[Published in: IJOWLAC (Indian Journal of World Literature and Culture) (Kolkata/Calcutta, India), Vol.1.1, January-June 2004, pp. 117-120]

On 16 April 1999, the French newspaper Libération carried an interview with Ignacio Ramonet, the editor of the prestigious publication Le Monde Diplomatique, on the subject of the communications revolution and entitled “Sur l’Internet, ‘une rumeur et une info se valent’“ (“On the Internet, ‘rumour and fact become as one”’)1.

Ramonet was launching his book La Tyrannie de la communication (The Tyranny of Communication)2, offered to the world as an interrogation of what Libération called the “prolifération d’une information de plus en plus diffusée, et de moins en moins contrôlée” (“proliferation of information in a form which is more and more diffuse and less and less subject to control”)3. 

The book is primarily a critique of the distortions, oversimplifications and misinformations perpetrated by newspapers and audiovisual media; the main targets are the global communications empires and the “nouvelle idéologie de l”information en continu et en temps direct” (“the new ideology of continuous, real-time information”)4. In the course of his critique, Ramonet airs the notion that the “network of networks” is creating an overload or surfeit of fact and opinion, a “surabondance de l’information” (“information overkill”)5, much of which has not been checked and cannot be verified: “le pouvoir de publier est désormais décentralisé, toute rumeur, vraie ou fausse, devient de l’information, et les contrôles, effectués naguère par la rédaction en chef, volent en éclats” (“ability to publish has now been decentralised: any rumour, true or false, can become information, and the old editorial checking process simply falls apart”)6.

In the Libération interview, Ramonet confronts the Internet head-on, further developing the views expressed in his book. Elements of his position merit careful examination. Of particular interest is the comparison he makes with a celebrated image of twentieth-century literature, namely the imaginary, infinite library of Jorge Luis Borges’ story “La Biblioteca de Babel” (“The Library of Babel”). Ramonet declares: “Il y a ... l’excès de l’information, qui confronte tout internaute à sa propre ignorance en matière de pilotage dans un océan d’informations souvent difficiles à hiérarchiser, à vérifier; c’est le syndrome de la bibliothèque de Babel qu’avait imaginée Jorge Luis Borges, dans laquelle se trouvent tous les livres écrits et à écrire (dans toutes les langues et toutes les écritures) ... Comme dans cette bibliothèque de Babel, beaucoup d’informations se trouvent sur le Net, avec toutes leurs variantes et approximations; rien ne garantit la véracité des données; une rumeur et une info se valent” 

(“There is ... the excess of information, which confronts all Internet users with their own ignorance as they try to find their way through an ocean of information which tends to be difficult to organise or verify; this is the syndrome of the Library of Babel as imagined by Jorge Luis Borges, which contains all the books ever written or to be written [in every language and every script] ... Just as in that Library of Babel, vast amounts of information are there on the Net, with all their variants and approximations; nothing guarantees the reliability of the data; rumour and fact become as one”)7.