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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It?
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From: locogringo3/25/2012 11:08:41 AM
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Is Wikipedia the new Ministry of Truth? Long but frightening story about Democrats, Orwell and 1984

Orwell, the 'truth' and a troubling trend

As described by Orwell in his famous novel “1984,” the Ministry of Truth works constantly to update the past to bring it into alignment with the ruling party’s current propaganda. They do this through a massive campaign to falsify public records and to delete opposing ideas.

Winston Smith, the hero of “1984,” works at the Ministry of Truth, editing newspaper articles so they conform with the needs of the Party. Mind you, he does not work on the articles that will appear in tomorrow’s paper, but the ones that appeared in yesterday’s paper, or last year’s. It is his job to tidy up the past to make the world look like a place where nothing would work without the absolute control of Big Brother to guide us and protect us. And as a faithful apparatchik, Winston Smith is expected to edit history and then promptly forget that he has done so because to recognize his own deceit would mean disloyalty to the Party.

In other words, the Ministry of Truth was a fictional version of the Internet, or more specifically, of “Wikipedia” — that ever-changing truth machine that has conveniently replaced the bulky multi-volume “Encyclopedia Britannica” as everyman’s source of established knowledge. And because Wikipedia is entirely digital it actually allows Orwell’s worst nightmare of total information control to come true.

dailyinterlake.com
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