Wiki Disinfopedias And Mind Control In The Information Age

It’s been known for quite a while that companies have been editing their own entries on Wikipedia; celebrities have been at it for some time. A Mail & Guardian Online article reveals that The Wikipedia Scanner, created by Virgil Griffith, has cataloged a list of those doing so.
Microsoft has paid people to edit its own entry, which was quite a hot topic when that was discoverd. But, according to the article by Bobbie Johson, there are other organizations doing so that might surprise you.

For instance:

• Diebold, maker of voting machines.
• US Central Intelligence Agency
• The Vatican

While the intelligence agency of a nation editing the biographies of former leaders probably isn’t all that surprising, one has to take into consideration other things. Namely, that of censorship and disinformation—both of which have disastrous consequences, many of which are unforeseen by those who attempt to propagate them.

Who Is Manipulating Your Thoughts And Why?

I happened upon a blog mentioning that a Wikipedia article—which had sections raising questions about fingerprints of Sinn Fein’s President, Gerry Adams, being found on an automobile tied to a double murder—had parts edited out. According to the records of The Wikipedia Scanner, the accusatory entries were removed by someone using computers at The Vatican.

Certainly, we can allow for the possibility of MAC address or IP spoofing by a third party who wanted others to think The Vatican is still doing what it did best in Feudal Europe (meddling in politics and covering up misdeeds for the sake of appearances or favors owed). But, we can also allow for the possibility that someone within The Vatican is doing such editing to suit the needs of the Catholic church.

We aren’t likely to ever know.

The point is this: in this Information Age, where knowledge is the currency of greatest value, disinformation is a way not only to create and amass a fortune, but a way to destroy and devalue the fortunes of others. Not just financial fortunes, but political ones as well.

Disinformation is an integral part of warfare as well, and goes hand in hand with deception.

[Note: As applied to warfare, one is a misrepresentation of knowledge through verbal or written intelligence, while the other is a misrepresentation of knowledge through physical or technical intelligence. In other words, one is an instance where data is interpreted wrongly because someone has skillfully manipulated the words and writings and other second-hand information that someone who interprets intelligence data will see---with a goal of creating a wrong interpretation of that data. Deception is a manipulation of the physical, creating false appearances (such as fake armies used by the Allies in WWII) that someone gathering intelligence for the enemy will report as true, when in fact it is not. This also creates a false interpretation of intelligence data. Modern Psyops (psychological Operations) makes use of both in warfare today.]

If someone is presenting you with the wrong data on purpose, they are manipulating your thoughts. And they are doing so for a reason that suits them, not you.

Edited Content: An Old Paradigm With A New Usefulness

The Media’s Ability To Influence Your Thoughts

Web 2.0 and its myriad catchphrase exclamations of technological advances and social interaction have offered up a few useful ideas for the masses. Mostly, however, it has benefited spammers, unscrupulous businesses and individuals, and given us a slough of start-ups that have failed to live up to expectations.

More than that, it has given those seeking to use disinformation and deception their most powerful tool yet.

Now, anyone with a connection to the Internet can manipulate perceptions. It is no longer just products up for sale that are being sold, but ideas and perceptions. All aspects of life are now, for all intents and purposes, marketable commodities.

Some people may think that manipulating data online is a poor way for someone to attempt altering perceptions, but they would be quite wrong. In America, for example, more people under the age of 45 get their news from online sources than they do from newspapers, magazines, or from watching newscasts on television.

Or maybe they don’t. Did I just misinform you with something that altered immediately your perception of the power of the Internet and online media? How will you know the truth? Will you now turn around and seek to verify what I stated above?

How?

Will you go to another online source, such as Google, and look for substantiating evidence? And how do you know that those sources which you find are telling you facts, much less ones that have not been manipulated for certain purpose—no matter how harmless or trivial they may be?

One merely has to look at the may theories and speculations surrounding the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 to see what information can do. A large portion of the world’s educated people, many with advanced degrees and who are in every aspect normal, respectable people believe that the US government and/or Israelis staged the attacks in order to facilitate a war against Islam. Who knows? It may even be true.

If nothing else, one has to question the convenience of finding Atta’s wallet in downtown Manhattan, intact, when entire people were incinerated. Anyone who doesn’t find that odd is…well, I would say that they have no inquisitive nature at all, and that they are a marketer’s dream come true. Such unquestioning people are likely to believe anything at all if it comes from others whom they feel are part of their peer groups.

I’m not suggesting anything, either. Rather, I am merely commenting as someone with a bit of training in the collection and interpretation of data. Does that mean I believe in some conspiracy in the 9/11 attacks? Not necessarily. Does it mean I do not believe in some conspiracy? Not necessarily.

There is a lot of other data to analyze to make any final analysis. But, it suggests the sort of bearing on the weight of credibility given to online sources…and also to television, and print media sources. Or the various governments of the world and their employees and apparatus.

Edited Content Will Continue Have An Appeal

Edited content—that is, content for which someone can be held accountable—will be around for a long time. Collaborative journalism and wikis will likely be a part of the online experience from now on. However, having an accountable human editor is likely to become an increasingly valuable proposition in time for online media publishers.

For a while, it seemed as if edited content was on the way out. Blogging and social networking sites and collaborative editing are touted as the wave of the future. Already, people are looking well beyond present applications. DMOZ, the Open Directory Project, was thought to be on its deathbed a few years ago—but it is still with us.

The glut of online advertising and the inability of major search engines to provide contextual search results has led to the creation of many new and diverse search engines. The larger search engines continue serving up contextual ads that are annoying because the search results aren’t in context most of the time. On top of that, in the quest to maximize profit, search engines continually change their search algorithms and require that content publishers continually adapt to the search engines to keep their content relevant to keywords and keyword phrases.

Search engines have all but given up on actually serving up quality content in their results. It’s now about serving up links that generate revenue for the search engines. Sure, you can find what you’re looking for, if you’re willing to dig hundreds of pages into SERPs (search engine results pages).

This means an old paradigm has an opportunity. Human edited directories of information and content that are vetted will, I believe, become niche markets of opportunity in the future. Taking a page from the playbook of ‘online malls’ one could provide a directory of content providers for an access fee that is vetted and meets editorial standards, along with content from said providers which is exclusive to paying members.

Not everyone would be interested in such an arrangement. However, those who need timely, professional, vetted/researched data of high quality (without porn and advertising and having to wade through pages of incoherent ramblings by people that no editor would ever approve for publishing) may.

Those who might pay fees for subscriptions to Stratfor, might also be the sort who would enjoy other human edited and vetted content not necessarily related to their primary information need. So might readers of the Wall Street Journal.

Bringing a wide variety of such subscription services together and allowing subscribers to have access to not just political or military related intelligence, but to business news, to entertainment news, to market research, financial data and so on might provide online communities with new sources of revenue that would allow them to expand readership/membership and tap into new demographics.

I can see how someone who pays $200-1000 per year for access to one specific service might pay $2000-7000 for access to a whole community of vetted data/service…especially if it meant that they wouldn’t be subjected to online advertising while browsing. And someone who pays $15-100 per year for access to something like a quality financial media service might be willing and able to pay $400 for a year’s access to these same services, but with advertisements shown—but only if the ads are by select advertisers that the ENTIRE community of content providers would be willing to stand by as quality products.

It would be the information age’s equivalent of handmade furniture and craftsmanship.

Thus, while a particular content provider might receive less for each subscription, the increase in numbers of readers would be used to offset this. They could retain their ability to operate as an individual entity, of course, so if one wanted to subscribe to their service directly, they could.

A true information age will emerge when we have gone beyond the early models of individual content publishers and collective citizen journalism to one of edited and vetted collectives of content publishers of a variety of types, all serving the individual tastes, beliefs and needs of those who wish to make use of them.

When any citizen of the world can have access to the same quality information as any other, things will be better for everyone. However, the reality is that business want to make money, and if information is valuable, they aren’t going to give away all their assets. In a Utopian world, anyone could log onto the Net and access the same information any intelligence agency could—that would create a transparency that would keep many agitating institutions, groups, and individuals in line by itself. That’s highly unlikely to happen.

However, even with the example I have given, it’s not inconceivable that such a vetted media collective could simply garner the overwhelming majority of market share by offering access at the lowest price and gaining the largest member base, and still be able to provide the same quality of content. However, that creates its own dangers.

The Information Age Is An Age Of Warfare

In the end, the information you have access to and its value is as much a matter of perception as it is anything else. Remember—every day businesses, politicians, governments, organizations, causes and individuals are engaged in battle for your loyalty, your support, your money, the fruits of your labor, your ability and willingness to contribute, and the same from those whom you can influence—your spouse, your children, your other family, your friends, your business associates and those in your peer groups.

In an information age, information is not just a tool of warfare, it is the reason for the war as much as it is the prize or part of a stratagem. Most of us do not think on such things as a matter of daily life, but the simple fact is that your mind is a fortress under siege throughout the course of your life.

War is one thing.
It is a philosophy of deception.

— Sun Tzu

How we fare in the battle is often a matter of how well we are prepared. To prepare, you need to understand. If I have at least stirred the fires in your mind a bit and sparked a new thought, your guard is up, and your enemies will face a stronger foe.

Also, keep in mind that while those who seek to manipulate the perceptions and thoughts of others might have a goal in mind, they cannot know with certainty what one will think. Nor who might act upon their deceptive or manipulated or distorted information, and what actions will be taken. We all, however, must live with the consequences in the world it shapes.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.

— Buddha