How the internet the Changed Malaysian Elections and the Dangers Future Internet Era Elections Face

The internet has changed America, the world and now Malaysia.

The National Front coalition of Malaysian political parties have ruled Malaysia since its independence. But the internet now threatens this domination of Malaysian politics. The Opposition composed of three main parties has bit into the two-thirds majority the National Front used to enjoy to rule with. That majority allowed the National Front to override legislation passed by the states and make amendments to the constitution.

As a result of this dominance, Malaysian government television broadcast little if any of the opposition's campaign. Tired of the single mouthpiece the Opposition supporters turned to the internet for news, specifically Malaysiakini, an independent online newspaper with a diminutive staff of 35.

But this is a good thing right? More outlets for more information for the Malaysian population to view and form and opinion from right?

For years the US was held captive by three liberal networks that dominated news outlets. Thanks to radio and cable news, conservatives now have an outlet. Some also contend that the internet is mostly conservative, but I've yet to see evidence of this claim.

But what are the dangers of the internet and politics? The answer is Google. Google and Yahoo are both the brainstorm of Standford alumni. They are the ones who write the code that determines what websites will appear when you type in Trustworthy New Commentary, in their search engine.

These handful of Standford educated computer wizards determine what sites will show up and the top of searches you type into their search engines. Depending on their formulas different sites will show up on page one or page 101 of your search?

How would you feel if the first page was laced with sites like Daily Kos or Huffington Post? How would you feel if the top hits were Laura Ingraham or Ann Coulter?

What is more worrisome is that Yahoo is waining in support. Google is taking over the search engine lead and running away with it. Will Google become the Big Brother George Orwell spoke of and determine what we should think? Worse yet, imagine if the government regulated the Google search engine formula?

What if I searched for Conservative New Commentary, or Liberal News Commentary? This still may not help. If results show either positive or negative articles about each. Imagine if the liberal search put out Daily Kos and Huffington Post type pages, and the conservative search would put out sites that derided Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham? Today, as I type in Conservative Bloggers, one of the most liberal blogs, Daily Kos shows up on page one which is most definitely not a conservative blog. How does this happen? Google won't say. It doesn't reveal what its formula is exactly, but there are parts of it that are known.

Can the Google formula be manipulated by some small time conservative blogger typing in a Minneapolis hotel? Yes, to some extent. A website's rank increases by the number of links it has pointing to it. So, by linking to Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham multiple times and not Daily Kos and Huffington Post in this post, I've incrementally increased the the rankings of Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham relatively compared to Daily Kos and Huffington Post.

With that in mind, please link to Air Force Blue, and other fine conservative bloggers on the Internet.