The affect Google is having on our political awareness - Ajarn Forum

Pinky · 18th November 2005, 10:21

I had not considered the affect that Google is having on our overall political awareness. However, having read the following article, and having taken a look at a few of the threads in this forum, I have come to the conclusion that Google actually has a rather influential role in how we perceive things these days. Would you agree?

Quote:

With Google, the truth is just a click away

The true power of the internet is its ability to remember pretty much every lie you've been told

By ALAN DAWSON

US President George W. Bush spoke to a group of former soldiers on international Veterans' Day. His message sparked a new political firestorm, but the real message of his campaign is unassailable: Google has arrived.

Mr Bush's rhetoric, seen by some of his supporters as an overdue response to months of criticism over the Iraq war and by opponents as noisy escalation of political warfare, revolved around the nasty idea that he lied about circumstances leading to the war.

The fallout of this debate goes far beyond the US domestic wrangling over Iraq. Mr Bush did, however, get to the core, the truth that will affect every political campaign in the world, beginning now: "While it's perfectly legitimate to criticise my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began."

Actually, it is not simply irresponsible, it is pretty much impossible. That's because everyone now has a "wayback" machine, a professional and dedicated fact-checker at their fingertips: Google. The search engine is an inerrant check on political prevarication, and so simple that the trademark has become an English language verb - to google.

It used to take a lot of time and often money to check old quotes and actions. Now it takes a few seconds to determine when the US president used these words in a grave speech to the nation: "Earlier today I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes and its military capacity to threaten its neighbours."

Not only can you find the specific quote the president used to announce his attacks on what he thought were Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, you can determine in literally seconds who said it. No one can fool you any more, unless you want to be fooled.

"Comment is free, but facts are sacred," wrote CP Scott, the revered editor of the The Guardian of England in 1921. Or, as the great US writer Mark Twain put it even earlier, "Facts are stubborn things."

Newspapers (and others) have tried to stick to this line for a couple of hundred years. Now, at last, they have an entire army of supporters for the war against fibs, fabrications and falsifications. Google and other internet search engines will - and should - do little to cool political partisanship, but they sure can make the debate honest, quickly.

The truth is out there, as the X-Files said, but the facts now are available - truth and fact being quite separate items.

Take those polls that show how those in the US believe that Saddam Hussein and his Iraq dictatorship were directly involved in the Sept 11 attacks on the US. A popular word image holds that this is a result of misinformation - disinformation even - from the Bush White House.

The wayback machine shows otherwise. It shows the word image is wrong, and arguments based on the premise that Mr Bush and his gang instituted and nourished the supposed al Qaeda-Saddam relationship are wrong. The Google time capsule shows the highest support for this view by the US public was two days after the attacks. That was before the White House spokesman mentioned Iraq and terrorism in the same breath, before President Bush considered the possibility publicly.

Just 48 hours after the attacks, a Washington Post poll showed that 78 percent of Americans believed it was "likely or very likely he [Saddam] was personally involved in the Sept 11 terrorist attacks."

In the following two years, as the White House stepped up rhetoric against Iraq and then invaded the country, Americans steadily rejected the idea of a link between Saddam and Sept 11. In each of four subsequent polls in those two years, fewer believed it than in the previous survey. By the US invasion in 2003, belief in such a link had fallen steadily, to its lowest level ever - still much too high, but far lower than before the White House was able to use its influence.

Those are the facts, and enable people to reach fact-based conclusions. One possible conclusion is that 78 percent of Americans made the Saddam-terrorist connection exclusively, uniquely, because of information provided by the administrations of President Bill Clinton and his successors, since the George W. Bush regime had never commented on the possibility of such a connection. Google fails to reveal any public utterance by Mr Bush that Saddam was involved in the attacks known as 9/11.

Google "thaksin 'not an accident"' for the alleged proof that drug traffickers blew up the Thai Airways International Boeing 737-400 in March, 2001. Google "gas station explode 'mobile phone"' for news about allegedly dangerous mobile phones, which have never blown up anything, ever. Google, in short, is not only a positive influence in fact-finding, but a kind of debunking device. It can't tell you how to vote or what to think, but it can tell you who's been having you on and trying to deceive you.

Recently, one of our writers was trying to cut through claims, counter-claims and downright propaganda about whether the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera has ever shown a hostage being beheaded. The fact: It has not. What that means, people can disagree about.

Be aware, however, of the occasional manipulation of Google by fun-loving geeks. They have managed to programme the search engine so that when you ask for information about "French military victories" it pops up a page claiming there is no such information and asking if you mean "French military defeats". But there are actually 57,000-plus Google pages with actual information that contain the victories phrase. Similar geek humour directs the first search for "miserable failure" to a biography of President Bush, where the phrase doesn't appear. Similarly, the first Google hit for "buffone" (Italian for clown), is the biography of Premier Silvio Berlusconi. During last year's US election "waffles" brought up the biography of Sen John Kerry.

These and others are fun, but depend on you clicking the "I'm Feeling Lucky" Google button, and on not using any other search engine. The couple of dozen chuckleworthy results like this even have a name: Googlebomb. You can, of course, google "googlebomb" to see what it's all about.

Google even has the scoop on attempts to fool Google. The facts are now out there. It's up to you to find them.

source: Banngkok Post 18/11/2005

Kerux · 18th November 2005, 11:51

Quote:

Not only can you find the specific quote the president used to announce his attacks on what he thought were Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, you can determine in literally seconds who said it. No one can fool you any more, unless you want to be fooled.

And there are obviously many who post herein who must "want to be fooled."

Reality is a b*tch, even to guys like GWB.

Added after 3 minutes:

"Google became a verb before it became a public company. Now it has also become a $400 stock.

Just 15 months after the company went public in an unusual auction at a price of $85 a share, which was less than the company had hoped and was widely viewed as disappointing, Google traded above $400 a share for the first time today, closing at $403.45, up $5.30. The gain helped lift the Nasdaq composite index, which rose 1.5 percent today, to 2,200.46, its highest close since June 2001. "

Found from a Google search.

theent01 · 18th November 2005, 12:26

Google, the best way to end drunken arguments!

anon · 18th November 2005, 12:33

i'm not very tech savvy, but doesn't google allow you to check if a webpage has been altered?

if so, there lies the true power of google for the future....especially if you are talking about the words and deeds of politicians.

Milkman · 18th November 2005, 20:39

Google has has allowed the common citizen to be much more aware.

www.bushoniraq.com.

And Raycarey: like your avatar. I've been watching the "Big Lebowski" the last couple of days.

Parts of it might be corny, but I like many parts of the movie.

One great thing about being able to buy DVDs of movies and watching them several times.

blackjack · 18th November 2005, 20:59

Quote:

And Raycarey: like your avatar.

Me too, I love that movie. The dude abides.

Plan B · 18th November 2005, 23:03

Hmmmmm....

I tried to download that movie, but it don't work. Instead I got Carman Electra's naked women wrestling. Do you think I missed out there?