Andrew Orlowski

Andrew Orlowski (born 1966) is a British

columnist, investigative journalist and
former executive editor of the IT news and
opinion website The Register.[1][2]
 Andrew Orlowski

Orlowski in 2006

Born 1966 (age 53–54)

Occupation Former executive

 editor for IT news and
opinion website The
Register
Website andreworlowski.com

Journalism career
In his youth, Orlowski had been involved in
a school magazine called Within These
Walls, and a fanzine named Paradise
Demise.[3] Moving from Northallerton,
Yorkshire, to Manchester in 1984, he
studied at University of Manchester and
worked as a receptionist in the IT
department at GM Buses, before taking a
course in computer programming.[3] He
worked as a programmer in Altrincham in
the early 1990s, and later said that he
"found that a lot less creative than I'd
expected, and this being my first proper
job I soon got disillusioned."[3]

Orlowski wrote reviews for Manchester's

City Life magazine from 1988, and in 1992
started an alternative newspaper called
Badpress in Manchester.[3] In 1994 he
became computer correspondent at
Private Eye magazine.[3][4] In the late
1990s, he wrote for PC Pro[5] and was
news editor at IT Week.[6] Orlowski worked
as a columnist and executive editor of IT
news and opinion website The Register for
19 years, leaving in May 2019;[7] he was
based in San Francisco for five years in the
early 2000s but returned to England in
2006.[1][8]

"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.[9] An article in
The New York Times[10] 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.[9] However, within a few weeks,
most of the top search engine results for
the term had come to be about something
else, because a prominent blogger had
used the same term in what Orlowski
described as a "plea for net users to
organize themselves as a
'superpower'."[9][11] 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."[9] Even the term googlewashing
itself almost came to be "googlewashed"
in a similar manner, with Orlowski's
original definition temporarily disappearing
from the top Google search results for the
term.[9][12][13]

Writings on techno-utopianism …

Orlowski is a frequent writer on techno-

utopianism.[14] 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."[15]

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."[14]

In December 2004, Orlowski was invited to

a discussion panel on techno-utopianism
at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center
for Internet and Society.[16] He was
Assistant Producer of Adam Curtis' 2011
BBC TV series on techno-utopianism, All
Watched Over By Machines of Loving
Grace.[17]
English Wikipedia criticism …

In the 2000s, Orlowski often took a critical

view of English Wikipedia, noting in 2005,
"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."[18][19] 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'."[20]

References
1. "Contact the Register" . The Register.
Retrieved 19 January 2012.
2. Bob Dickinson (27 November 1997).
Imprinting the sticks: the alternative
press beyond London . Arena. p. 229.
ISBN 978-1-85742-234-4. Retrieved
1 October 2012.
3. Bob Dickson, A Retch in the Rain ,
Badpress
4. Internet Porn: "Government report
suppressed" , PR Newswire, 6
September 1996
5. "Sci/Tech | The key debate on
encryption" . BBC News. 30 January
1998. Retrieved 30 April 2013.
. "IT Week: Tim O'Reilly talks Open
Source" . Linux Today. 31 March 1999.
Retrieved 30 April 2013.
7. "It's been fun" . The Register. 9 May
2019.
 . [1] Archived 25 September 2012 at
the Wayback Machine
9. Andrew A. Adams; Rachel McCrindle
(2008). Pandora's Box: Social and
Professional Issues of the Information
Age . John Wiley & Sons. pp. 122–
123. ISBN 978-0-470-06553-2.
10. PATRICK E. TYLERPublished: 17
February 2003 (17 February 2003).
"THREATS AND RESPONSES: NEWS
ANALYSIS; A New Power in the Streets
– New York Times" . Nytimes.com.
Retrieved 30 April 2013.
11. Andrew Orlowski, Anti-war slogan
coined, repurposed and
Googlewashed… in 42 days , The
Register, 3 April 2003
12. "Google washes whiter" .
13. Kevin Heisler. " "Googlewash" Is
Googlewashed by Online Reputation
Defenders" . Search Engine Watch.
14. Vance, Ashlee (12 June 2010). "In the
Singularity Movement, Humans Are So
Yesterday" . The New York Times.
15. David Smith (17 August 2008).
"Google, 10 years in: big, friendly giant
or a greedy Goliath? | Media | The
Observer" . The Guardian. London.
Retrieved 30 April 2013.
1 . Mistakes Techno Utopians Make:
Fantasy Politics and the Disappearing
Social December 2004
17. "Are the creative industries losing the
PR battle on legislative reform? | M
magazine: PRS for Music online
magazine M magazine: PRS for Music
online magazine – PRS for Music
Online Magazine" . M magazine. 5
February 2013. Retrieved 30 April
2013.
1 . Salas, Randy (7 November 2005). "web
search; What's wrong with Wikipedia?
(SOURCE)" . Star Tribune. Archived
from the original on 11 October 2013.
Retrieved 2 October 2012. –
 via HighBeam Research (subscription
required)

19. "Wikipedia: magic, monkeys and

typewriters" .
20. Thompson, Bill (16 December 2005).
"What is it with Wikipedia?" .
BBC.co.uk. Retrieved 23 December
2011.
External links
andreworlowski.com
The Register
badpress.net in the Internet archive

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