Control the Information and Control the World

It is no secret that if you can control the information that people get that you can control the world. That has been an ongoing complaint about the intimate relations between the corporate media and the Bush administration. However, it has been an ongoing concern of mine with the internet. Most particularly with information "conduits" such a AOL and Microsoft. Microsoft is, in particular, an octopus when it comes to information, information access, and the internet. From it's search engines, to service, to software (such as Microsoft Encarta), Microsoft has its hands in the information pie - or should we say clay.

This was brought home this week in a July 26, 2005 article on Wired.com titled Wiping Apple Off the Map. In Microsoft's new software Virtual Earth, Microsoft is not above striking a blow (or should we call it "spin") against arch rival Apple. The map program depicts the eleven building Apple headquarters in Silicon Valley as a warehouse surrounded by a parking lot. Such an obvious "replacement" only undermines the credibility of the "information" that Microsoft provides.

But Microsoft is after all a business - and a big one at that. One can't be too picky in today's dog-eat-dog world (though Microsoft seems to consume almost everything it sinks its teeth into) world. Misportraying one primary operating system competitor in a poor light may be seen as a small offense, or even an advertising ploy. Microsoft has certainly been willing to set ethics aside in providing customers like China with "appropriate" services. In particular I speak of censoring certain searches such as ""Taiwan independence," "Dalai Lama," "human rights," "freedom" and "democracy." Makes you wonder what searches are censored in the U.S. and at whose request. One might also wonder at what searches via Microsoft return as "matching." Somehow I doubt that you just get a message "search denied." That would be too crude for a high profile corporation (though I have gotten exactly that message from U.S. government sites).

It is easy to write of Microsoft's "fooling around" with their Virtual Earth portrayal of Apple, but if they make one very obvious manipulation of reality, what about those that are less obvious? This is why it is critical to maintain information independence, and internet independence. Having multiple sources not controlled by one interest is critical to keeping reality "honest," or at least allowing people to compare information sources.

Ok, before someone goes off on single-source control, I do know that everything internet goes through the Pentagon internet backbone. Who knows how much gets censored through that pipeline?