The New Censorship: 'How Did Google Become The Internet's Censor and Master Manipulator?' (usnews.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Robert Epstein from U.S. News and World Report writes an article describing how Google has become the internet's censor and master manipulator. He writes about the company's nine different blacklists that impact our lives: autocomplete blacklist, Google Maps blacklist, YouTube blacklist, Google account blacklist, Google News blacklist, Google AdWords blacklist, Google AdSense blacklist, search engine blacklist, and quarantine list. The autocomplete blacklist filters out select phrases like profanities and other controversial terms like "torrent," "bisexual" and "penis." It can also be used to protect or discredit political candidates. For example, at the moment autocomplete shows you "Ted" (for former GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz) when you type "lying," but it will not show you "Hillary" when you type "crooked." While Google Maps photographs your home for everyone to see, Google maintains a list of properties it either blacks out or blurs out in its images depending on the property, e.g. military installations or wealthy residences. Epstein makes the case that while YouTube allows users to flag videos, Google employees seem far more apt to ban politically conservative videos than liberal ones. As for the Google account blacklist, you may lose access to a number of Google's products, which are all bundled into one account as of a couple of years ago, if you violate Google's terms of service agreement because Google reserves the right to "stop providing Services to you ... at any time." Google is the largest news aggregator in the world via Google News. Epstein writes, "Selective blacklisting of news sources is a powerful way of promoting a political, religious or moral agenda, with no one the wiser." Google can easily put a business out of business if a Google executive decides your business or industry doesn't meet its moral standards and revokes a business' access to Google AdWords, which makes up 70 percent of Google's $80 billion in annual revenue. Recently, Google blacklisted an entire industry -- companies providing high-interest "payday" loans. If your website has been approved by AdWords, Google's search engine is what ultimately determines the success of your business as its algorithms can be tweaked and search rankings can be manipulated, which may ruin businesses. Epstein makes an interesting case for how Google has become the internet's censor and master manipulator. Given Google's online dominance, do you think Google should be regulated like a public utility?

Comments

He really hates Google

[Anonymous Coward]

He seems to have it out for Google ever since they detected malware on his website. All of his articles since then have been Google bashing.

Re: He really hates Google

[silentcoder]

> especially after all the predictions of dire consequences that haven't come true.
None of the predictions that haven't come true were predicted to have happened yet. The things predicted for now - not only HAVE they come true, they are worse than predicted. If there's a scam with AGW - it's that scientists are so afraid of being called alarmist that they constantly under-predict the effects.

The rate of glacial melt-off is more than 30 times higher RIGHT NOW than was predicted in the 1990s. Entire glaciers have already disappeared. The world is already dotted with abandoned ski-resorts - once wealthy holidaying places, now empty because there is no more snow to ski on. This is something that, in 1990, nobody would have predicted to happen and even if it did - not for 50 or 100 years, and it happened in less than 20.
Meantime the ocean temperature changes have led to an octopus population explosion which is threatening marine life across the board (because that's what happens when a major predator has a population explosion).

Re: He really hates Google

[Kreplock]

Rules or requirements there aren't enforced or followed are not loopholes. Loopholes are explicit exemptions.

Google Play censors your video games

[Anonymous Coward]

Google Play bans Bomb Gaza
http://www.israelnationalnews....
http://www.channel4.com/news/b...

Google bans Whack The Hamas
http://jewishbusinessnews.com/...

Google Play bans Milo Tosser
https://twitter.com/riffraffga...

Google Play permanently bans developer of "Hilliar Clinton" game
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/...

The article screams "citation please"

[trojjan]

Google blocking torrent searches: using 'filetype:torrent ' gives me more search results than any other search engine, and the DMCA bullshit is not by google. If a search result is blocked you can see at the bottom of the page exactly why. As for politics, it depends on the number of search results based on a query. In your mind 'ted cruz lying' may be equivalent to 'hillary clinton crook' but the results say otherwise. Also Google did not bow down to China's demands for censorship, depriving themselves of one of the largest markets.
It's strange to see this article on /. where people generally understand how algorithms work, and the search results are generally independent of human manipulation. The article being accepted just goes to show how far slashdot has fallen. Is it still called news for nerds?

Re:Google is NOT the INTERNET

[Anonymous Coward]

I also use duckduckgo and/or startpage but that doesn't completely give you privacy.

The best way to stop tracking you is simply set your computer's system time to an incorrect value, even the time zone. You can switch it correct at any second you wish. The monitoring and tracking done by for instance google-analytics.com and gstatic.com and facebook.net and twitter.net and the others relies on a lot of things including browser fingerprint. The easiest way to miff the tracking up is to change your clock. A lot of ISP's are DHCP meaning they give you a different IP address periodically but their lease times are long enough to not have much affect on privacy.

tl;dr Change your PC clock to wrong time zone and date and time unless you need it right for an email or whatnot.

Epstein just hates Google

[Chalnoth]

Back in 2012, Epstein's website got blocked by Google because it was hosting malware. He's hated Google ever since.

Re:They didn't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that really a surprise to anyone? I mean, they have a constant lobbyist presence and have kept one for years now. They've even been taking a position on the 'free trade' bills lately. How can anyone say they're simply neutral, apolitical observers?

Re:Autocomplete blacklist? Oh, your aching fingers

[hairyfeet]

Its more the fact that if you type "Hillary In" you get "Hillary India" which google's own trends show NOBODY is actually looking for whereas you type the same phrase into yahoo or Bing? You get Hillary Indictment which actually IS trending according to Google's own trends, which is what the autocomplete is SUPPOSEDLY based on..

Oh and just FYI the former CEO of Google is on the advisory committee of HRC and making something like half a million a quarter for his services. If you think a guy whose political views are well known and who is actually working for one side isn't gonna tilt things in his favor? I have a bridge you might be interested in.

Re:Autocomplete blacklist? Oh, your aching fingers

[bane2571]

I get the following autocomplete results for "Hillary in":
Hillary Indictment
Hillary Indictment Odds
Hillary Instagram
Hillary Interview
Is it possible you've previously searched for Hillary India and it is replaying your search?

Re:Autocomplete blacklist? Oh, your aching fingers

[hairyfeet]

ROFL keep drinking that koolaid SJWs, but I can provide citations showing the manipulation, the fact google's own trends does NOT support what their autocomplete is coming up with, oh and the fact that the CEO is getting paid by HRC, specifically he is owner of "the groundwork" which is a company whose goal is to put HRC in the white house.

Gee search results aren't backed up by their own trending data AND the CEO is part of a company to elect the person the results are being skewed for? Nope don't see nothing fishy here, please ignore that man behind the curtain.

Re:Autocomplete blacklist? Oh, your aching fingers

[ShaunC]

Google is very happy to suggest "Hillary indictment" to me, with generally right-wing sites among the top results.