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I would like to acknowledge that the Internet has been helpful to both the state and the government. On one hand it serves as an effective communication and media tool for people to reach vast audiences. On the other, with all the information and communication flow online, it also becomes a good tool for states to monitor their people. However, it is the effectiveness and rate of success in accomplishing the mentioned aims that determine what makes the Internet more helpful. The government’s legitimacy is founded on the trust people have for the government, if the government breaks that trust by invading their privacy, it is infringing on the people’s rights, which is illegitimate and lacks accountability. As such, the extent to which the Internet helps the government is limited. On the other hand, the people’s use of the Internet to pressure an incompetent government to the extent of ousting it, is in fact legitimate. Therefore, this essay will argue that Internet is more helpful for the people to pressure their governments.

With the help of the Internet, it is easier for the state to gather intelligence on protesters and activist faster and with less manpower. For example, March 2006 in Belarus, a revolution was successfully prevented by the state thanks to the help of the Internet. The authorities monitored the online sites where activities of the protesters were announced and had police show up at the events even before the protesters did. Photos that the protesters took online were also used against them for identification. Thus the state can strike fear into her citizens, letting them know that what they say on the Internet can be tracked and held against them.(MOROZOV, 2009). Furthermore, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and the paramilitary Basji to track down Iranian pro-democracy activist using Twitter. [ (Burns & Eltham, 2009) ]

The Internet allows the state to have greater and easier access to the citizens’ information and movements because of...