"Big Brother Is Watching You"

For those of us that read George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the post's title will probably still elicit a chilling response.   For the entire year of 1984, I had a nagging suspicion that the United States would fall prey to some insidious takeover.  When 1984 ended, and America was still free of the total domination and control exercised over Oceania by Big Brother, the dictator whose surveillance of citizens was ubiquitous, I felt a sense of relief.   While we have a few modern-day equivalents to totalitarianism, China seems the best example of effectively controlling its population and striking fear in the hearts of dissidents.

My post today, however, does not deal with nations, it focused on the internet.  When I established my first e-mail account in 1997, spyware did not exist, nor did the need for it.  Granted, computers had much slower speeds, and the internet did not offer the mind-boggling array of worldwide information that it does today, but I also didn't receive daily doses of newsletter subscriptions that I didn't initiate.  Neither had my friends ever been hacked, and we didn't live in fear of computer viruses.

Since my profession requires hours of time communicating online with prospective candidates, I had little desire to join Facebook or establish a Twitter account.  Several friends hounded me until I finally succumbed last year and created a Facebook account.  Now, since I have a blog, I recently signed up for Twitter as well.  Enter Big Brother.  Google selects the results it will present in my searches, Facebook chooses what ads I see and who it suggests as possible friends, and about.com keeps sending me newsletters I don't want because it tracks the sites I access on the internet.  Eli Pariser has written The Filter Bubble, a book detailing the Big Brother-type control sites have over us and don't bother to inform us about it.

 I say, "Enough!"  I am totally over this type of intrustion and manipulation.  When I search for information, I want it to include sources that might not exist on my list of favorites or play to my political likes and dislikes.  How else can we be truly informed citizens, if we don't have access to a variety of perspectives on a topic?  Spare me from some faceless organization deciding what I should read and what I shouldn't.  To hear Eli Pariser's speech at the TED conference in March, access the following video.  Then stand with me in demanding more openness and less control from internet sites focused on advertising dollars and pandering to its visitors.