le spin

Rumour has it that there are cyber mercenaries out there writing and trolling about the blogosphere, specifically those which were probably written 'by monkeys', as one politician so elegantly puts it. Of course, rumour probably has a lot of things, but as they say, no tree shakes with no wind, bruver.

I've always believed that bloggers believed their own hype. That your one out of the trillions of posts being churned out each day, will change the world. It's disturbing enough to read self-important tracts and manifestos of destruction from obscure bloggers. But it gets downright scary when governments start to believe every single line.

In this age of the "publish" button, it's so easy to forget that news, to be believed, must be verified. Chain emails and sms are forwarded with no regard for the authenticity of its contents, save for the simple fact that so-and-so thought it was important enough to broadcast to everyone in the address books. Biased and one-sided 'citizen journalism' gain popularity, reflecting the general mistrust of mainstream corporate-owned media. I fear a generation ignorant of quality reporting and journalism might not be that far of, with this continuous stream of sensational gossip and spectacular rumors, however well-intentioned.

Reckless as that may be, one cannot help but feel that putting hired guns in the picture borders on overkill. Putting aside the question of public funds for simplicity's sake, is there a real need for a government to be investing all this effort in fruitlessly stemming something a larger section of the community already has no access to? Is this so much of a national priority that news outlets devote so much ink to it? Why does the government care so much about blogs that it has to let everyone know that it is considering, and thinking, and planning to throw the book against these recalcitrant bloggers?

I dunno about you, but I'm starting to see things go round and round.