If you haven’t watched the film “1984”, made in 1984 starring John Hurt - now would be a good time to watch it. “In George Orwell’s 1984, Winston Smith lives under the totalitarian rule of the Party and Big Brother in a world of constant surveillance, rewritten history, and thought control. His small acts of rebellion against the regime lead to his capture, torture, and eventual surrender of both mind and will.” Big Brother (and the Party he represents) controls information mainly by owning the past as well as the present. The Ministry of Truth constantly rewrites newspapers, books, photographs and official records so they always match whatever the Party currently says. Documents that contradict the new version are dropped into “memory holes” and destroyed. The language itself is being reduced to Newspeak so that dissenting or even precise thoughts become harder to form or express. Telescreens pump out propaganda while watching people, and any unorthodox idea is treated as thoughtcrime. The result is that there is no independent record of what actually happened - only the Party’s latest version.