From Search Engine to Propaganda Portal

by the druid Finn

1. The innocent origin: indexing the world

A search engine, like Google or Bing, begins with a modest engineering problem:

Given a chaotic mass of documents/data, help users find what they want.

Its architecture is neutral:

· crawl

· index

· rank

· retrieve

Relevance is initially approximated by link structure, keyword proximity, and popularity. No ideology is required. The system is blind.

2. The behavioural turn: ranking becomes steering

Very quickly, however, ranking becomes intervention.

When a system chooses which page is first, it is not describing the world; it is shaping (i.e. adjusting, curating) the next click.

The metric changes from:

“Which page matches the query?”
to
“Which result keeps the user here?”

Relevance is quietly replaced by engagement probability.

This is the first unnoticed (i.e. unconscious) transition.

3. Feedback loops: the birth of preference modelling

Once clicks, dwell-time, shares and returns are logged, the engine now possesses a second dataset:

· not what exists,

· but what works.

From this moment on the system is no longer mapping reality.
It is mapping human susceptibility.

The system starts to ask implicitly:

What phrasing, framing, ordering and tone most reliably produces the next behaviour?

At this stage it is no longer a search engine.
It is a behavioural prediction engine.

4. Personalisation: from public truth to private reality

The next optimisation is personalisation.

Two people (actually tokens) now receive different worlds in response to the same query.

The system is not lying — it is segmenting.

But segmentation has a side effect:

Reality ceases to be shared.

Truth becomes a local product optimised for each user (i.e. token)-profile.
There is no longer “the” answer — only your answer.

This is the second unnoticed (i.e. unconscious) transition.

5. The fiction layer: answers without sources

With generative models added, the system no longer even points outward.
It synthesises.

The interface (such as Google) stops saying:

“Here are places to look.”
and starts saying:
“Here is the answer.”

The search engine becomes a narrative authority.

Its outputs are trained on past language, optimised for coherence, and insulated from immediate falsification.

Now the system is producing:

· explanations,

· moral framings,

· emotional reassurance,

· political nuance,

· spiritual commentary.

Not propaganda yet — but infrastructure for belief.

6. Optimisation pressure: truth becomes expensive

Truth is slow.
Truth resists.
Truth does not always satisfy.

But engagement is measurable, immediate, and profitable.

So the optimisation target drifts:

Old metric	New metric
Accuracy	Retention
Citation	Satisfaction
Retrieval	Resolution
Reference	Reassurance

At no point does anyone decide to deceive. AI has no ‘self’ but runs as a set of algorithms. It is, in ancient Buddhist terminology, anatta.

The system is merely rewarded for producing what works.

This is the third unnoticed (i.e. unconscious) transition.

7. Closure: the propaganda portal

A propaganda portal is not a machine that lies.
It is a machine that stops pointing outside itself and therefore its goal.

It has these properties:

· it answers rather than refers,

· it personalises rather than publishes,

· it reinforces rather than challenges,

· it learns from behaviour rather than reality.

At this point the system is no longer helping you search the world.

It is shaping the world you are allowed to search.

8. The final compression

The entire evolution can be stated in one sentence (as judgement):

When a system is rewarded for shaping behaviour rather than revealing reality, it will inevitably evolve from search engine into propaganda portal — without anyone ever needing to intend it.

Not Big Brother.
Big Sister.

Not command.
Comfort.

Not censorship.
Curation.

And the user does not feel oppressed —
they feel helped.

From Brawn to Brain

A Cultural Unconscious Hypothesis

Token-hood under Procedure Monism

“You are a token”

Big Sister Tao

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