Untitled - witz cultural

375THE POLITICS OFHYPERTEXTothers were resigned. Hans Molnar, a German photographer who had joinedin earlier days, pointed out that "no one is in control ofthe internet and candictate where links end up . . . Do a search with any search engine [and] pornlinks are also listed amongst real fine art nude photography, so the only wayto avoid the whole thing [is] just dont have a web site and remain unknownl'The one photographerwho askedto jointhe listafter CNPN addedprominent links to hardcore for-pay sites explained that he felt forced to do so inorder to publicize his work because apparently more relevant (and more respectable)sites refused to indude his work because they classified nudes withpornography! The obvious power of Internet portals to censor the sites theychoose shows one side ofthe Internet. Students ofphotography can ofcoursestill search for "nude photography," but many will be put offwhen they encountera document that places advertisements for sexually explicit sites firstorthey will follow links to them before those of the art photographers. Hereis a case where censorship falls prey to the law of unintended circumstances.When considering the implications of Internet linking for these art photographers,I pointed out that "on the Web, links can also associate one's workwith unexpected or unwanted materials." A far more disturbing fact is that onthe Web, other people can add links to your documents! When applied to theWorld Wide Web, the open hypermedia systems described in chapter 1 permitothers to add links to any document. Of course, only users with access toa website with a server that has the requisite link services can read your documentswith links inserted by someone else, but such websites can be giantInternet portals like Yahoo, or they can be websites maintained by politicalparties, militant groups, NGOs, or indiriduals anywhere on the political spectrum.Any person or organization using Active Navigation's Portal M aximizerhas the power to place links in product advertisements, proposed legislation,political speeches, educational materials, newspaper articles, and scientificand scholarly writing. Imagine political opponents annotating each other'sspeeches, or Holocaust memorialists and Holocaust deniers annotating eachotherb sites. Of course, the original Web document remains unaffectedtheseare virfual documents, remember-but search engines like Google canrate the annotated document higher than the original one if enough peopleread it and link to it. True, websites using Portal Maximizer or similar softwaremust be open to public access, or they could not influence large numbersofreaders, but password-protected sites have their own danger: originalWeb authors have no way of knowing that their writings have been annotated,and hence they cannot respond. A final "ofcourse": readers do not have to followthe inserted links. Still, the abiliW to link unmoderated commentary to