"Orwell's oversight"





Any instance where the establishment's official line is contradicted by the communications revolution. Orwell suggested a society where citizens were constantly watched and controlled by surveilence technology. Instead we live in a world where everyone is watched by everyone else. "The rulers of the world" are no exception.





The following article from CNN is worth reading, as is the book, 1984 by George Orwell, a novel which changed my life:

CNN: We're Living 1984 Today



We live in a world that George Orwell predicted in "1984." And that realization has caused sales of the 1949, dystopian novel to spike dramatically upward recently -- a 9,000% increase at one point on Amazon.com.

1984 has become a victim of its own success. A vision so compelling it has enchanted many. Including those in positions of power. An inevitable vision of our future in fact as opposed to fiction. However to criticise it as inaccurate factual prophecy, with a key oversight, is only to notice a distinction between fantasy and reality. I'm not arguing the book is any less worthwhile. Instead I am saying those who mistake it for reality are living in an oppressive fiction.

But the internet's all-seeing-eye works both ways, we can see them just as they can see us. I call this fact, 'Orwell's oversight'.

— Nick Margerrison (@NickMargerrison) June 10, 2013

"Orwell's oversight" relates to why the internet is so successful and why it represents a dramatic change to the balance of power. In short: the information superhighway sends traffic both ways. The watchers are being watched and "Big Brother" is also a prisoner of the web.





Or as anti-hero Rorschach says in The Watchmen "I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me!"



In the UK the death of Ian Tomlinson is a good example. Initially a report was dictated to the media on the 2nd of April 2009 which described a case where In the UK the death of Ian Tomlinson is a good example. Initially a report was dictated to the media on the 2nd of April 2009 which described a case where evil protesters attacked heroic police officers who were trying anxiously to save a poor man who lay helpless on the ground dying . Then, "Orwell's oversight" kicked in and a member of the public submitted footage of Tomlinson being anything but helped by the police.





One of many pictures revealed by Orwell's Oversight

The Guardian had source material to work with which was impossible to dismiss.



Ultimately this has real impact and forced the issue resulting in an apology from the police this month: Previously such thuggery would have been impossible to report because it would likely only have been supported by word of mouth testimony. However thanks to our "surveillance society" that was not the case in 2009 andhad source material to work with which was impossible to dismiss.Ultimately this has real impact and forced the issue resulting in an apology from the police this month: Ian Tomlinson's family win apology from Met police over death in 2009, Guardian.





There are numerous other examples, around the world, of "Orwell's oversight" catching out the authorities. I welcome examples in the comments section and will update this entry to include more over time. Big Brother could tell his citizens what he wanted and they had no way of countering him but in 2013 the reality is quite different, drone attacks cannot be covered up, revelations from the likes of Wikileaks won't go away and evidence of the disparity between what the establishment claims to represent and actually is will continue to frustrate their agenda.



This has undoubtedly caught them by surprise more often than not. The establishment is used to a more compliant and controlled broadcast media supplemented by newspapers which are, in the main, ignored by the masses. It's important to remember the distinction between the print media and the broadcasters, one is licenced directly by the powers that be and the other is not. This accounts for their different editorial directions.





Another aspect of "Orwell's Oversight" though is the fact the net allows anyone to give direct feedback and offer a counter narratives to the establishment's online representatives:

Yes, we've noticed you are keen to promote web censorship. @David_Cameron @BBCBreakfast

— Nick Margerrison (@NickMargerrison) August 8, 2013

Advertisers and politicians have always fantasised that people passively consume the media, believing everything it says, and accept it as an authoritative source of information. Personally I don't believe this was ever the case, there's a slight of mind trick played on people in the media industry that silence is consent.





I can't be the only one who remembers people mockingly saying "oh, yeah it must be true if it was in the papers, ha ha". Furthermore as a child I used to love listening to my Dad take the piss out of the "wankers" on the telly. I always assumed that's how most watched it, with a proverbial pinch of salt. If anything the advent of the net has confirmed this belief.



Tune in to a TV show and watch the level of stick the presenter gets on Twitter while hosting a mainstream show. Previously media "stars" and politicians were protected from this because the broadcaster only sent traffic one way and responses top their message were always filtered. Silence was wrongly taken to imply consent or satisfaction by many.





Finally "Orwell's oversight" relates to any new policy regarding the 'communications revolution' which will inevitably make a problem for the establishment in the long term. David Cameron's attempts at net censorship in the UK are a good example. He intends to apply filters to the internet which allow you to opt-in if you want to view pornographic sites and any others your ISP wants to include in the filter. In Big Brother's dictatorship this would mean one thing, in the real world it means information on which MPs and bureaucracies do and do not choose to allow porn into their computers.



A Twitter follower of mine referenced this with a mention of the awful embarrassment the MP (and ex-colleague of mine) Jacqui Smith endured when her husband was caught paying to view porn with public money:

#orwellsoversight Yes. Irony of net censorship idea is that it will not be long until we see which MPs do / do not use porn. @metalgordy

— Nick Margerrison (@NickMargerrison) August 6, 2013

The word "apocalypse" means "revealing". Perhaps those who thought we faced a human holocaust in December 2012 simply misunderstood this. If anything we've seen a very large number of 'revealing' stories at the moment, many of which would have been suppressed by the establishment without the force of "Orwell's Oversight" behind them. Wikileaks, NSA, Jimmy Savile (establishment paedophile in UK) and even the UK P arliament's expenses scandal were all pushed forward by the fact the journalists involved knew the information could be spread without the media if necessary.





The new dynamic is simple, we live in a world where everyone has access to a global communications system. Those who have been awarded a licence to broadcast by the establishment are becoming irrelevant. The full consequences of this have not yet been allowed to play out but they already suggest a very different world to the one Orwell predicted in 1984.



