Technology = information

New technologies has always brought with them fear, mainly to authorities who passes it on to the people. Church, government and others who has something to gain on having control, has in all times feared new technology. Not because technology is bad, but it with the information people can spread with it. Information can be very, very dangerous for someone who has a subjective standpoint, which, more or less everyone has. “Wrong” information can be passed on to others more effectively and people could be fooled to be believed in false statements. What authorities often seem to forget though is that technology can be used to spread “true” information as well. It all comes down to which side you are on.

I would like to argue that new technologies encourage democracy and that Web 2.0 is a splendid example of it. Powerful media personas worries about the so called “citizen journalism”, people without journalistic education who blogs, broadcasts and publish information about events, political issues or other news. What they seem to forget is the fact that the media is the most powerful tool to control information and that with all “citizen journalists” we have a much wider variety, perspectives and views of things which, in my opinion, must lead to a more reliable truth than when listen to a few voices, how professional and educated this people might be.

The new possibilities of distributing information are therefore a key to let us see more than one side of a story and to prevent censoring and manipulation of important information. Having this in mind, it is interesting how we slowly are letting this opportunity out of our hands. Multinational companies, such as Google who buys up the rights to control our information. Censoring, selectiveness with information is already practised by them such as happens on Google China.

News like the one I mentioned earlier in the blog, about Wikipedia creating a search engine brings hopes. Wikipedia already is one of the few sources online that could be seen as non-profit, democratic and objective (collective views should, as mentioned before, provide the most trustworthy information) and a search engine created on the same criteria’s is exactly what we need now.

Howard Rheingold writes in Smart Mobs about how new technologies provide people new tools too more efficiently spread information as well as becoming an extension of themselves, when mobilizing for a political cause. The causes, or the fact of people demonstrating or revolting against something, are old as man and do not come with the technology. But the collectiveness of information, the difficulties of controlling it and the larger amounts (as more and more people get the technology) does. As I mentioned before, the “bad” side could as well do it, but if they can, the “good” side can as well. The harder it is for the authorities to control a technology, the more democratic it is, because that simple means it is easier for people to speak their mind, to get access to information and to have more sides of the story. Yes, our authorities today are just as afraid today of new ways of spreading information as church was in the 15th century. Our new technologies, mobile phones, internet and so on are no more dangerous to man than the book print. Only that hopefully, authorities will not be able to control this new technology as they could control books and that is what I would say is the true essence of technological progress.