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

Drudge Report?

[lseltzer]

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.

Same as Hirshi Ali said ...

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

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!

Ah, the old double standard

[Engineer-Poet]

2) Criticism from within a culture is different to criticism from without - can you imagine if it'd been an arab who made piss christ?

They do a lot worse all the time. I'd like you to list one reaction even remotely similar to the staged protests over the Mohammed photos in the Jyllandsposten. Just one.

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.

Re:Good on you google!

[IAmTheDave]

I can't find it in my heart to feel sorry for a Nazi skinhead who's beaten up in jail

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.