is Google censoring info about left/socialist sites?

This topic has 4 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 3 months ago by zn.

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August 8, 2017 at 7:41 am #72082

wv
Participant

link:https://popularresistance.org/google-blocking-key-search-terms-for-left-websites/

“…Google blocked every one of the WSWS’s 45 top search terms

An intensive review of Internet data has established that Google has severed links between the World Socialist Web Site and the 45 most popular search terms that previously directed readers to the WSWS. The physical censorship implemented by Google is so extensive that of the top 150 search terms that, as late as April 2017, connected the WSWS with readers, 145 no longer do so.

These findings make clear that the decline in Google search traffic to the WSWS is not the result of some technical issue, but a deliberate policy of censorship. The fall took place in the three months since Google announced on April 25 plans to promote “authoritative web sites” above those containing “offensive” content and “conspiracy theories.”

Because of these measures, the WSWS’s search traffic from Google has fallen by two-thirds since April.

The WSWS has analyzed tens of thousands of search terms, and identified those key phrases and words that had been most likely to place the WSWS on the first or second page of search results. The top 45 search terms previously included “socialism,” “Russian revolution,” “Flint Michigan,” “proletariat,” and “UAW [United Auto Workers].” The top 150 results included the terms “UAW contract,” “rendition” and “Bolshevik revolution.” All of these terms are now blocked….”

August 9, 2017 at 6:19 pm #72140

Zooey
Moderator

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/04/goog-a04.html

August 10, 2017 at 12:15 pm #72180

Billy_T
Participant

Silicon Valley has long done its best, covertly, overtly, subtly, or brazenly, to suppress leftist ideas.

I noticed early on that if you want to find courses on Marx and socialism in, say, Apple’s university, you’re going to find them as taught by far-right sources like mises.org.

And if you sign up to one of those customized news aggregators, and choose “socialism,” the most prevalent articles will also come from right-wing sites — condemnation of leftist philosophy, etc. That’s not going to be what happens when you choose your other categories. You’re not going to get anti-travel articles for travel, or anti-sports articles for sports, or anticapitalist articles for capitalism or economics.

Marx, socialism, the left in general — that stuff usually generates negative articles.

It’s, well, rigged.

August 10, 2017 at 12:44 pm #72181

wv
Participant

Billy_T wrote:

Silicon Valley has long done its best, covertly, overtly, subtly, or brazenly, to suppress leftist ideas.

I noticed early on that if you want to find courses on Marx and socialism in, say, Apple’s university, you’re going to find them as taught by far-right sources like mises.org.

And if you sign up to one of those customized news aggregators, and choose “socialism,” the most prevalent articles will also come from right-wing sites — condemnation of leftist philosophy, etc. That’s not going to be what happens when you choose your other categories. You’re not going to get anti-travel articles for travel, or anti-sports articles for sports, or anticapitalist articles for capitalism or economics.

Marx, socialism, the left in general — that stuff usually generates negative articles.

It’s, well, rigged.

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Making a different, and ridiculous point — when i was on computer-dating sites, (and I’ve been on half-a-dozen), I used to type in “socialist” or “anarchist” or Marx or Chomsky, etc in my dating-site-search-engine — and these sites have thousands of people on them — in my area, i used to find maybe four or five profiles at most that had that kind of wording in the profile. I had to expand my searches outside WV and past Pittsburgh and into NY City before i found single female socialists.

I dunno what that means, but i took it to mean that WV is a patriotic and holy place to live and NY is full of loose and evil women who are on the hellbound train.

w
v

August 10, 2017 at 1:25 pm #72183

zn
Moderator

Well, then, try using “loose and evil women who are on the hellbound train” as search terms.
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