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First Casualty

Entry 521, on 2007-04-27 at 16:19:47 (Rating 2, News)

I read an interesting opinion piece in the newspaper this morning, regarding the power of the Internet in distributing information, and how it could have changed historical events if it had been available in the past. The comment originated after New Zealand's national commemoration of war losses, ANZAC day, which was Wednesday this week.

THe commentator said he doubted whether a similar disaster to the botched landing at Gallipoli and similar events during World War I could happen again because of the impossibility of maintaining secrecy and a wall of propaganda as our government did during World War I.

Various technologies make secrecy almost impossible today. The Internet allows instant distribution of information without censorship. It allows balance against prevailing opinions and dogma. OK, it also allows distribution of uninformed opinion and false information, but any media source can be subject to this fault.

Cell phones with built-in still and movie cameras mean people can now record any event and distribute it to the world instantly. Again, its difficult to censor or control this information source.

So if news and pictures of the carnage and stupidity of World War I (and other wars) had been able to be distributed instantly to the world would it have made much difference? Yes, I think it would. Its true that people did have a misplaced loyalty to "king and country" back then, but I think some photos and first-hand commentary might have made a difference to how the war proceeded.

A similar mindset resulted from the 9/11 attacks on the US, yet the associated wars are now deeply unpopular. A lot of this must be due to the information made available through non traditional media (that is media not controlled by big business and government - mainly the Internet). They say that the first casualty of war is the truth, but with the Internet that might no longer be true.

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