Nothing lasts forever. Even on the internet.
Well, pictures might. Especially naughty ones. But after a while it becomes impossible to tell where they came from. That might be a good thing.
But I digress. You can look up phrases from day to day, month to month, year to year. Results you used to get you don't get anymore. Whole articles sometimes go dark, never to be seen again.
That's not so bad in itself. But as a race we've come to think of the web as the sum of all human knowledge. Which of course everyone is carrying around in their back pockets at all times. But it's not. It's a non-representative cross-section of thoughts, jokes, and abuse that can shrink as fast as it grew.
Well, pictures might. Especially naughty ones. But after a while it becomes impossible to tell where they came from. That might be a good thing.
But I digress. You can look up phrases from day to day, month to month, year to year. Results you used to get you don't get anymore. Whole articles sometimes go dark, never to be seen again.
That's not so bad in itself. But as a race we've come to think of the web as the sum of all human knowledge. Which of course everyone is carrying around in their back pockets at all times. But it's not. It's a non-representative cross-section of thoughts, jokes, and abuse that can shrink as fast as it grew.
2 comments:
What you can find on the internet as time goes by is a fairly big issue. Whether it's search terms that used to reliably lead you to particular websites that no longer do or the dreaded repeal of net neutrality in the US. In the past couple of years google, fb, twttr and other big tech corporations have implemented massive restrictions on what sites people can access - particularly those that espouse anti-war or anti-big business agendas.
But maybe that's not what you were referring to. It's true that sites disappear or drop so low in the search parameters that what you used to find on google's first page of results might now be on page 37 and who has time for that? One thing I've noticed with the blogs that must be paid for (like wordpress) is that they disappear fast if payment ceases. So far not blogspot, though.
Overall, I'd agree that we tend to have more faith in the internet as an information source than it really deserves. It is a source (if you know where to look and remember to bookmark what you want to save for a bit) but it can't be trusted to be the only one. Besides, when it's so easy to change text or edit images there's far too much too slippery to trust.
I like your phrase 'non-representative cross-section of thoughts, jokes, and abuse'.
There's some truth in each of these things. The leaders of Google, Twitter, Facebook, and a number of others often speak like utopians and act like venal businessmen. If you're a true techno-utopian this will come off as a betrayal. I'm not, really, and it strikes me as something close to a law of nature.
My thing is, any technology is by definition a set of tools. That's all it is. Not necessarily the only tool, not at all, and one should be prepared to use others.
There is nature, and there is culture. And some of culture is squeezed into bits and pixels and sent out over the grid. That's the part that seems to get all the attention nowadays. Admittedly, it's a part I spend much of my time in contact with as well, so I can't claim to be special in that regard.
I'm glad you liked that phrase. It seemed right in the moment.
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