Silencing the World: Google’s Knol, Expert Wiki, Goes Live

Slashdot | Google’s Knol, Expert Wiki, Goes Live say “Knol’s distinctions from Wikipedia are that authors are identified by their real names (and verified), and that they can share in ad revenue if they choose to.” Knol: a unit of knowledge looks a bit funny to me. Nice to have a site like this, but of course it is pretty empty. I tried a dozen terms such as: child, education, constructivism… even anne of green gables and vampire. No content yet. So, I guess everyone’s now flocking to Knol: a unit of knowledge to write the content, become known, and share revenue. I personally don’t see that as a path to validity.

What is typical, is that only americans get a voice. That’s right. You have to be an american to participate. Of course someone can claim that this is ‘beta’, because of the name verification procedure. I would call this alpha. If Google doesn’t know how to deal with countries outside of america, what does it say for it’s validity as a global player. In some contexts this wouldn’t matter, but what it is doing is giving americans an unfair cultural advantage in the construction of knowledge. They will have all the key terms and ideas, and also will have the most hits. An example of cyber-hegemony at it’s best. Do no evil? Of course not. “We’re your big friend!”