Search engines are search engines and that is all.

The Golden Shield Project, popularly called “Great Firewall of China”, censors Internet, it controls the accessibility of websites in China. Even though it cannot limit access to all the desired websites completely, the idea is to make it very hard to access these sites, and eventually people give up. It mainly blocks information relating to Tibet, Tiananmen Square, Dalai Lama and Pro-Democracy sites. There have been reports that people trying to access these sites repeatedly have been arrested. This politically motivated censorship prevents the people from knowing the truth, access to information and gives no room for flow of new/other ideas (democracy).

Even the thought of being controlled and snooped at is scary and makes us uncomfortable.

This censorship is criticized by one and all, for controlling information. At a bigger picture, it is the flow of ideas, that is being controlled. China’s censorship is a fact, but are we, the ones in the “free world” also unconsciously moving towards this, even though not very apparent? This is why I think so…

Internet has become the primary source of information for most of us. Google and other search engines, which were just used to search when we couldnt find what we wanted, have become the gateways, through which we find whatever information we want. Looking at the usage of internet(and information in a broader sense),earlier, we used to stick to a few websites and they acted as information source, few used a set of websites, others used other set, with all permutation and combination, and there was a fantastic mix of opinion, different point of views, different analysis which would result in better understanding of the event/situation etc… The recent usage pattern shows that we are increasingly using search engines to get what we want(obvious right!), we google what we want and read the pages presented before us, they have become more than just search engines, they have become information gateways.

The problem is - we all use the same gate. Google does a fantastic job in presenting in front of us the 10 best pages based on keywords we supply… for most of us these 10 pages(or maybe 20) are the bible, we make our decision and come to a stand based on what we read in these 10 pages.

We will all be influenced by the same articles, same point of view, same ideas. Is it a bad thing after all?

In 1980’s there was a fantastic Apple Macintosh ad, where we all had become like zombies, being used to the same things and, there is a call to open our eyes, and look at new product(ideas).

Search engines were primarily made to help find information and still do that and only that, but of late they have become information gateways, unconsciously, we have made it one. With the whole world depending on a single gateway, leading to same source of information limits the flow of new ideas, different point of views… and might lead to idiocracy…

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