Google News, Censorship or Responsible Journalism?

MSTCrow5429 writes to mention an article published by WorldNetDaily attacking the policies and actions of Google News. The author takes issue with the practice of removing sites that offer very frank discussions about radical Islam and terrorism as "hate speech." Several sites have complained about removal including The Jawa Report, MichNews, and most recently The New Media Journal. In the termination email to The New Media Journal Google cited several stories as objectionable in order to further explain the action.

Comments

The Law of Hyperbole Language Change

[QuantumG]

I'd like to take a moment to coin a new "law" that I have observed in recent years. Maybe I'm just seeing something "new" where there is nothing. Maybe I'm just wrong. But let me propose that hyperbole has a profound effect on language. As actual occurences of some objectionable activity becomes less and less prevailent in society, the tempation to use hyperbole to imply that some lesser action is equivilent to that objectional activity becomes more common. The above "story" has two examples of it. First, there's Google who have used hyperbole to justify their self interested actions of rejecting some stories. They've claimed something is "hate speech" to make a point that it is not the content they want on their web site. In response, the sites being chucked have used hyperbole to suggest that Google is "censoring" them. Nevermind the fact that no actual hate speech has occured. Nevermind the fact that Google has not stopped these sites from delivering their content directly to interested parties. How does this affect language? If more people are refering to behaviour as "hate speech" when in fact a better description would be a "bitch session", doesn't that change the definition of the word? What if censorship were completely eliminated (as it is in most western societies, with the obvious exceptions to matters of national security) and the word were used to refer to other behaviour, like telling someone to shut the hell up because you're sick of hearing them blabber. "Can you two go argue in the lunch room, you're giving me a headache." "Hey man, you can't censor us!" What's annoying is that these are really important words. You can't talk about keeping the world safe from censorship with a straight face when every idiot is claiming they are being censored.

And that was mod'ed "Interesting"?

[khasim]

That is a perfect example of the kind of "thought" that also went into those "articles" that the story is about.

The "facts" are wrong and just strung together to "support" a heavily biased opinion.

One of the reasons why the USA is hated not only by others of the World especially in the Islamic countries but also the Liberal/Left Wing faction is because the ordinary, common person has a lot of leeway to make decisions about their life without elitist interference.

Really? Then which political party in the US supports a woman's right to her own body?

In Europe, there are still some old social rules that you cannot patronize certain restaurants if a member of the lower class even if you can afford to go there.

And where, specifically, would that be?

On the surface, they say they care so much for the common person but yet, look at people like John F. Kerry and similar people. They send their kids to elite private schools. Live in gated communities. Control neighborhood HOA's where pickup trucks are not allowed or must be parked inside a garage.

And Bush went to a community college? No?

Yet someone mod'ed your post "Insightful".

Many corporate executives are liberals and the same type of disdain is shown towards rank and file workers. A person I know had a manager that was a proud Liberal Democrat and he was a jerk when it came to taking vacation.

You might want to look up the word "stereotype".

Someone I know met someone (political/race/gender/age/religion) who was (mean/stupid/arrogant/dirty/immoral).

Yes, the proud tradition of bigotry remains strong. And even gets mod'ed up at times as "Interesting".

And This Is News, How?

[tqbf]

Here are samples, from all three of the cited articles, of what Google didn't want appearing in news search results:

"Honestly, I cannot open a paper or turn on the television without seeing mobs of Muslim savages celebrating in front of burning embassies..."

"Is it really tacky of me to smile at the nightly scenes on TV showing Arab, Afghani and Pakistani Muslims bombing mosques and killing their Muslim brothers, sisters and children at a brisk pace because that's all they know how to do?"

"Islam is moving across the world like a dark, evil cloud."

"Worshiping a sex-maniac and a child molester? [...] Muslims are true victims of Islam. However, they fail to realize that Islam is a cult, and the prophet was a demon ..."

The funnier thing is watching WorldNetDaily stick up for The Jawa Report. Apparently nobody there has seen Star Wars or watched South Park. "Jawas?""You know, sand people."

These aren't news stories critical of Islam. They're "editorials" with as much credibility as content from Stormfront.org.

Re:And This Is News, How?

[g8oz]

1) How many times is this old bit about Prophet Muhammed marrying a 9 year old girl going to be passed around? He wasn't married to her, he was *betrothed*. The early marriage tradition is based on a unverified hadith by an author with little credibility. Other traditions says she was 14 to 19. Who knows when consumation was, but its worth pointing out that he wasn't doing anything strange by marrying a young girl, thats just the way was in Middle East at that time. Betrothal and consumation were typically seperated by several years until the girl reached puberty at least.

For a good read on this and other Islamic issues please read "No God But God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam" by Reza Aslan

2) Expressing opinions and criticizing Islam is one thing, hysterical bigoted ranting is another - it has no place in Google news.

Bad thinking.

[ZombieRoboNinja]

This comment represents a popular theme among conservatives at the moment - "EVERYONE's biased, so let's wear our bias on our sleeves!"

The thing is, it's not true. Mainstream, "liberal" media sources like the New York Times and NPR still strive for objectivity. The parent's example is typical: why didn't they say "illegal" immigrants? OMG bias! ...OR, could it be that some of the people marching ARE legal immigrants? Or that they're concerned about the rights of legal immigrants, like these potential "guest workers," as much as they're concerned about the rights of illegal immigrants?

Yeah, you can read this type of thing as a sign of subtle bias, if you're so inclined. But none of the linked articles are anywhere NEAR that subtle. Putting this kind of claptrap in the same category as real news and saying they're just opposite ends of a spectrum is intellectually dishonest.

Google is right to kick them out of their "news" feed, just like they'd be right to eschew the equivalent left-wing nonsense ("Zionist Amerikkka Enriches Jew Bankers!") But of course, they already DO filter out the left-wing wackos, while the right-wing wackos get their own contingent of defenders who have suddenly discovered the rhetorical utility of "open-mindedness."

The unmentionable five-letter word

[Anonymous Coward]

You use the term "elite." The political economist and economic historian Samir Amin says it confers too much dignity upon them. He prefers "ruling class." Incidentally, a more recent invention is "the ruling crass."

The only reason I don't use the word class is that the terminology of political discourse is so debased it's hard to find any words at all. That's part of the point -- to make it impossible to talk. For one thing, class has various associations. As soon as you say the word class, everybody falls down dead. They think, "There's some Marxist raving again."

But the other thing is that to do a really serious class analysis, you can't just talk about the ruling class. Are the professors at Harvard part of the ruling class? Are the editors of the New York Times part of the ruling class? Are the bureaucrats in the State Department? There are lots of different categories of people. So you can talk vaguely about the establishment or the elites or the people in the dominant sectors.

But I agree, you can't get away from the fact that there are sharp differences in power which in fact are ultimately rooted in the economic system. You can talk about the masters, if you like. It's Adam Smith's word, and he's now in fashion. The elite are the masters, and they follow what he called their "vile maxim" -- namely, "all for ourselves and nothing for anyone else."

NC

I'm not a racist but.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Summary of the above...

"I'm a bigot I think its okay to smile at the murder of people if they are Arabs, and every person protesting was an illegal immigrant."

I'm pretty sure that writers do understand the power of words, its the whole point of writing (pen is mightier than the sword).

"Bring us your huddled masses.....", "all men are created equal...."

The problem you do highlight is that in the American media today its not about honesty its about bigotry and shouting, the truth goes out the window in the desire to push a point. I'm pretty sure the founding fathers didn't have that in mind when they created the 1st ammendment.

Maybe you aren't a bigot, but you are certainly reading like all those people who use the phrase "I'm not a racist but...." and go on to prove that they are.

Re:lets try this from another angle

[williamhb]

I'm curious to see how these same people would react if Google started indexing sites lambasting Christianity and calling Christ a false prophet and pedophile and whatnot. I'm willing to bet that they'd launch a "Boycott Google" campaign if those sites weren't immediately removed.

What uninformed rubbish. Google does index a lot of sites that denegrate Christianity and "these people" are yet to launch a single "Boycott Google" campaign. Christians are by and large extraordinarily tolerant of disparaging comments.

In fact, lets use one that didn't just get reported on Google but on Slashdot as an example. Richard Dawkin's response to The Edge's annual question, in which he responded "An especially warped and disgusting application of the flawed concept of retribution is Christian crucifixion as 'atonement' for 'sin'.". Any sign of that "Boycott Google" or "Boycott Slashdot" campaign? No. Christians let it drift by with a shrug of "Dawkins is off on a rant again".

Now try labelling anything about Islamic belief as "warped and disgusting", and see how many milliseconds elapse before you are accused of a hate crime.

Re:liberal group think.

[JavaLord]

The political compass is full of loaded questions. Everyone comes out a leftist because of how the questions are worded.

Here is a fun one

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

and this one

Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races

It basically dresses up humanist, leftist positions and makes any positions to the right look like dictatorship.

Re:Good on you google!

[AuMatar]

Please note this uses the European definition of liberal. Which is totally different than the American version- Margaret Thatcher once called Reagan "The greatest liberal of our time".

tolerance and attraction are 2 different things

[vague_ascetic]

But if you want to talk about strange attractions:

General Taguba's Non-Classified Part of his Abu Ghraib abuse report given to the Senate listed the following abuses, amongst many others:

the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:

• Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;
• Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;
• Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;
• Forcing naked male detainees to wear women's underwear;
• Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
• Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;

In addition, several detainees also described the following acts of abuse, which under the circumstances, I find credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses:

• Pouring cold water on naked detainees;
• Threatening male detainees with rape;
• Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.

Yet after this testimony had been given, Senator Inhofe (R-OK) stated on the Senate Floor, for the record:

"I -- well, first of all, I regret I wasn't here on Friday. I was unable to be here. But maybe it's better that I wasn't, because as I watched the -- this outrage, this outrage everyone seems to have about the treatment of these prisoners, I was, I have to say -- and I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment."

This reprehensible piece of unAmericanism is still published on the Senate Republicans' Official Website.

So with the new marriage law vote set for June 6, contemplate this bit of republicanism; it is a horrible sin for two guys to fall in love and play each others butt bongos, but the Republican Senators are so down with the use of sodomy with a foreign object as a interrogatory methodology that they allow Inhofe's ugly remarks to be served from their collective website.

This message has been sposored by:

The Official Abu Ghraib Interrogator's Model
Chemical Light Stick of GOP Enlightenment *

*(All Models of The Chemical Light Stick of GOP Enlightenment
are registered trademarks of the RNC, and are protected by
the RIAA, DMCA, MPAA, DoJ, SCOTUS. Don't even think about it,
because the Queer Eye of the Santorum Guy is always watching too.)

Re:Good on you google!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sheesh. Claiming that "liberal == grown-up == intelligent" is not only unsupported by any sane theory, it's not particularly correlated in fact. It's no more convincing than either end of an argument that ends in "I know you are, but what am I?!?!" (Prominent counterexample to that equation: the Kos Krowd.)

Re:But do you look at both sides of the story

[internic]

From an article on MSNBC:

"As his unclassified CIA biography states, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan after Moscow's invasion in 1979. By 1984, he was running a front organization known as Maktab al-Khidamar - the MAK - which funneled money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war.

What the CIA bio conveniently fails to specify (in its unclassified form, at least) is that the MAK was nurtured by Pakistan's state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA's primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow's occupation.

By no means was Osama bin Laden the leader of Afghanistan's mujahedeen. His money gave him undue prominence in the Afghan struggle...

...

In fact, while he returned to his family's construction business, bin Laden had split from the relatively conventional MAK in 1988 and established a new group, al-Qaida, that included many of the more extreme MAK members he had met in Afghanistan....

...

It should be pointed out that the evidence of bin Laden's connection to these activities is mostly classified, though its hard to imagine the CIA rushing to take credit for a Frankenstein's monster like this."

From that and other accounts, it sounds to me like the CIA supported the MAK by funneling funds and arms through the ISI. Osama bin Laden was a major player in the MAK, and this flow of resources gave him a position of power. He then used this position to take people and knowledge from MAK and form Al Qaeda. It would then seem fair to say that the CIA helped in bin Laden's rise to power and nurtured the orginization that would later give birth to Al Qaeda.

Saying, "the CIA supported Al Qaeda" then seems to be an oversimplification, but calling it a "myth" is probably an overstatement. Obviously, the question of whether this was wise, in the context of the cold war, is a seperate question.

Re:Where do you get this odd idea?

[BakaHoushi]

You're still making some false accusations. Again, Democrats back in the early 20th century were very conservative. Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat, sure, but the Democrats of 1906 != the Democrats of 2006. They're essentially two seperate parties with two seperate beliefs. Those who led the Democrats of the past do not lead them today. As another example, I think it's no small stretch of the imagination to say that blacks, even before they could really vote, liked the Republicans. (Lincoln was one) Now, the roles are reversed, and blacks largely vote for Democrats. This is, again, because as time goes on, party stances change. And just because I wish a Democrat in power now does NOT mean I liked nor supported past Democrats. Just because I don't like Bush does not mean I liked Clinton. Just because I would support a Democrat doesn't mean I didn't like Lincoln. As a matter of fact, I hate all political parties, and agree with George Washington when he said they would only tear our nation apart. Democrats and Republicans have done some really fucking stupid things in both of their histories. Some started unnecessary wars (See: Lyndon B. Johnson, Democrat. George W. Bush, Republican) Others were essentially forced into wars and just finished them. (See FDR, Democrat) So stop mistaking the messenger for the message. Yes, a Democrat got us into Vietnam, which was one majorly stupid fuck up, and I will GLADLY point out it was a dumb mistake. But just because some people NOW want to avoid a stupid mistake of a war and of the "same" party (even though the beliefs have changed) doesn't mean their point is invalidated. Liberals, conservatives, Christians, Muslims, whatever. Whatever group you belong to, you have a long history of screw ups and today you still have loud mouthed morons trying to "represent you." It's best to just ignore them.