Actually, it would be a fantastic comparison if the author had explained it. It's almost as if he heard it somewhere else and repeated it verbatim (which is exactly the case, he's quoting someone else's essay without fully explaining or possibly comprehending it).

The internet presents us with a similar existential threat to human identity as in the book. Like the masks hiding a higher intelligence at the end of the Difference Engine, the apotheosis of the internet threatens to rob us of our individuality but offers the chance of the development of a higher form of consciousness, like the Overmind in Clarke's book.

But this article went in a different direction.