The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century

Friedman examines how a flat world supports the activities of a new breed of social activists and social entrepreneurs. Small groups—even individuals—can harness the power of the Internet to call attention to issues and to challenge large, powerful businesses or political groups. For instance, a non-governmental organization (NGO) called Environmental Defense once challenged the large Texas power company TXU. The latter planned to build eleven coal-fired plants that would increase the emission of carbon dioxide. The NGO started an online and email campaign to raise awareness and opposition nationwide. Another company initiated a leveraged buyout of TXU, acknowledging the bad publicity and negotiating with Environmental Defense until the NGO gave its approval. In the end, the new company agreed to open just three coal-fired plants and to invest in green energy sources.

Despite their varied backgrounds, new online activists share “a burning desire to make an impact and a firm belief that the flattening of the world makes being an activist-entrepreneur easier and cheaper than ever before” (492). Perhaps the best known example of an activist-entrepreneur is Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel laureate from Bangladesh. Yunus is famous for his microfinance programs that loan small amounts of money to poor-but-hardworking businesspeople who would otherwise have no access to credit.

While Yunus’s microfinancing has become popular, others have found that there is a need for similar services for small-sized and medium-sized businesses. Donors don’t always want to help a group that is better off than others, but Friedman argues that such businesses are crucial to local economies because they can expand and employ more workers. Linda Rottenberg and Peter Kellner founded Endeavor in 1997 to foster this kind of entrepreneurship in developing countries. Endeavor helps firms that have already reached a certain level of success. Rottenberg claims that success lies in intangibles, such as the motivation others get from seeing a local company make it big.

Another example Friedman gives is Digital Divide Data, founded by a Harvard graduate named Jeremy Hockenstein. On a trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Hockenstein noticed a plethora of Internet cafes and English language schools, but he saw few job opportunities. He and some colleagues decided to open a data-entry business in Cambodia that would help digitize materials for organizations and businesses in the United States. Their first project came from the Harvard student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, which was digitizing its archives. The employees of Digital Divide Data typed all the text of the articles, and, in addition to earning twice the local minimum wage, they received scholarships to further their schooling. After four years, the company had 400 employees, and it had opened two new offices. Some employees left to start a business of their own after identifying an area of a market where they could add value.

Friedman’s final example is an educational collaboration between two teachers, one lived in Bangladesh and the other lived in America. After their classes read an earlier edition of Friedman’s book, they decided to create the Flat Classroom Project. The project entailed pairing up students from each class so that the students could collaborate on a website that would illustrate the ten flatteners discussed in Chapter 2. The students “communicated regularly over the Internet, shared resources (photographs, music, and the like), and planned their project as if they were literally face-to-face in one classroom” (502). The students not only learned the material, they made connections with peers halfway around the world.

Governments are also feeling the impact of this new generation of activists. Online fundraising crept into the United States presidential election in 2004, and Friedman sees a new Internet style of campaigning rapidly growing in the future. Democracy activists in Bahrain used detailed images of luxurious private homes and estates from Google Earth to expose the ruling minority’s excessive land ownership at a time when most of the population faced a housing shortage.

Activists are also pairing up with corporations to find solutions to issues that are important to them rather than relying solely on government regulation. For example, Conservation International and McDonald’s used the fast-food restaurant’s huge supply chain to introduce practices that are better for the environment at little extra cost. Through this partnership, Conservation International furthered its goals (and educated the public along the way), and McDonald’s enjoyed favorable public relations. 

This chapter focuses on the negative aspects of a flat world. First, technology distracts us and keeps us from being engaged with the people around us. He writes that “[t]he very technologies that are uniting us are also clearly dividing us” (517). Not only does technology constantly interrupt us, it also makes us focus too much on what other people are saying about us. Thanks to the Internet, we can view everything that is posted about us online, giving us all “dog’s hearing.”

Multitasking compromises the focus that is needed for deep thought and concentration. There are no boundaries anymore regarding work, so we can never get away from it. The office can always reach us via mobile devices. Eventually, we get overloaded because we cannot process the ever-increasing amount of information. Moreover, because everyone can upload whatever they want, unfiltered and unedited, the overall quality of information on the Internet is quite low. Language on the Internet also becomes degraded. It is quite common to hear stories from teachers about texting shorthand and symbols appearing in their students’ homework.

A flat world also enables rampant gossip. Once a piece of information exits in cyberspace, it is hard to correct or delete it. Young people, especially, must learn that everything they do online is tracked and recorded. Friedman compares this phenomenon to the time when tabloids like the National Enquirer were purveyors of gossip about celebrities. It was a one-way form of communication that only reached a small subset of the population where the paper was sold and only for a limited time. The information in the tabloid ultimately had a short shelf life. Cyberspace, on the other hand, is amorphous, has no physical “location,” and preserves information indefinitely, so it is harder to control. Friedman admits that he is worried about this aspect of the flat world, especially since it may keep good people from seeking high-profile positions.