Once Upon a Time There Was An Internet

Like a bag of sweets, the new commercial internet (NCI) offers quick, comforting, tasty bites to comfort you. Unfortunately, that comfort is not just quick, but also cheap, shallow and designed to dumb you down. If you came to the internet by, say, the year 2000, you already know the difference: once upon a time the net delivered (relatively) honest answers to honest inquiries, but since then it has been corrupted to promote only government and corporate propaganda. The NCI, like the world of television, exists not to explain, but to distort your view of reality. If you came to the internet anytime after 2005, you need to understand the dramatic changes that have been made to engineer the online experience.

    

Once upon a time there was an internet which looked a bit like an unmapped electronic jungle. Early users tended to tiptoe slowly into what we called the 'world wide web' (of www fame) before breaking into a run that became a marathon. Discoveries were everywhere to be found. Well-named, the web expanded away from whoever entered in seemingly endless connected circles of information. For anyone who enjoyed libraries, here was its ultimate incarnation; a vast cornucopia of the human mind, stretching to the horizon and beyond. 

Like all webs, it was also a trap, but for a few glorious years the internet remained the opportunity of a lifetime, whether you were hunting for secrets or just a bouncy-castle for the brain. By the year 2000 the internet had begun reshaping every form of social and commercial behaviour, millions were piling onto the major platforms. But not long afterwards, quietly -unnoticed at first- the net began to close.  

On the morning of September 11th 2001, I was stuck in slow traffic on the existential hamster-wheel of the M25 heading home to a small farm-cottage in Kent. The radio broadcast was interrupted by the announcement that an aircraft had crashed into one of the World Trade Centre towers in Manhattan. Having no mental picture of these towers (I was largely indifferent to Americana in those days) I payed little attention. Twenty minutes later came the announcement that the second tower had been struck by a second aircraft and it appeared that America was "under attack". The implications were horrendous.

I got home in time to watch three buildings explode into dust, and remained glued to the television until midnight, trying in vain to absorb what had happened. We all have memories from that day. What followed -the speeches, threats, invasions and wars were predictable enough. But for once, the politicians were not exaggerating when claiming that this event had "changed everything". After 9/11, nothing was ever the same again -and central to the many, many changes was the internet itself. 

By 2001, millions -myself included- had already begun watching independent web-commentators as a preferred alternative to mainstream media 'news'. None seemed to have a monopoly on 'truth' but several offered analysis and background information that I found far superior to the likes of the BBC. In the specific aftermath of 9/11, however, the gap between the 'official' story and the observations made by certain independent researchers was -literally- shocking. 

I am not a scientist, but have a working grasp of the laws of physics, and that, for me, was where the official 9/11 narrative fell to pieces. In 2001, however, I had yet to realise how very much mainstream media relies on the audience being ignorant, uneducated, lazy, dog-tired or disinterested. But online I found my way to intelligent, sceptical reporting that posed important questions the BBC and such seemed frightened to ask. The very last thing the media wanted was the public questioning what they were told.  

In contrast, I was beginning to see that the very first thing the public should do is closely interrogate any "official" story -particularly where violent death is concerned. It was plain (to me) that 9/11 had split the public into factions with a range of 'beliefs' regarding what actually happened. By far the strongest evidence was to be found on the internet, where a whole cast of concerned professionals began congregating to 'debunk' the absurdities and lies peddled by the governmental 'authority figures'.

Then three important changes took place regarding online information. 

First off, 

the SEARCH feature on Google -a crucially important springboard to any online inquiry- no longer produced anything like an 'honest' selection of results. Anyone and everyone who had dared question the 9/11 fairy-tale was labelled a "conspiracy theorist" and their content buried beneath a heap of "official" commentary. The term "9/11 Truther" became adopted with pride (by sceptics) and as an insult (by mainstream talking heads).  

The corruption of the SEARCH engines coincided with the demonisation of the most public refuseniks, notably the hugely popular right-wing internet iconoclast Alex Jones, whose Infowars website had become the go-to for cynics and critics as well as theorists of every kind. (Two decades later, Jones was -last week- found guilty of wrongspeak in some American kangaroo -court and fined punitive damages of $49,000,000. That is how far the establishment would eventually go to silence dissent from its monopoly on 'truth'.)

The second internet innovation 

was the arrival of a new online phenomenon -the fake "9/11 Truth" websites. By 2007 the original and best websites on this subject were forced to compete with a seemingly endless barrage of  supposed '9/11 truther' sites, often stuffed with clearly ridiculous theorising backed with little more than wild speculation. Naturally, Google ruthlessly promoted these sites alongside the excellent work of highly-qualified researchers and whistleblowers. Eventually, the important, authentic websites were buried in the rigged SEARCH results and fell from view. From here on, newcomers and latecomers to the 9/11 controversy were frequently unable to seperate the wheat from the chaff, with many turning their backs on the entire issue in frustration- precisely the desired result. 

These crafty "fake truth" websites were just the start of  the overall explosion in fake news that has poisoned popular culture in the twenty-first century. Youtube is now thoroughly littered with state-sponsored phoney websites  offering carefully-controlled "alternative" commentary on a whole range of subjects -commentary designed only to confuse and/or defuse genuine dissent or opposition.   

The third and most dramatic change

to the web was the arrival of open, outright censorship - banning individuals from posting content or appearing on major platforms. I will briefly recount my own experience. On May 25th 2018 I wrote a short post protesting the arrest of Tommy Robinson -Britain's very own Emmanuel Goldstein -the "most hated man in Britain" (according to the Guardianistas). Within an hour that post had been read over two thousand times and was rapidly going viral. [Read it HERE]

Quite suddenly, all traffic to the 99EndOf  blog stopped dead. Then I recieved an email telling me I was banned from posting or linking in any way to Facebook. Since that day, this blog has been beneath the boot of the Google algorithm, never promoted, never linked or advertised, and never easy to find. 

On August 18th 2018, having heard that Alex Jones -and others- had been permanently banned from Youtube, I recorded a short video  titled Free Speech Has Been Cancelled, uploaded it and placed it on this blog. Without bothering to tell me, Youtube simply deleted it and closed my video channel -which is, when you think about it,  somewhat ironic.           

In the four years since, various excellent and original commentators have been disappeared altogether from Youtube and Facebook, or placed in the algorithmic internet-ghetto reserved for wrongthinkers. 

In summary, where anything even slightly controversial is concerned the SEARCH engines do no such thing as 'search'. Instead, the user is offered a carefully-curated list of what the establishment wants you to believe, complete with bogus "fact-checking" and links to "trusted sources". Meanwhile, countless videos, essays, websites, blogs and books are vanishing -either beneath heaps of mainstream junk being pumped online by the usual suspects, or simply erased by anonymous, invisible webmasters. And if you complain too loudly -or your brand of wrongthink gets too popular- in the end they just switch you off. 

Other tricks and techniques are also in play - certain popular 'alternative' websites have a habit of loading up either slowly or not at all -something extremely easy for the webgods to arrange. 

I confess I do miss the internet -the one we used to have- because I was always a library geek. But Google, like Youtube, is now too often the library from Hell, where there is no librarian  to tell you that the book you want is on the top shelf of row twelve in room 351, just a robot which insists that you should try these 4,776 'similar' books first.      

It's a dreadful weakness in greybeards like myself to fondly recall better times in the past, but in this case it's not sentimentality but a genuine sense of loss that arises when I'm ploughing my way across the arid wasteland of the New Controlled Internet. Once upon a time, there really was an internet.

Ian Andrew-Patrick

99endof supports no political party or ideology. The individual is what matters here, and the freedoms for which we are now obliged to fight.

Many thanks to readers for supporting 99EndOf throughout the last two years. Our continued existence depends on visitors spreading the links and information among their friends and colleagues. Please do likewise whenever you can. This is a time to prepare ourselves for what is inevitably coming.. Your help, as always, is very much appreciated.