Centralized world power and Net censorship

Centralized world power and Freedom of Speech cannot coexist!

We live in a small world where the actual power structure is hidden and centralized. On the other hand, the Net is all about freedom of speech. Clearly, centralized power and the Net cannot coexist. It is obvious that centralized power is well entrenched so naturally it is the Net that has to back off. This backing off manifests itself in many ways such as malware, P2P clogging, complexity and cost of Internet access, sluggish roll-out, non standard components, obsolescence, information overload, lack of customization and so on.

But the most sinister factor is Google's dominance. The lack of competition allows Google to stick to its keyword centric syntactic strategy where it is able to censor websites much more easily. This SIGNAL vs NOISE kind of censorship is able to confuse even the most determined searchers. In any case, Google is more about Ads than about Search.

The only way to bypass such censorship seems to be to search on the basis of authors as opposed to keywords. This is the only way to keep the SIGNAL NOISE ratio from getting out of control. What is more worrying is not ideology, it is spin. This is the reason we should give up even on authors and follow only individual commenters. The logic is that authors are looking for numbers and only spins see propagation.

To follow individual commenters, we can click on their names, which is usually a link to their website or a page containing other comments made by them. We can also try and Google their name. Savvy commenters pick quirky (hopefully unique) screen names for this very purpose.

But never mind, here too, our rulers have found a way out: botnets. The common perception is that botnets are moronic spreaders of spam and some of the less moronic botnets even try and phish out our passwords. To a certain extent this is true because email is the purest form of addressability so our rulers need spam to dilute it. And also financial scams and economic hardship have forever been used to keep people under control. That such actions keep the insurance and security companies humming is welcome too.

In actual fact, botnets are highly sophisticated networks which are not only able to unceasingly dodge detection but also troll ALL forums and add to the NOISE everywhere. Even complex captchas are no deterrents to these sophisticated bots. It is amazing how many of the comments posted are actually from sophisticated trolls that never be exposed because these behave like human commenters and come from innocent IPs. Recent studies have confirmed that botnets use SEO techniques to capture search engine traffic on controversial keywords.

Moral of the story: Suspect anything and everything because PERCEPTION CONTROL is the biggest game in town.

Internet Censorship Alert

Internet Censorship Alert: Alex Jones exposes agenda to 'blacklist' dissenting sites (March 14, 2010) As I predicted, the Obama Administration is trying to shut down the Internet - at least the parts he doesn't like. Barack Obamas regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein has stated that he wants to ban conspiracy theories from the internet. Think about what this means - Every video, every website, every blog, every email, that exposes or just criticizes the government for any reason whatsoever could be labeled a "conspiracy" and taken down. Your home could be raided in the middle of the night, and you could be carted of to jail for criticizing the government. All they have to do is call it a "conspiracy theory". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqAWmBLFodE

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Huffington Post and Politico Lead Wave of Explosive Growth

Huffington Post and Politico Lead Wave of Explosive Growth
Press Release
Oct 22, 2008

http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2525

Huffington Post and Politico Lead Wave of Explosive Growth at Independent Political Blogs and News Sites this Election Season.

Political Blog Visitors Skew Older, Wealthier, More Male than Overall U.S. Internet Population.

Comsore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released a study of visitation to political blogs and news sites during the 2008 presidential election season, which showed strong gains at most sites compared to year ago. HuffingtonPost.com led among a group of selected stand-alone political blogs and news sites with 4.5 million visitors in September, up 472 percent versus year ago, while Politico.com attracted 2.4 million visitors (up 344 percent) and DrudgeReport.com saw 2.1 million visitors (up 70 percent).

“With each new election cycle, the Internet is playing a more significant role in shaping the stories of the day that are so crucial in formulating public opinion on issues and candidates,” said Andrew Lipsman, senior analyst at comScore. “That most mainstream news outlets now have their own political blogs is a testament to their increasing reach and influence. However, several independent blogs unaffiliated with larger media outlets paved the way in this space and are really beginning to enter the mainstream public consciousness with this current election cycle.”

Selected Stand-Alone* Political Blogs & News Sites

huffingtonpost.com
politico.com
drudgereport.com
realclearpolitics.com
freerepublic.com
capitol advantage
dailykos.com
townhall.com
newsbusters.org
worldnetdaily.com
talkingpointsmemo.com
michellemalkin.com
redstate.com
crooksandliars.com
rawstory.com
pollster.com
mediamatters.org
fivethirtyeight.com
cqpolitics.com
americablog.com

*Stand-alone refers to blogs unaffiliated with larger news properties, such as the New York Times Caucus Blog or Time’s“The Page”.

Some additional findings include:

· September represented the single biggest month on record for both HuffingtonPost.com and Politico.com since their respective launches.

· Several sites dedicated to political poll-watching achieved notable gains. RealClearPolitics.com, which tracks composites of polls by state, attracted 1.1 million visitors in September, up 489 percent versus year ago. Two other polling-oriented sites, Pollster.com with 194,000 visitors and FiveThirtyEight.com with 169,000 visitors, also saw notable traffic in September.

· The top conservative leaning blog, FreeRepublic.com, actually saw marginal declines versus year ago, though it still attracted nearly 1 million visitors in September. Other conservative blogs, such as Newsbusters.org (up 547 percent to 732,000 visitors), WorldNetDaily.com (up 55 percent to 636,000 visitors) and MichelleMalkin.com (up 140 percent to 247,000 visitors) saw strong gains.

Political Blog Visitors Skew Older and Wealthier Than Average Americans

Looking at the demographic profiles for the top three sites, HuffingtonPost.com, Politico.com and DrudgeReport.com, one can conclude that visitors to these sites tend to be older, wealthier, and more likely to be male than the average U.S. Internet user.

Of the three sites, Politico.com skewed the oldest with 23 percent of its visitors age 55 and older, while DrudgeReport.com skewed wealthiest, with 40 percent of its visitors earning at least $100,000 a year, and had the highest concentration of males at 57 percent. HuffingtonPost.com, the site with the largest audience, was the most similar of the three when compared to the overall U.S. Internet audience.
Posted by amolpatil2k at Wednesday, October 29, 2008
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