Zoo advocates tend to argue that exhibiting animals leads to a stronger conservation movement, though whether that actually happens still seems a little unclear to me — but this was a more modest case, that zoos are doing much less harm to animals than they once did, that they deserve credit for being re-conceived from the zoo animal's point of view.
Here he is trying to discredit the information presented by this section.
If it was an abomination to keep a killer whale in a tiny cage, then why was it okay to keep a polar bear in a similarly restrictive enclosure?
Associative trail, linking us back to the zoo problem
"If you were in a bathtub for 25 years, don't you think you'd get a little psychotic?"
Author using emotion to persuade
For instance, polar bears in nature cover one million times the territory that they do in captivity, and zoo polar bears suffer all kinds of pathologies and maladies.
Author tries to make a point about downfalls of zoos, but the point has no credibility.
[Source: Facebook]
The growth of a group over time on a trending social media outlet is a poor way to judge change in unity. He could have made a point about how the number of Facebook users has changed over time, then compared that change to the relative change in certain groups.
Protest in Budapest organized on social media against a proposed ‘internet tax’, October 2014. The tax was scrapped.
Pretty credible evidence, although he doesn't give conclusive evidence that the unity through social media is WHY the tax was scrapped.
Europeans demanded action
I believe action would have been demanded regardless whether social media played a part in it. The author makes the statement as if social media was the reason for the unity, where the reason for unity was actually the crisis itself in this situation.
millions rallied online
One of the points that he could have used is how speed of information has helped unite the world. They used to have telethons to support international causes. Through the Internet and connected media, "telethons" can be conducted instantly and broadcast widely, further uniting the people through causes.
And an internet that connects the middle classes is immensely powerful.Throughout history, the middle class has been the greatest driver of social, economic and political change. The middle classes are opposed to the inequitable concentration of power and resources, against violence, and supporters of civil liberties and the rule of law.
The author doesn't state how the connection of the middle class is "immensely powerful". Also, his point about the middle class driving change is arguable as well. His last sentence is quite a generalization.
Today, 3 billion people have access to the internet. Hundreds of millions of people are now part of online communities. Around 1.5 billion people use Facebook, more than a billion people use Google and 900 million people use WhatsApp.Admittedly, more than 4 billion people aren’t online. Right now the middle classes enjoy most of the benefits of connectivity. But that doesn’t lessen the internet’s impact.The internet is the largest community in history — as big as the global population in 1960. It crosses every border and culture. And enough people are connected that the internet has become a planetary infrastructure for communications and collaboration. The tools and knowledge of one nation now belong to all nations.
The author uses a lot of evidence here, with no source listed. Although all of these statements may very well be true, without a reference it negates the credibility.