No one (still) expects the Spanish Inquisition ... do they?

I am mildly perplexed by my response to Week 4 readings on my course, Digital Culture: Being Human in the Information Technology Age, at the ANU. I ask myself repeatedly, “why am I not more concerned? Why am I comparatively relaxed about the future?” It’s a worry (for me if no one else) because I’m not naïve. So, the erstwhile left-wing activist in me wonders why I’m seemingly complacent in the face of evidence of increasing concentration of access to and control over the world’s information in the hands of a few (just one?) giant corporation(s)? I don’t have an entirely satisfactory answer; personally or intellectually.

Siva Vaidhyanathan in the Introduction to The Googlisation of Everything and Eli Parser in the Introduction to The Filter Bubble both make compelling cases for what one could describe as citizen vigilance or oversight and greater transparency over Google and (by implication) any information platform or gatekeeper exhibiting monopoly tendencies in the digital age. Parser’s observation (in 2011) that a paradigm-shift occurred in December 2009 with the personalisation of Internet searching seems beyond dispute seven years after the fact. As both Parser and Vaidhyanathan observe / predict / caution-against the processes of Internet searching – particularly the cultural, technological and market dominance (perhaps even hegemony) of Google – have moved with startling speed from the domain of ‘cute new idea from the geeks in Silicon Valley’ to a position of ubiquity.

John Milton. Pic: Cambridge University

Omnipresent and perhaps omnipotent, the Google search may become so powerful, so influential – even essential - that if it continues unchecked, with little or no scrutiny, and outside any semblance of democratic framework, future generations may not think at all of its corporate construct, its imperatives or the technology’s mechanics. Google – like the sun to Neolithic humans – will simply ‘Be’. The power of information technology itself, the deep as well as superficial benefits we derive and enjoy from search engines such as Google (my personal spectrum of Internet searching in the last few days includes finding the complete text of John Milton’s Areopagitica for ENGL3005 at the ANU to John Oliver’s critique of Donald Trump[1] and much in between) may increasingly be taken for granted, seen almost as a natural part of the human condition rather than a purposeful project at risk of accelerating beyond public accountability.

The history of convergence that permits (possibly encourages) information industry monopolies, recounted in Wednesday’s lecture on the Course, coupled to the increasingly sophisticated (and secret) algorithms at the heart of rapidly developing technological capabilities of both hardware and software do justify the questions and concerns raised by Parser and Vaidhyanathan. One cannot help wondering, however, if their articles / books from 2011 were – even at the point of publication – already too late; urging us to close the stable door long after (in Information Technology terms) the Google horse had bolted.

As Vaidhyanathan points out, by 2011 the dynamics of the relationship between us and ‘the machine’ had already been irrevocably changed. We are no longer Google’s customers (allowing the possibility that we might have been, once upon a time) “we are its product.” We may see ourselves as purposeful seekers of information, freely and consciously selecting Google as our search engine of choice. The reality may indeed be opposite. We are data packets being delivered to any corporate entity willing to pay.

A partial explanation for my relative comfort about our current circumstances (but not a justification arguing against the need to protect the future through citizen vigilance within a democratic framework) may be found in the past; with John Milton’s Areopagitica oddly enough. It is a famous historical text sometimes misrepresented as a defence of unfettered free speech when in fact its reach is much more modest. It is a powerfully argued case against pre-publication (but not post-publication) censorship and an appeal to legislators not to sanction a single all-powerful, state-sanctioned publishing house and system of official licensing of published works – all that’s fit to print so to speak.

The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco

The optimist in me sees parallels between Milton’s period (and his recent past age) and ours. By which I mean, humans protected and extended their access to and use of information, including written works. (To be clear: I don’t advocate a return to Medieval practices that would hang, draw and quarter people who illegally download Game of Thrones.)

The Protestant Reformation emerged as opposition to the Pope’s omnipotence routinely enforced by his agents using brutality and violence. Radicals were burned at stakes for diversifying and democratising access to information (e.g. printing the Bible in languages other than Latin). An oligarch – it could just as easily have been a Chinese Emperor or Russian Czar – sought to exercise total control over their world’s information – the content (words in Latin), platform (the book), delivery (the priesthood), access (attend church and hear the words being read out by a priest). The algorithms of the day, governing who got access to which packets of data, were set secretly by Cardinals in locked rooms.

Francisco De Goya - Inquisition

We got beyond the copyright protection practices of the Spanish Inquisition. The optimist in me believes / hopes an engaged citizenry, producing content (even if it’s no more than cat videos at times) as well as consuming content, will find was to survive, circumvent, use but not succumb to Vaidhyanathan’s ‘Googlisation’.

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGc2nN9OguQ from ‘Last Week Tonight’ Show on HBO