Andrew Keen, author of “The Internet is Not the Answer,” is known as the “Antichrist of Silicon Valley.” He calls Google a monster, Uber a bad idea and wants governments to regulate both. He was interviewed by Max Tholl of The European.
The European: Mr. Keen, in the Washington Post’s review of your new book, “The Internet is Not the Answer,” it is pointed out that many people refer to you as a Luddite but that that is not necessarily a bad thing because it means being first and foremost pro-humanity and not anti-technology. What’s your take?
Keen: It’s just one of those terms that has lost any kind of meaning. I always associated the term with the smashing of machines, with violent resistance, of which I am not in favor. So in that sense, I don’t want to think of myself as a Luddite.
The European: And in another sense?
Keen: In America, everybody who’s questioning technology is automatically a Luddite, and in that sense I am okay being one. But the implication of this is that it has developed into a pejorative label. It means that you’re reactionary, and I am very far away from that. I am neither reactionary nor nostalgic. I just think we ought to have the right to criticize technology while at the same time recognizing that it is the future — for better or worse. In fact, I believe it is the utopians that are the real Luddites.
The European: What makes you think so?
Keen: Utopians are nostalgists. They cling to these romanticized ideas of the past and think we could go back to a better world of small villages. Utopians in the entertainment industry dream about going back to a world without huge record labels. Even Marx was a nostalgist who believed in the idea that technology could free us and allow us to be human again. I don’t want to turn the clock back, but I want to make it clear that the things the tech-optimists and utopians did promise us have not materialized.
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The European: Your guess?
Keen: People are willing to take action, but it remains to be seen how this will translate in reality. They may go out of their way and start using alternatives like DuckDuckGO.
The European: Isn’t it a problem that people use technology, encrypted mail for example, to avoid the ills of other technologies?
Keen: I think you’re referring to a very tiny portion of the Internet users. Apart from some geeks, most people don’t even know what encrypted mail is. My book is for a broader audience, not some tech gurus in Silicon Valley.
The European: What is your advice to your readers?
Keen: My book is a wake-up call. The Internet is changing all of our lives, and we shouldn’t leave it to the guys from Silicon Valley to determine how it will do so.
