Internet, an expression of freedom from the past.

For those of us who were there when the Internet was made commercially viable for ordinary citizens, we remember the Internet as an exciting peer to peer network connection of computers across industries, across homes.

Back then and this was in the early nineties, the Internet was a means to send emails on nerdy Unix screens and that was the most amazing thing to do : to be able to communicate without having to send a post card or even call someone (they had systems of making trunk calls at the time). So little effort and yet such sublime impact was this minimal effort on the intention to communicate!

The other obvious advantage of such a network was the availability of sharing content which could be books, music and your private porn stash pictures (who can forget those?) which was the 'fun' bit on the spectrum of what the internet had to offer. However, no one did take this advantage of network sharing all too seriously until now.

The internet grew on the one feature that had fascinated us ever since we learnt about it and that was the will to communicate, to know and to be aware of the rest of the world. There were no stinking data protection laws back then, no scurvy jihadi trying to pass on knowledge of making explosives and the like. Truly, the world back in the 90s was a great time to be in, there was hope, there was that will to learn more about the world around us where we couldn't possibly reach or go to.

I remember finding endless invaluable archives of information, unbiased information on the internet about wonderful places, lovely people in parts of the world whom I had never met, whom I could not and may not ever meet. The internet back then was perfect.

What the internet has now become is tragic as back then we had a friendly impartial tool at our disposal: the Google Search engine. However, now the same tool has now become a sharp scythe ready to slice off information from our search results which the 'powers that be' find 'inappropriate'

One particular example I found was when I was writing my book , 'The Incidental Jihadi', I found that the research I had done to detail my book which included looking up the dreamy 'Rawanda Kalesi' castle I found that the Google Search managed to filter out the result despite searching for the castle.

There were no typos in my search and it would not come up only months after I had completed my book. It was most eerie: I managed to go back to website showing the Rawanda Kalesi only when I searched for the URL months after.

So, Google Search filters out results where it deems fit, Wikipedia, the inaccurate encyclopaedia full of dodgy resource material has become our unofficial Britannica despite it being found to be completely inaccurate at times. Which makes me think just one thing:

The internet was a great place to be, the promise it had was immense in terms of information archives, facts and staying in touch through email (and now facebook, twitter etc). Sadly, it is hardly that anymore which does make me question:

The powers that be who decided to put in the 'data protection laws'  laws that disallow people from learning about the real world are powerful, Right now they are winning. Right now we are losing!

#internet#freedom