. However, I think it’s a great starting point for those who want to understand more and take greater control over their online data.
Some things can never be erased—once something is uploaded to the internet, it’s there forever. But at the very least, we can make more informed decisions in the future and avoid behaviors that compromise our privacy in ways we may not immediately recognize.
Since cybersecurity is a subject I’m already familiar with, this book didn’t have a major impact on me—it mostly confirmed my previous beliefs and added a few new insights. However, I think it’s a great starting point for those who want to understand more and take greater control over their online data.
Some things can never be erased—once something is uploaded to the internet, it’s there forever. But at the very least, we can make more informed decisions in the future and avoid behaviors that compromise our privacy in ways we may not immediately recognize.
February 21, 2023
Important and unsettling read. Totally overwhelming in terms of an all-encompassing surveillance state that also happens to be a massive contributor to environmental degradation to boot, while a few people profit off of our data and sit on a mountain of cash. The action points, the steps we can take to change this utter shitshow, come at the end of the book, but only after I'd given up any sense of hope. Perhaps if the author wove the positive actions we can take as individuals and as a society a bit more overtly into each chapter, and then expanded on them at the end, it would provide a sense that there are actually things we can do to keep our personal data from becoming fodder for despots and tech giants...and yes, I am cognizant of the fact that I am writing this on a platform owned by one of the biggest ranchers of our personal data...
April 6, 2021
The 2020 CBC Massey Lecture series, so the level of detail is higher than other books on the topic. Certainly a good and timely synthesis. The Citizen Lab’s connections to to Khashoggi case and being harassed by ex-Mossad surveillance tech contractors was unsettling. The final chapter on restraint is quite good, discussing small ‘r’ republican political theory and its concern with checks and balances such as antitrust measures, the call for tech companies to be considered public utilities, and a reconsideration of public education: shifting from economic imperatives to a concern for the civic commons.
October 6, 2021
Back in the 90s. The internet was the invention that promise to liberate society from tyranny and make it fairer and more democratic. However, as years passed, it became a huge economic engine based on data harvesting, data mining, essentially gathering as much data as they can.
This book is an extraordinary entry door for those who are not very familiar with the digital capitalism, capturing the essence of our modern concerns. A very readably book who touches the basic issues with today’s technology such as: data gathering, social media, gadgets, environmental issues, legal concerns etc.
This book is an extraordinary entry door for those who are not very familiar with the digital capitalism, capturing the essence of our modern concerns. A very readably book who touches the basic issues with today’s technology such as: data gathering, social media, gadgets, environmental issues, legal concerns etc.
June 14, 2021
A good overview of current issues we collectively face around social media, cyber-security, disinformation and freedom of expression on the web - however, if you read about this topic a lot, you might not get much new out of it. Also, a bit light on solutions other than “restraint” - but precious little is said about what that should mean for the average social media user as opposed to governments and policy makers.
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