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."

Comments

Boggles the mind

[AlanObject]

How can anyone respect, admire, follow, or in any way support this overfed cesspool of ignorance and corruption defies science.

Re: Boggles the mind

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize that Trumpâ(TM)s attacks on media alone have done more damage to democracy than a generation of Hilary ever could, right? He has done more to undermine public faith in journalism than ANY Western leader in history.

Re:Boggles the mind

[cpurdy]

"I get tremendous pleasure from seeing and hearing how upset people are that Trump is president [..] I know that truth will be uncomfortable for you snowflakes, but you know what ? I don't care."

Thank you for at least being honest that you find joy from causing others pain, or at least witnessing pain in others.

I suppose that is as good of a reason to support Trump as any.

Re: Boggles the mind

[astrofurter]

Yes, totally agree. But I don't think that many people respect Google anymore, much less admire them.

Re: Boggles the mind

[fahrbot-bot]

He has done more to undermine public faith in journalism than ANY Western leader in history.

Are you seriously implying that having faith in journalists is a good thing?

Skepticism is good. Faith is not.

Be sure to remind Trump supporters that ...

Re: Boggles the mind

[Kjella]

You realize that Trump's attacks on media alone have done more damage to democracy than a generation of Hilary ever could, right? He has done more to undermine public faith in journalism than ANY Western leader in history.

Well in this case we have a genuine case of fake news being taken by truth as the POTUS. Now Trump is just throwing a hand grenade into the debate but there really needs to be a higher awareness and debate about the level of propaganda, disinformation and plain old lies spreading online, the existence of alt-media and the people who believe their own alt-facts in their own alt-reality.

Re: Boggles the mind

[hansg]

No, he's not.

Public faith in journalism is good, not in singular journalists. There's a big difference there.

Re: Boggles the mind

[Sique]

Skepticism is good. Faith is not.

To which Henri Poincaré rightly said: To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection. (La Science et l'Hypothèse, 1901).

Re: Boggles the mind

[phantomfive]

They weren't trustworthy to begin with. We've covered this a lot on Slashdot over the past decade and a half. The golden era of news media is long past, if it ever existed.

Re: Boggles the mind

[Barsteward]

"Faith" is the wrong word, i expect they meant "trust" and trust with a little Skepticism hence you read a number of sources. people, like trump and his cohorts, will try and "play" the reputable journalists as well so they may get things wrong but it usually ends up being corrected.

Re: Boggles the mind

[Opportunist]

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.

Re: Boggles the mind

[Opportunist]

That's why other notebooks have those little rubber feet.

Re: Boggles the mind

[MachineShedFred]

The media could use a bit of beating up every once in a while. Don't worry, the likes of CNN, Fox News, and NBC News aren't going anywhere, but just maybe they'll realize that people are looking for them to be presenting factual programming with a clear separation from opinion and editorial, and that separation is very murky if present at all.

Your hyperbole aside, every once in a while the media needs a good slap so they remember their place - they don't run the show, they merely report on those who do, and how they do so that the real people that run the show - The People - can be informed of what their representative government is doing, and make adjustments to that representation accordingly.

It's a critical role in a functioning democracy, and it's been put in far more danger through the consolidation and mergers of the last 20 years than Trump can do on Twitter. Clear Channel, GE NBC Universal Comcast, AT&T Time Warner DirecTV, News Corp. - these are the guys doing the real damage to the media.

Re: Boggles the mind

[MachineShedFred]

You all are assigning way too much credit to Slashdot. It is now a thoroughly unimportant web site that has collapsed under the weight of it's ancient shitty code base, horrible "editing", and resulting shrinking readership. I'm sure the few hundred people left that come here regularly aren't really worth the time and effort, especially since there would be a higher percentage of them that would recognize the effort due to the inherent readership demographic.

Nobody would bother with spending resources on the conspiracy you postulate. Those resources are far better spent on troll farms and sock puppet operations to poison platforms people actually use, like Reddit or Facebook, where there is a far higher percentage of people that can be taken by such operations.

Also, spare me from the obvious reply that I must be one of the sock puppets now, because I dare disagree with your ridiculous interpretation.

Re: Boggles the mind

[MachineShedFred]

I think it existed, once. The problem is that the media has tilted to entertainment instead of factual programming. People don't want to be informed with thought-provoking factual reporting, that causes them to have to think. They want the thinking done for them, so you get panels of "experts" giving "analysis" which really amounts to Jerry Springer Lite as the talking heads argue.

The question is who is booking the talking heads, and how objective are they? Is the panel stacked in order to skew a particular direction? I think we all know the answer is now "yes" with only the direction being the question, and that's based on the media company.

Re: Boggles the mind

[Zero__Kelvin]

The MSM often shows actual video of Trump himself running his ignorant lying mouth. How, prey tell, is that kind of reporting untrustworthy? Because everyone knows you can't trust a word that comes out of the orange shitbags mouth?

Re: Boggles the mind

[AmiMoJo]

It's more subtle than that.

In post-truth politics the assumption is that everyone lies all the time. There is no objective truth, only lies of one shade or another. You can see people stating that matter-of-factly in this very discussion.

So all that is left is to pick whose alternative facts you prefer. It's also why Trump gets away with habitually lying about even the most trivial stuff. People aren't looking for truth any more, they are just looking for comfortable lies.

Re:Boggles the mind

[jellomizer]

despite the reality that their lives would be no different
Quite true, except for if you are a member of a minority group, or had your legal immigration status changed, or separated from your family,
The real change that Trump created isn't necessarily with policy (the president doesn't make the laws). It is his harsh enforcement of the laws, emboldening fringe racist groups to get out of the shadows and harass and harm people they don't like. Hammering the wedge between Right Leaning and Left Leaning political ideals even further.
Ok for middle age white dude, with upper middle class wages, My daily routine hasn't changed. But knowing a lot of people who are not me, are scared and are avoiding taking the risks needed to take to further succeed in life.

From where I work and live, I have dealt with people who have met and worked with Hilary Clinton on supporting and opposing her ideas. I always get a consistent response from them. She isn't like how she seems when in-front of the stump. She will sit down and actually listen to peoples problems, understand their view points, while she may not agree with them, she will respect that view and try not to aggravate it especially if it has some good merit. She is honestly interested in public service. Now she usually fails to show this publicly, which is probably not a good reason for her to be president, because it is a public facing job. But I can see why the Democrats and especially the "Elites" who have worked for her, pushed so hard to get her as to be President, because their view of her is based on the Private Clinton vs the public one.

Re:Boggles the mind

[dave420]

No different with Hillary? She wasn't colluding with a foreign government to gain power, so immediately your claims are incorrect. Her platform was entirely different to Trumps, which again doesn't make your argument seem well informed.

Clinton lost her election with a lot of help from Russia, as every single US intelligence agency claims. Or are they all deep state?

Re: Boggles the mind

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why you read multiple sources. Read both the left and the right. Look not just at what is being said but what is not being said. When both sides tell you the same thing that shows you what the actual facts are. But also look at how they've twisted them.

Re: Boggles the mind

[kilfarsnar]

He has done more to undermine public faith in journalism than ANY Western leader in history.

.

The public is CORRECT not to TRUST journalism.

Faith is a very poor choice of word. Faith is believing in things for which there is no concrete proof. Journalism does not work on a principle of faith, you fucking imbecile.

Journalism is nearly all slanted propaganda, whether it is slanted to the left or the right, and if you think it is worthy of trust, you are incredibly naive.

You just want to continue your childish tantrum about Trump and any excuse will do. Why don't you off yourself and quit subjecting the world to your miserable existence.

And where do you get your information about the world outside of your own experience? You are correct that journalism can often be biased. The remedy for that is to use multiple, disparate sources. But to throw into question the entire field of journalism, just because it isn't perfect, is misleading and irresponsible.

Re: Boggles the mind

[kilfarsnar]

"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?

Re: Boggles the mind

[slack_justyb]

Skepticism is good.

You aren't wrong, but there is a point where skepticism turns to cynicism. Now that is not me calling any single person here as being a cynic. What it is me saying is that we all need to be careful to not let our well founded skepticism turn us into cynics. It's one of those things I too struggle with, trying to prevent myself from going full on, "everything Trump does is bad!". That's cynicism and it's not good intellectually.

Re: Boggles the mind

[Sir_Eptishous]

Sadly manipulation in US journalism is routine... and almost none of it is by government agencies.

Can you hear that?
That my friends is the sound of a chest beating wannabe patriot complaining about the Press again.


You see, these wannabes somehow don't know that journalism has always been attacked by those in power.
These wannabes haven't read history and didn't know "Yellow Journalism" or the way the press was attacked during and after the American Revolution, or in the UK in the 19th century.

These wannabes, who most likely never had a clue what was going on in the US before the internet so kindly showed it to them in an easy to digest, less than 40 character format, and couldn't find Viet Nam or Iraq on a world map without the aid of Google, have now been shown how bad the press is, how the press is the "enemy of the people" by their Great Leader.

Their Great Leader, who would have everyone believe he is their only and true savior, has accused the press of being unfair to him, of being bad, bad people. So unfair, so hurtful to Great Leader these press people are!

So now the wannabes cry foul! They want to wake everyone up to their twitter/facebook epiphany that a free press is bad. BAD!

Re: Boggles the mind

[Green Mountain Bot]

Criticism is great - as long as its basis is fact. But that's not what Trump does. He dismisses entire organizations out of hand when they report factually on things that present him in a negative light. He calls the media "the enemy of the people". He tells people to trust him, not the media. His legal counsel says dumb shit like "Truth is not truth".

Re: Boggles the mind

[Rhipf]

Most of the folks I know believe the warming we've experienced is a natural cycle tied to the solar cycles and the fact we're still coming out of the last ice age. They can't buy the crap that says one little molecule out of 2500 that can only absorb at most 11% of black body radiation is the cause.

Its nice that you rely on what folks you know believe rather than letting things like facts get in the way.

Our issue is that if CO2 were actually the cause of this then the proposed solutions are for the capitalistic industrialized nations to change their societies in a negative, costly manner and move away from capitalism.

So there is no capital in coming up with energy solutions that don't rely on fossil fuels? Why does the change from fossil fuel to more sustainable energy have to "change their societies in a negative way"? I'll agree that it may be costly in the short term but isn't the whole idea of capitalism to capitalize these types of situations? The other thing is who is it costly for. It will be costly for those people/companies that built their fortunes on fossil fuels but it might just be very profitable for those people that embrace alternative energies. Moving to clean energy doesn't mean moving away from capitalism.

So we're not skeptical of warming, we're skeptical of you who claim it is because of CO2, coincidentally the one green house gas produced by an advanced industrial society.

Just because we have advanced as a society by exploiting energy that produces CO2 doesn't mean that CO2 is "the one green house gas produced by an advanced industrial society". I'm sure if we try hard enough we could come up with another green house gas that can produce an advanced industrial society (or maybe we could just skip the whole greenhouse gas thing altogether).

Re: Boggles the mind

[mea2214]

I started reading r/the_donald to learn a little about Trump supporters. There are only two possible truths after reading that group and many of the comments in this thread; either they are all complete delusional lunatics who may represent up to 41% of the US population or I'm a complete delusional lunatic. There is no middle ground. If I were the delusional lunatic would I know? Never before have I been so frightened over politics.

Re: Boggles the mind

[CohibaVancouver]

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he's up to no good. Or he's on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around, looking about. He looks black.

OK, so one example from over six years ago, where NBC launched an investigation and fired the individual involved.

This would hardly meet the definition of something the media does "regularly."

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

And how exactly is reason or evidence meant to convince religious right-wing voters of anything?

Re:So?

[Opportunist]

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.

Re:So?

[sad_]

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.

Re:So?

[AmiMoJo]

The Democrats have been struggling to effectively oppose Trump because they are relying on appeals to truth and reality. Trump is post-truth and everyone knows he lies about everything so pointing that out isn't very useful.

The danger is that the centre ground (where the Democrats are) goes post-truth as well.

Can't Google sue him

[future assassin]

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

Re:Can't Google sue him

[Linsaran]

I would love to see that case get tried in court. Frankly Google has a better case against whoever created that video Trump tweeted than against Trump himself; since it's easy enough for Trump to throw them under the bus and claim he was misled by what he thought was a legitimate publication. I think Google would have a hard time proving significant damages and at most might get a public 'apology' out of Trump. It ultimately would probably waste a ton of money and go nowhere. I

Trump is a cultural warrior

[Camel Pilot]

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.

Re:Trump is a cultural warrior

[tsa]

Not only Western civilizations did that. Suppressing others is some humans do, unfortunately.

Re:Trump is a cultural warrior

[shilly]

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"
 

Re:Trump is a cultural warrior

[shilly]

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.

Re:Trump is a cultural warrior

[gtall]

Yeah, the same Western civilization that created modern science and health care, democracies instead of dictatorships, outgrew the A-bomb, Tuskegee, napalm, and the Eugenics Movement and now attempts to counter those. It also outgrew slavery, which is still practiced in those nice local, multi-culti countries which periodically go on pogroms to "cleanse" their societies.

Trump's honesty? Yep, he honestly separated parents and children at the border to satisfy his Evangelical followers Christian values. He's turning back the rules and regs on pollution because he's being honest about a little pollution never hurt anyone, especially not those darling coal workers or the poor communities living in the shadow of the polluting industries. He honestly insulted two entire continents. He's honestly giving the racists in the U.S. cover to exercise their "freedom".

Clever

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Clever

[PseudoAnon]

Except Trump blatantly lies daily while journalists from major news sources tend to be accurate and only rarely need significant retractions/corrections. They have bias in what they choose to report and which details they focus on, but they rarely outright lie like Trump does. They're playing different games.

Re:It sure does

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. Sputnik news. as in:

Sputnik (Russian pronunciation: [sputnk]; formerly The Voice of Russia and RIA Novosti) is a news agency, news website platform and radio broadcast service established by the Russian government-owned news agency Rossiya Segodnya.[2] Headquartered in Moscow, Sputnik has regional editorial offices in Washington, Cairo, Beijing, London and Edinburgh. Sputnik focuses on global politics and economics and is geared towards a non-Russian audience.[3] According to The New York Times, Sputnik engages in bias and disinformation,[4] and has widely been described as a Russian propaganda outlet.

So I know I searched clinton during that election and did not see is awesome is winning. What total BS.

Re:Let Google Prove it

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be confused; Perhaps an AC can educate you...

President Donald Trump must, by virtue of the oath he swore, uphold the Constitution of the United States which includes the various amendments - one of which states:

'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.'

Now, one could argue that calling him an Orange-Haired Turnip to his face is not 'a redress of grievances' but putting that aside...

Neither Alphabet Inc, nor its officers, nor its employees are required to swear the same oath as the President. Nor are they required to fulfill the Constitutional obligations of government - as they are not our government - as part of any SEC filing, act of incorporation, or other legal document. Thus President Trump has no right to go after them for anything, unless the Congress of the United States were to pass legislation making this the case.

Which would be promptly struck down, especially by a majority Conservative court. The notion of private and corporate property has been long established in United States' jurisprudence and the right to allow or not allow 'speech' in all its forms has always been a part of that. It is the same as asking and then telling a disruptive customer to leave a movie theater.

Re:Let Google Prove it

[PopeRatzo]

Let Google Prove it

Google doesn't have to prove anything. Let Trump prove his accusation.

And even if Google were completely biased against Trump and every single Google employee wore PISS TAPE IS REAL t-shirts and carefully deleted every single Trumpist media outlet from their search results, so. fucking. what?

There is nothing you can get from Google that you can't get from a host of competitors. Free speech is a bitch, ain't it? If you run for public office, especially the highest public office, you can't get upset when one of your ex-girlfriends says you got the baby dick and couldn't last more longer than a commercial break.

The problem here is not what Google has or has not done or does or does not believe. The problem is that Donald Motherfucking Trump honestly believes that hating his gelatinous ass should somehow be illegal, and is prepared to use the full power of the United States government against a company that doesn't like him.

Re:It sure does

[GrimSavant]

Parent post is literally reposting large amounts of Russian propaganda, read about Sputnik news if you think this is an exaggeration. This isn't particularly subtle either, Sputnik and RT don't try to hide their Russian origins, and as you can see from that link Sputnik was "established by the Russian government-owned news agency Rossiya Segodnya."

I guess the Russian sympathetic block has got their hands on mod points if unvarnished Russian propaganda is what passes for interesting or insightful.

Re:Let Google Prove it

[whoever57]

Google has to prove Trump is lying? The person most famous for lying? The person who has made over 4000 false or misleading statements in office?

No, the onus is on the person who has a reputation of being a liar to prove the truth of his claims.

I hate to be blasé, but ...

[fahrbot-bot]

Donald Trump, king of fake news, lies again. Film at 11.

[ 4,229 false or misleading claims in 558 days ~ 7.6/day as of 2018-08-01 -- as noted and graphed ]

Skepticism is not DENIALISM or Trump's lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Skepticism is fine, but that implies you do research and maintain the factual record. Trump support is the antithesis of that. It's the denial and converse of the provable record, personified in every direction. It's nazism.

I don't think Google cares

[rsilvergun]

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.

Re:Media

[andydread]

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?

Re:Media

[N1AK]

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.

Re:I don't think the poster knows the meaning...

[mvdwege]

Oh golly. The majority of media is hostile to a lying buffoon, and you complain that Google searches return the majority opinion.

What do you want? A safe space? I thought you right-wingers were Manly Men(TM) who didn't need all that? "Fuck your feelings", wasn't that your motto?

Re:I don't think the poster knows the meaning...

[Zero__Kelvin]

By definition any accurate reporting will be "hostile to Trump" so your complaint against Google is that their search engine ranks accurate reporting above Fox & Friends.