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Google Debunks Trump's Claim It Censored His State of the Union Address (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: President Donald Trump intensified his criticism of Google today, posting a native video of unknown origin to his Twitter account this afternoon claiming the search giant stopped promoting the State of the Union (SOTU) address on its homepage after he took office. It turns out the video he posted is not only misleading, but also contains what appears to be a fake screenshot of the Google homepage on the day in question. It has since been viewed more than 1.5 million times. In a statement given to The Verge, a Google spokesperson clarifies that the company promoted neither former President Barack Obama nor Trump's inaugural SOTU addresses in 2009 and 2017, respectively. That's because they were not technically State of the Union addresses, but "addresses to a joint session" of Congress, a tradition set back in 1993 so that new presidents didn't have to immediately deliver SOTU addresses after holding office for just a few weeks. Google resumed promoting Obama's SOTU address in 2010 and continued to do so through 2016, as he held office for all six of those years.

With regards to the 2018 SOTU, Google says it did in fact promote it on its homepage. "On January 30th 2018, we highlighted the livestream of President Trump's State of the Union on the google.com homepage," reads Google's statement. "We have historically not promoted the first address to Congress by a new President, which is not a State of the Union address. As a result, we didn't include a promotion on google.com for this address in either 2009 or 2017."

16 of 508 comments (clear)

  1. Can't Google sue him by future+assassin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    for defamation? This guy is straight out lying about the company and other companies and using fake screen shots?

    --
    by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
  2. Trump is a cultural warrior by Camel+Pilot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just not in the way many conservatives think.

    Trump wages war daily against the bedrock values that made Western Civilization great. Generally Western Civilization has considered dishonesty, hypocrisy, infidelity, deceit, corruption, narcissism, bullyism as negative character attributes. Trump revels in these daily. Trump as someone has recently noted has embarrassed us in front of our children. The Evangelical Christians cheer him on.

    1. Re:Trump is a cultural warrior by shilly · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This insane false equivalency is, I believe, a bigger problem than Trump's base. It suggests an absolute refusal to look the truth in the eye, to apply judgement, and a passive helplessness instead of civic engagement. I blame Ralph Nader, with his stupid and memorable quote that "the only difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush is the velocity with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door"
       

    2. Re:Trump is a cultural warrior by shilly · · Score: 5, Interesting

      People who bemoan western civilisation in these absolutist terms are almost always people living in western civilisations, who have absolutely zero idea of how terrible life is without it. Lately, they've been joined by Russian trolls.

  3. Clever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He's beating them at their own game. Not a good thing certainly.

    Trump learned how journalists "be a force for change." Say whatever you want, then quietly redact (or not) later.

  4. i.e. Party above Religion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's the meeting last week. He pretended the election is about them.
    https://nypost.com/2018/08/28/trump-to-evangelicals-therell-be-violence-if-we-lose-the-house/

    “This Nov. 6th election is very much a referendum on not only me, it’s a referendum on your religion, it’s a referendum on free speech and the First Amendment.”

    They're supposed to support him, because a vote for a Democrat is a vote against them. The message is basically "choose party above religion".

    Google in this claim, is supposed to be part of the deep state conspiracy that's stopping him/them, and taking away their/his freedoms.
    Trumplestiltzkin living in fairy tale land again.

  5. I don't think Google cares by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Interesting

    remember, they also on the receiving end of the massive corporate tax break he just enacted. He's generating a ton of web traffic which is good for their ad business. He's lax on regulation which large corporations always love.

    Bottom line, this is a bunch of very, very wealthy people having a completely meaningless scuff up while the world burns for the working class.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  6. Re: Boggles the mind by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Politicians lie, the media lie. As long as they tell different lies, democracy still has a chance.

    If they start to tell the same lies, run for your life.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  7. Re:Boggles the mind by Opportunist · · Score: 1, Interesting

    When you only have the choice between a dangerous idiot who has no agenda (other than lining his own pockets), no plan, no idea what he's doing and no experience in exploiting the system, and a dangerous idiot who has all that, the former is actually indeed the lesser threat.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  8. Re:So? by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yup. Sadly this was posted as AC, but this is exactly the problem: Facts don't matter.

    It doesn't matter what is. What matters is what people want to believe. Why do you think religions are so popular and successful through the millennia? Looking at any religion and checking it against simply demonstrable facts would instantly debunk any religion instantly. Still people believe that bullshit. Why? Because they want to. Because it makes them feel good.

    Same here. People want to believe bullshit because they feel vindicated and supported if that bullshit was true, and since someone "important" says it, it must be true. We're taught to believe in authority. That's how we're brought up, simply because it's easier for parents (and later teachers) to work on that premise. Only a select few manage to notice early enough that the emperor has no clothes and that an argument from authority is worthless.

    The rest simply believes it when someone "important" makes a claim. That claim gets transformed to truth simply by virtue of authority, not because it's actually true.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  9. Re: Boggles the mind by afxgrin · · Score: 1, Interesting

    >receiving negative attention from Trump.

    The problem with this, despite myself having issues with Google, I will now see them in a favourable light because of my far greater dislike of President Trump. Many others will rally behind Google for this reason alone.

    I know the Trump supporting members of my extended family are blithering morons when it comes to computers and the internet. They'll eat up just about anything he says on this issue because they don't know any better.

  10. Re:Media by andydread · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I couldn't find anything definitive on whether Google determines what is and what is not news and then ranks the sites accordingly. What I could find is that if a site is popular then it ranks higher than sites that are less popular. Next up... it's not Google's job to sort through and censor popular trending sites based on the content of those sites in a general way. So if everybody from Brietbart to Fox to CNN to wapo is talking about Will Smith rape then guess what?? that is going to be trending in the search at the moment. This is not bias on Google's part and I don't see how Google is supposed to determine whether Will Smith is guilty or not in order to decide whether those results should be displayed or not.

    Case in point. Trump posts a fake article claiming that Google stopped promoting state of the union address after Trump got elected. This then gets trending and news sites pick it up and look into it. When they find out that Trump either lied or is woefully ignorant about something as basic as the difference between the joint-address and the SOTU address and is therefore easy to brainwash they report on this fact. This may be viewed as negative Trump news because he lied through his teeth in a deliberate attempt to spread fake news and mislead the public. Is it the news media's fault because they report on something that is definitely trending and verify and debunk it? Should they then be blamed for spreading negative news? and should google be blamed for displaying trending relevant information to the search at hand?

  11. Re:Media by N1AK · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is an issue, but it's a different issue than what Trump is saying. This ranking crap gives too much power to the media.

    Firstly just because the media are writing negative things about him it doesn't mean there is a problem; you won't find many positive stories about natural disasters, rapes, bank fraud either because it isn't the job of the media to make coverage of anything equally positive/negative.

    Secondly, even if you put aside the question of whether there is an issue with the media Trump's compliant is that it's negative press for him that is showing, and he wants media outlets with more positive coverage to be more visible. Just about any sane analysis would back the argument that the media he wants listing higher is less truthful than the media he dislikes. Thus you can't use his point as a critique of truth in the media, it's a blatant attack on any reporting that isn't positive.

    Finally, the argument you make about the media getting too much power and the impacts you list are equally if not more applicable to Trump's use of Twitter as capably demonstrated by the very story we are commenting on. Trump loves Twitter because amongst other reasons he can say whatever he wants directly with no one being able to validate or add comment before publication. The sheer volume of things that he says on there that are provably false removes any credibility he has when complaining about the accuracy of the media.

  12. Re:So? by sad_ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Both extreme ends are fucking nuts.

    extremists are always bad, but they are also needed on both sides, if only to show us what taking things to far will lead to.

    --
    On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
  13. Re: Boggles the mind by sdinfoserv · · Score: 1, Interesting

    That's your opinion. There was a time when we were smart enough to recognize the emperor was naked. Look at the US global rankings in education and healthcare and you'll understand.

  14. Re: Boggles the mind by kilfarsnar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Faith" is the wrong word...

    Not always. I have faith that certain journalists, none of whom work for Fox, will always put their journalistic integrity first. Not blind faith, mind you, but faith. It takes some effort to build that and tends to evaporate instantly if shaken. At least for a person with a functioning brain.

    Wow, Russian shitmodders are everywhere.

    Do you always respond to your own posts as though you are someone else, or did you just forget to log out?

    --
    "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)