Facebook’s Gateway Drug

[Commentary] Silicon Valley was once content to dominate the tech world. But recently, its leading companies have ventured deep into areas well outside its traditional bailiwick, most notably international development -- promising to transform a field once dominated by national governments and international institutions into a permanent playground of hackathons and app-fueled disruption. The goal of providing universal, affordable Internet access is a laudatory one. But there’s more to the nonprofit-tinged “dot.org” agenda than meets the eye, and its subtext is indicative of a bigger problem with Silicon Valley “solutionism” -- the belief that the tech industry could and should solve all of life’s problems.

[Morozov is the author of “To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism.”]