Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Moles and Pandemics

I attempted to locate a book quote to open up my post on the internet, as I don't exactly have access to every book I have ever read stored in a secret compartment in my dorm room (yet). One site comes up not as advertised by google, but merely at the top of the results. I click and look at the site, which is pretty much a carbon copy of sparknotes, and not only do you need to pay for a membership, but multiple advertisements popped up, blocking my view of the computer screen.

This is sad. Very very sad. It doesn't, however, stop this from being true. Money doesn't make the world go 'round, but it sure helps out. And people will go to great lengths to get money. The incidents regarding the false college advertisements were definitely no mistake for this reason. Misleading the public like this for the sole purpose of earning more money pushes beyond self-love into selfishness, as it deprives people of information with deception. At the same time, an unfortunate truth exists where those with money tend to float above the law. Luckily, in this case, the money doesn't seem to be exempting the site from their lies, and they're mildly taking responsibility for their actions. If what they were doing were any more profitable, there are high chances that they may have tried to patch things up with money and tell all parties involved to forget what they had learned and what had happened.
At the same time, laws pertaining to the internet can be hard to enforce, even with extreme technological aid. One cannot be everywhere at once, scanning constantly for validity and content. This is part of the reason why these sorts of advertisements and their activities slip under the radar. For example, internet hacktivist organization Anonymous has leaked insane amounts of documents from multiple websites, politicians, and organizations (most of them for good causes, like against Qaddafi and the Westboro Baptist Church). Yet have any of them been caught yet? Perhaps, but the vast size of the organization and the anonymity of the realm of the web make the complete termination of the association an impossible feat. This, unfortunately, is the case with the dishonest and greedy on the internet. You can whack one mole, but five more will pop up in other little cracks of the web.
Yet can people really tell the difference, like the claims near the end of the article? Sure, we manage to scroll down to avoid the advertised links, but marketing is like a supervirus, constantly mutating to continue to infect the public. People must be starting to realize that advertised links to fool people don't work, hence my stumbling upon the sparknotes wannabe site (called bookrags, yeah, don't go there) for a quote to open up the post. At the same time, I can only hope our logical antibodies can learn how to spot these stealthier hidden ad-traps. The best we can do is try to adapt with the disease and legally strike as much down as possible.

Because of all-out human greed, I never was able to get the real quote that I wanted to use, so this won't be exact. I do recall vaguely a character named Julia stating that she "follows the little rules in order to break the big ones" in Orwell's famous novel, "1984".
Oh, how true it can be.

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