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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.
I don't think I've ever seen the Drudge Report in Google News, and he actually does get scoops now and then. True he's a bit out there, but he's way down the nutso scale compared to some of the other sites that Google News gives presence to.
Here in the Netherlands there was a big uproar when Hirshi Ali basically said the same thing: Mohammed was a pedophile because he took a 9 year old for a wife. Yet she gets elected Woman of the Year by Times magazine.
What's the difference?
Anyway, I thought Americans were so big on freedom of speech. I'd said get ready for some real rucus, because Hirshi Ali (or Magan actually) is coming your way!
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"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Let me see. They remove those sites because of hate speech (but isn't hate speech still freedom of speech?), yet they leave sites such as The Spoof listed in news.google.com as a source.
Moderate me down if you will. I just wanted to point that out.
There would seem to be an implicit contract between myself and Goggle that they do their best to find the information I am looking for and not that they are trying to manipulate me. I use Goggle and other search engines to find information not to be protected from it. When Google starts seeing itself in the business of deciding what sites I should or should not see based on their evaluation of the sites content, they become useless to me.
What you imply is that if a culture suppresses criticism from itself, it should be immune from all criticism. That is a double standard. Further, you imply that the validity of a critique depends not on what it says but on who says it. That's ad-hominem. It's standard leftist ideology, and it's amazing that any person can espouse it and claim to be educated; the cognitive dissonance required to hold it should break any functioning mind.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
I wish people would quit misusing termsfor inflammatory purposes: piracy for unauthorized copying is one example. Censorship for editorial selection is another. _True_ censorship is not failing to publish whole works, but publishing them with the naughty bits cut out. Usually fairly small cuts to preserve a greater part of the authors work, but to twist it's meaning. It _is_ reprehensible, because it's simply theft of ideas.
People say "never wrestle with a pig, because people can't tell the difference, and the pig likes it". So good advice to the pig is to wrestle with the best human they can find.
WorldNet Daily is a rag. The Republican corporate media tactic for attacking well-regarded messengers is to find a Republican messenger, no matter how incomparable, with one obvious characteristic in common with the target, then set the two up in their corporate media as "opponents". Like setting up Hillary Clinton with Condoleeza Rice because they're both "women in politics". That competition immediately lowers the higher stature target, and often raises the lower stature target for a bonus.
In this case, they're pairing WND with Google. Fans of the trashy, rightwing WND will happily say that Google loses, and most people, who haven't formed an specific opinion of either, will associate them as peers - to Google's detriment. The few Google fans were lost to the Republicans anyway, especially with the independent reporting Google generally features, but at least they now will get branded as "worse than WND".
These comparisons have nothing to do with Google's actual quality. They have to do with "guilt by association", in the Karl Rove version so popular the past decade called "guilt by opposition".
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make install -not war
I have watched Muslims dancing in the street in celebration of 9/11. I have seen Muslims celebrating in front of burning embassy.
I have watched on the news, on sect of Muslims blowing up one the holiest mosques of another sect.
I have seen reports of Islam growing in many countries, especially third world countries. And, with this rise in Muslims, there has been a rise in violence, murder and terrorist bombings.
In the Koran/Quran, it states that Mohammed married Aisha when she was six years old and then consumated the marriage when she was nine years old. That means the the Prophet Mohammed had sex with a nine year old girl. Having sex with a nine year old child is the act of a pedophile.
You say that these are editorials and not news stories and so Google News should not put up anything from the New Media Journal. Shall Google News stop linking to Yahoo!News, because it has an Editorial section which shows up in Google News searches? How about the Washington Post? One of its op-ed piecew was on the front page of a search I did. Shall Google News stop linking to it.
Google states very clearly in it's email that it considers the referrenced articles as being hate speach. So, my question is "When did the truth become hate speach?"
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I'm a left winger and a liberal, and I'm in the military.
What would you expect us to do, just go jump out and start busting heads? That got us stuck in iraq, and it is the mental process behind decades of bad American foreign policy. You do need to act sometimes. You also need to think before you act. If we can combine those, we're doing great.
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
Such as al-Manar, the official propaganda wing of Hezbollah, the terrorist group, and Khilafa.com, the site of Hizb ut-Tahrir (which is so radical that is has been banned in many countries, including Britain and Germany).
I'm generally suspicious of claims that Google has some sinister political bias, but there's no denying that it's displaying some fairly disturbing double standards here.
If Google News is going to be unbiased then they need to list all views, even those the staff at Google does not agree with. Anything else reduces the value of their service.BR>
Ah, you've just defined the basis for true freedom - the ability to have expression, even if others don't agree with it.
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
Can you point me to some news coverage, articles, essays, anything, or is this just your bias talking? Please, enlighten me on how liberals accept gay bashing from muslims.
This is what I love about arguing with conservatives, they will just make things up in order to discredit the other side, and they will never back down or admit they lied. And idiots will believe them and parrot back the lies as if they were truth.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Depends on why he's in jail...
and I can't find it in my heart to feel sorry for a racist jackass whose blog has been "censored" from Google News.Sigh... once again... the first amendment does not protect your right to hear what you want, but other people's right to say what you don't want to hear.
Censorship in any form is really touchy. Not hearing each side of an argument is rediculous, especially when labeling one side "racist" by default.
Like this, for instance (warning - inflaming material ahead.) There is evidence in the Holy Quran that (among other sexism) slavery of women is allowed, and sex outside of the marriage with any woman who is deemed a slave is acceptable.
By today's standards this is attrocious - slavery alone, aside from deeming someone sexual property - and even mentioning that this exists in the Quran is considered by many a racist tirade the effort of which is simply to put down a race of people or Islam as a whole.
But the fact is, by censoring me, you're closing your eyes to simple fact, and branding me a racist for believing that Islam could support such acts in an effort to discredit Islam.
Of course, the Quran doesn't say anything about forcing one's self on slave women and the article I've linked to proports that the Quran supports rape in an attempt to show how Christianity is better. It does show some support or understanding of the times that slavery exists... The debate is unsolvable, but by censoring one side, you're closing the argument or debate all together.
And that, my friends, is unacceptable in a free society. The exchange of ideas cannot be the exchange of "acceptable" ideas, or free society is no longer free.
And so I can be modded down, but hearing what you don't want to hear is no reason to censor anyone.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
Hatred because of someone's religion is very bad, but so is loving someone because of his religion.
How about being indifferent to someone's religion, and hating the people that hate someone else because of religion? Defending Islam against unjust attack is not the same as loving Islam. I'd defend Christians too if someone was saying that they are all violent psychos or eat babies or whatever. And on occasion, I do.
- Liberals don't give people a way out of being poor. I suppose you mean 'welfare'. Please describe the Conservative plans which would work better.
- Worse, the really radical liberals think that people in countries that support oppressive dictators aren't worth trying to help. Like where? What about all the Conservatives who love trade with China?
- hey call conservatives in this country facists, yet they turn around and support facist dictatorships. Like whom? What about all the Conservatives who love Saudi Arabia?
Replace 'universities' with 'churches' and for every 'kook in Colorado' (do you even know his name?) I'll give you a Jerry Falwel. Which one is worse?
Blar.
Power Line, Wonkette, Polipundit, Infoshop, and antiwar.com are indexed on Google news.
They shouldn't be.
but of course, that does not apply to the Christian religion in this case, does it?).
Oh man, why do you guys always have to start sounding like the Mullahs of Iran and make me not like you?
Let's not even begin to talk about cases where Google has been discovered to editorialize news headlines, such as removing the word "alleged" from a headline describing Guantanamo Bay as a "torture camp".
Oh, you poor poor victim. I feel so sorry for you, walking around thinking everybody is out to get you.
Lord help my karma for pointing out the unpopular opinion.
As I read this you at 3, Insightful... so it cant be that unpopular. The problem with this story is that its completely irrelavent. Goggle can do whatever the want with their site(as long as they dont break the law). Its there site. If I had a popular sight and some idiot wrote a rantign articale about it for whatever reason, I would politely invite them to suck it.
There is no such thing mentioned in the Quran. The age of Aisha is mentioned in oral traditions (Hadith) which were transcribed well over a hundred years after the prophets demise. Additionally most of the Hadith mentioning Aisha's young age are attributed to one narrator, her age may or may not be accurate but in either case its NOT in the Quran. And fyi only the Quran is considered sacrosanct in Islam
Also the problem isn't Islam itself read the Quran yourself before passing judgement on it. The problem is a sense of disenfranchisement and being on the receiving end of injust treatment (for which the US is responsible to a degree, read the history of Bin Laden, Saddam, Mossadeq, Shah of Iran, patronage of the Saudi family etc). To top that off there's a very active but rapidly growing minority who view Islam as being militant and blame ALL problems faced by Muslims as being caused by the US and jewry instead of looking inward. (Presume you've read Herman Goerring's quote about how to control people?)
The sad thing is people on both sides refuse to actually think for themselves. Islam categorically denies Muslims from waging an offensive war
4:90 Except those who join a group between whom and you there is a treaty (of peace), or those who approach you with hearts restraining them from fighting you as well as fighting their own people. If Allah had pleased, He could have given them power over you, and they would have fought you: Therefore if they withdraw from you but fight you not, and (instead) send you (Guarantees of) peace, then Allah Hath opened no way for you (to war against them).
2:190 Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors
There are ayat that mention fighting and slaying opponents/non muslims, these are frequently used to drum up anti islamic sentiment. But these specifically stipulate defense against oppression. For example the first part of 2:191 is often used for this purpose but if you read the last part of it, its quite clear that its meant for those who would prevent freedom of religion.
2:190 And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have Turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith
I had an argument with a friend last night who (is a muslim and) firmly believed that it is our sacred duty to spread Islam by Force until the entire world converts. He refused to believe any of the evidence to the contrary I pointed out to him, even the Quran itself. Which goes back to my original point unless people actually start thinking for themselves, we'll simply continue this downward spiral based on various agenda's of people on both extremes.
I know that Google censors certain results, usually to avoid lawsuits or because of DMCA takedown notices, but something interesting happened to me a couple of weeks ago.
... "- did not match any documents."
... "- did not match any documents."
I wanted to find a quote that I had heard years ago. It ran along the line of "Imagine a million screaming Mexicans running across the border with one thing on their minds: kill an American." (I know it sounds inflamitory. The quote was supposedly a threat made by an "Aztlan" type of activist.)
So I did the obvious - I googled it. I submitted the terms "screaming mexicans" and "kill an american" (or close variations on those phrases). I got around eight pages of results.
I scanned the first page and didn't see what I wanted. Go to the second page. Still not what I want. Click to the third page. "Your search -"
What? Back up using the browser "back" button. Yep, 8 pages of results.
So on a whim, I simply resubmit the search to start from the beginning (I figured maybe I hit it in the middle of a index update or something). "Your search -"
For the rest of the day, those two terms would not yield any result.
It made me wonder if Google is checking for inflamitory search arguments and flagging them for examination by an operator, who can simply disable results for given parameters.
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
I've not heard such double-speak in a while, and so ineffective. No one is buying the bullshit, not Americans, not Google, not Rex Banner, not anyone.
Considering that Islam is one of the most popular and most fractured religions in the world, can you tell me how anyone can speak critically and frankly about the religion as whole? The only way it works is through stereotyping, assumptions, and straw men.
If you would like to speak critically about Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaida, the government of Saudi Arabia, the President of Iran, etc., be my guest. I will read happily. But that's not really about Islam is it? That is about specific people and groups. Once you try to extend your thoughts to encompass all of Islam as a whole--that's when the cross the line into hate speech. It would be like me being "critical and frank" about the religion of Christianity based on the predilection of certain Catholic priests for young boys. That's a foul ball and so is the crap that Google pulled.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
And by most European standards, American "Liberal" is akin to european "Conservative". They consider our "conservative" to be their "facist" as we consider their "Liberal" to be our "Socalist".
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno