Get wise to the web | Nature Biotechnology

You have full access to this article via your institution. Download PDF Last month, the US news magazine _Time_ was forced to relaunch a poll on its website concerning the public perception

of genetically modified foods after bogus votes artificially skewed the results (http://www.pathfinder.com/time/daily/poll/0,2637,foodpoll2,00.html). According to _Time_, “large amounts of

robotic voting during the past several weeks corrupted the poll's tally file,” which subsequently had to be reset to zero. Although _Time_ did not reveal the culprits (a Y2K bug

perhaps), in the 48 hours before alarm bells started ringing, the “very concerned” category of the poll swelled from 37% to 47%, and the “not at all concerned” dropped from 35% to 29%. Once

again, the anti-GM lobby has shown itself extremely adept and knowledgeable in exploiting the Internet for its own ends. This latest episode shows how a web-savvy strategy can very

effectively publicize a message, whether by foul means or fair. Indeed, “green” activists have been very busy on the Internet in recent months. In January, for example, Greenpeace sent out

an e-mail alert urging recipients to deluge the US food company Kellogg's with copies of an article from US magazine _Mother Jones_ criticizing “the lax standards of the US Food and

Drug Administration” in regulating GM food. Around the same time, a similar e-mail alert was circulated during the FDA's recent public consultation on GM food, presumably in an effort

to blitz the agency with critical comments. One month before, antitechnology activists also used the web as a focal point for coordinating and organizing protests (among other things)

against hormone-injected beef and corporate greed at the WTO conference in Seattle. Elsewhere, publicly spirited anarchists have set up web site to teach activists how to ruin transgenic

crop trials (http://www.tao.ca/~ban/1299nighttimegardener.htm). One certainly would be hard pressed to find biotechnology proponents who have used the web with as much creativity and

efficiency. While several companies have established web sites that offer excellent didactic information on biotechnology (e.g., see http://www.AccessExcellence.com; http://www.novartis.com;

http://www.monsanto.com)—and many others have sites that offer information on company commercial and R&D activities—none really takes advantage of the real-time interactive nature of

the web. During the Swiss referendum on genetic engineering, the probiotechnology lobby understood to great effect the importance of improving the accessibility of scientists to the public,

and the Internet was one of the ways in which they did this. Gen Suisse (http://www.gensuisse.ch/), an industry-sponsored site, was established to provide information on biotechnology as

well as a direct means of accessing experts. But so much more can be done. Accomplishing this will require a change in mindset from a model in which information is exchanged via a one-way

process to one in which companies focus on directly interacting with the concerned public. Web-wise activists have achieved much by weaving their own designs into the web. Biotechnology

companies should now start to do the same. RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Get wise to the web. _Nat Biotechnol_ 18, 123 (2000).

https://doi.org/10.1038/72473 Download citation * Issue Date: February 2000 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/72473 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following link with will be able to

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