The Greatest Challenge to Democracy

          If one were to pick up the internet in their hands - like a magazine - and flip through the pages, what would be their impression?

          First:  An abundance of advertising - from flashing spot-ads to huge profiles of businesses, services and products.  On the surface this seems to be the main content.

          Next:  Pictures.  Huge depositories of pictures - everything imaginable, but mostly naked flesh.

          Then:  Lists - the stuff of search engines, which categorize the content within the magazine endlessly - and 'chats' which are lists presented as conversation.

          After this:  Poetry.  Yes, poetry dominates the written content on the web - followed by articles of journalism and research - fiction and recipes.

          So:  Artworks, multimedia, film - and snippets of music.

          Under the surface the whole turns on its head - music taking the most pages, code-wise - and then pictures.  Remember we are casually flipping through the pages of a magazine - so the surface is all that registers - no one digs in to the processes involved in creating the magazine - How boring.

          So what we have in our hands is a magazine over-filled with advertisements, with pictures of naked people - uninteresting lists and chatter - poetry (most of which is attrocious) - articles and research of only targeted interest - and what looks like something which might one day entertain - and a fringe element which borders on interesting.

          The internet is a magazine who's content is determined by readership.  It has built in to it this incredible lag-time, which means that no matter how quick the audience changes their tastes, the old magazine will always remain.

          A magazine which will never go out of existence - costs great sums to subscribe to - yet advertising is cheap.

          We must decide what the magazine of being human is about - who is editor - us or it.

          And perhaps this is a challenge to "Democracy."