Andrew Orlowski (born 1966) is a British columnist, investigative journalist and former executive editor of the IT news and opinion website The Register. In 2021, Orlowski became a business columnist for The Daily Telegraph.

Journalism career

In his youth, Orlowski had been involved in a school magazine called Within These Walls, and a fanzine named Paradise Demise. In 1994, having moved to London, he became computer correspondent for Private Eye magazine. The New Statesman and The Independent Orlowski subsequently worked as a columnist and executive editor at IT news and opinion website The Register for 19 years, leaving in May 2019; he was based in San Francisco for seven years in the early 2000s.

Orlowski began writing for The Daily Telegraph in September 2019, becoming a regular columnist on business matters in March 2021.

"Googlewashing"

In 2003, Orlowski coined the term googlewashing to describe the potential for accidental or intentional censorship of concepts through the way search engines like Google Search operate. commenting on worldwide anti-war demonstrations had stated that "there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion", and suddenly the term "the Second Superpower" acquired widespread currency. The blogger's piece was so well linked and so widely commented upon online that the first few pages of Google hits in a search for "the second superpower" all were about his new meaning, with the original anti-war meaning relegated to "other links not shown because they are deemed to be irrelevant."

Writings on techno-utopianism

Orlowski is a frequent writer on techno-utopianism. Concerning the political influence of Google, Orlowski has said: "The web is a secular religion at the moment and politicians go to pray at events like the Google Zeitgeist conference. Any politician who wants to brand himself as a forward-looking person will get himself photographed with the Google boys. [...] It's the big regulatory issue of the next 10 years: how politicians deal with Google. If the web is as important as the politicians say, it seems odd that one company sets the price and defines the terms of business."

Commenting on the vision of the technological singularity, a future time when people and machines would combine to form a new superintelligence, and at least a part of humanity might overcome biological limitations like death and disease, he has stated that "The Singularity is not the great vision for society that Lenin had or Milton Friedman might have. It is rich people building a lifeboat and getting off the ship." He was Assistant Producer of Adam Curtis' 2011 BBC TV series on techno-utopianism, All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace.

Criticism of English Wikipedia

Since the 2000s, Orlowski has criticized the English Wikipedia. In 2004, he approvingly quoted a Register reader who had called Wikipedia enthusiasts "the Khmer Rouge in diapers". Writing about Wikipedia in 2005, he observed: "Readability, which wasn't great to begin with, has plummeted. Formerly coherent and reasonably accurate articles in the technical section have gotten worse as they've gotten longer." In a 2005 BBC article, Bill Thompson said Orlowski was "scathing in his dismissal of the site as a cult-like organisation where faith triumphs rationality, and even suggests we look at English Wikipedia as 'a massively scalable, online role-playing game' where 'players can assume fictional online identities and many "editors" do just that'." As a columnist for The Daily Telegraph, Orlowski has criticised Wikimedia Foundation fundraising, arguing that the organisation has far more money than its appeals make people believe.

References

  • in the Internet archive