FRIDAY THE 13TH IS GOING TO BE A VERY UNLUCKY DAY
FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT
LOS ANGELES, CALIF. (September 13, 1996) -- DisInformation, the most dangerous site in Cyberspace, launches today at www.disinfo.com. Part 'metazine' and part 'world class' search engine powered by a database of more than 30 million documents, DisInformation captures the most subversive, 'hidden' material on the World Wide Web and makes it easily accessible to the Web surfing masses.
DisInformation is a comprehensive Web directory for the subculture. The 'metazine' breaks down content into specialized categories on subjects of interest to a counterculture audience, including: Propaganda (exploring media manipulation); Counterintelligence (political and environmental issues, monitoring of the far right); Censorship; Revolutionaries (such as William Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Andy Warhol); Counterculture (conspiracy theory, UFOs, and general 'high weirdness' on the Web); and Newspeak (current events, indexed daily).
"DisInformation means 'LIES.' And we're using the word in an ironic sense," notes creative director Richard Metzger. "Through 'disinformation,' an organization like the CIA muddles the facts. Out of 400 books on the Kennedy assassination, maybe a quarter or more of them are written by CIA operatives merely to confuse the issue and discredit reputable writers and journalists (they become 'conspiracy theorists'). The CIA and others use disinformation to create a smokescreen, a hall of mirrors. We're telling the 'truth' (or at the very least offering up alternative information sources) and that will make their job a little more difficult."
DisInformation, an advertiser supported site, is a genre-specific aggregation of hundreds of websites, Web Zines, databases and articles which are reviewed, rated and indexed in the service's database. DisInformation will be accessible from Netscape's NetSearch page beginning next week, along with Yahoo!, Alta Vista, Excite and others.
"Our search engine is different from the others in as much as we do NOT try to be all things to all people," explains Metzger. "It's 'customized' for a particular audience. We're ranking selected higher quality sites first, such as 'The New York Times' site or 'The Nation's' or the 'Mother Jones' site so that someone looking for information on Bosnia for example will not have to sift through endless Web pages that say something like 'Hi, I'm Dave. I think it's terrible what's going on in Bosnia. Here's a picture of my dog."
"People should be able to get to what they want in the fastest most efficient way, but 'Dave's home page will be there too, just ranked a bit further down! This is a service for info-savvy people who want the best sources on the Web for current events, breakthroughs in the sciences, interesting sociological issues and more subversive materials like conspiracy theory stuff, UFOs, etc. That's the territory in Cyberspace that we're putting our flag in. We're an 'information agent' for the subculture and we've built the type of search engine that we'd like to use."
DisInformation will provide a unique portal to the radical movements flourishing on the World Wide Web and point users of the services toward the highest quality, most powerful and culturally important information the Internet has to offer. DisInformation's editorial content is culled from the most provocative and dangerous opinions on the Web, and is sure to test the limits of First Amendment rights.
Frequent visitors to DisInformation will be offered an expanded point of view and may form subconscious subject links in their minds. As they surf, they will notice a juxtaposition of information and multiple viewpoints; users will be able to formulate unbiased opinions as they observe the relationships between such topics as environmentally disastrous policies of specific multinational corporations and the fact that the food chain could completely collapse due to the widespread blindness in the wild honeybee population caused by increased ultra violet radiation exposure resulting from the damaged ozone layer.
DisInformation was developed by AND Interactive Communications, a Los Angeles-based interactive media studio. The project is being spun off into its own company, which is currently in discussions with several potential investors.
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InterActive Agency, Inc. - http://www.presscontact.com/iagency was an online marketing, public relations, and advertising firm. We specialized in driving traffic to Web sites and increasing product downloads. Our companies list server provided up-to-the-minute news on our cutting-edge clientele and projects.