George Orwell would be appalled by the hypocrisy of online activism

This year has been a good one for chubby armchair activists. They’ve found new outlets for their impotent do-goodery in social media. The use of Twitter during the Iranian post-election protests, for example, recently won a Webby Award (yes, really) for being “one of the top ten internet moments of the decade”...Did Twitter and other online networks threaten the brutal Islamist regime? Not this time. The Ahmadinejad-led dictatorship continues to thrive, backed by volunteer militias. And an Iranian democracy is no closer to reality than it was in January. So if the “Twitter revolution” was all the internet could muster in the last decade – and if it’s something we’re supposed to be proud of – then we may as well all log off in the New Year.

I did already. Well, from Twitter at least.