Whistleblower website Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has attacked the Internet calling it an obstacle to free speech and human rights.
Assange said that the Internet is "the greatest spying machine the world has ever seen" while speaking to students at Cambridge University in the UK.
He said, "It is not a technology that favours freedom of speech."
"It is not a technology that favours human rights."
"Rather it is a technology that can be used to set up a totalitarian spying regime, the likes of which we have never seen."
Assange claimed that the Internet in general and social networking sites such as Facebook in particular, gave governments greater scope for spying.
He said, "There was actually a Facebook revolt in Cairo three or four years ago."
"It was very small… After it, Facebook was used to round up all the principal participants and they were then beaten, interrogated and incarcerated.
"So while the Internet has in some ways an ability to let us know to an unprecedented level what government is doing… it is also the greatest spying machine the world has ever seen," he added.
Assange also confirmed that Wikileaks has played an important role in the recent Arab revolutionary movements.
