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Yes, Google Uses Its Power to Quash Ideas It Doesn’t Like—I Know Because It Happened to Me


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2017 Sep 1, 7:19am   21,792 views  51 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (55)   💰tip   ignore  

http://gizmodo.com/yes-google-uses-its-power-to-quash-ideas-it-doesn-t-li-1798646437

The Google salespeople were encouraging Forbes to add Plus’s “+1" social buttons to articles on the site, alongside the Facebook Like button and the Reddit share button. They said it was important to do because the Plus recommendations would be a factor in search results—a crucial source of traffic to publishers.

This sounded like a news story to me. Google’s dominance in search and news give it tremendous power over publishers. By tying search results to the use of Plus, Google was using that muscle to force people to promote its social network.

I asked the Google people if I understood correctly: If a publisher didn’t put a +1 button on the page, its search results would suffer? The answer was yes.

...

But the most disturbing part of the experience was what came next: Somehow, very quickly, search results stopped showing the original story at all. As I recall it—and although it has been six years, this episode was seared into my memory—a cached version remained shortly after the post was unpublished, but it was soon scrubbed from Google search results. That was unusual; websites captured by Google’s crawler did not tend to vanish that quickly.


#google

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1   Dan8267   2017 Sep 1, 8:50am  

Hop into your Delorean, go back to 1980, and stop Reagan from becoming president. That is the only way to prevent Google from doing whatever it wants. Anti-trust laws are important, and they are dead because of Reagan.
2   Patrick   2017 Sep 1, 9:41am  

Dan8267 says
Hop into your Delorean, go back to 1980, and stop Reagan from becoming president. That is the only way to prevent Google from doing whatever it wants. Anti-trust laws are important, and they are dead because of Reagan.


Maybe you're right about that: http://articles.latimes.com/1986-01-15/business/fi-28375_1_antitrust-laws

January 15, 1986 | From The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — President Reagan, arguing that American business needs greater flexibility to respond to global competition, has decided to ask Congress to overhaul the nation's antitrust laws to ease restrictions on mergers, Administration sources said Tuesday.
3   Patrick   2017 Sep 1, 9:50am  

And the WSJ had an article yesterday called "New Criticism of Mergers Draws Skeptics" (can't find it online anywhere) which says:

"The 'markup' that companies can charge over their marginal cost has risen steadily, potentiailly a sign of declining competitive forces that keep prices in check."

"The excess, what they call the markup of price over marginal cost, fluctuated between 16% and 32% until 1982, and has since climbed steadily, to 67%. This, they say, is proof that companies are increasingly able to exert "market power," that is, charge higher prices so as to boost profits at the expense of consumers."

"Advisers found return on capital has become astronomical for the most profitable publicly traded companies, which shouldn't be possible if competitors could freely enter their market."

The article then says this may explain deeper economic maladies: lower demand for labor, lower wages for low-skilled workers, discouraging people from working, barriers to entry, slumping business startup rates.

So maybe we really need much stronger anti-trust laws so the biggest companies cannot restrict competition like they do now.
4   Dan8267   2017 Sep 1, 10:08am  

Patrick says
Dan8267 says
Hop into your Delorean, go back to 1980, and stop Reagan from becoming president. That is the only way to prevent Google from doing whatever it wants. Anti-trust laws are important, and they are dead because of Reagan.


Maybe you're right about that: http://articles.latimes.com/1986-01-15/business/fi-28375_1_antitrust-laws


Ironically, this means the left-controlled media including Google can now control the public's perception of parties and policies.
5   Patrick   2017 Sep 1, 10:49am  

Lol, yes, probably an unintended consequence of a Republican pro-megabusiness policy.

The media megabusinesses are all definitely controlled by Democrats these days.
6   Tenpoundbass   2017 Sep 1, 11:14am  

We wouldn't have breakfast in this country if not for Regean he made it Moning in America again.
He freed the slaves from the Liberal plantations, and gave black people the right to vote. He was the most important Civil Rights activist the world has ever known.
Show some respect for a true great man.
7   Ernie   2017 Sep 1, 11:33am  

Tenpoundbass says
Regean ...gave black people the right to vote.

That seems to be a new interpretation of history, I thought it was LBJ gave black people right to vote
8   Y   2017 Sep 1, 11:46am  

If that were to happen we'd all be speaking russian by now...

Patrick says
Dan8267 says
Hop into your Delorean, go back to 1980, and stop Reagan from becoming president. That is the only way to prevent Google from doing whatever it wants.
9   anonymous   2017 Sep 1, 11:51am  

Patrick says
And the WSJ had an article yesterday called "New Criticism of Mergers Draws Skeptics" (can't find it online anywhere) which says:

"The 'markup' that companies can charge over their marginal cost has risen steadily, potentiailly a sign of declining competitive forces that keep prices in check."

"The excess, what they call the markup of price over marginal cost, fluctuated between 16% and 32% until 1982, and has since climbed steadily, to 67%. This, they say, is proof that companies are increasingly able to exert "market power," that is, charge higher prices so as to boost profits at the expense of consumers."

"Advisers found return on capital has become astronomical for the most profitable publicly traded companies, which shouldn't be possible if competitors could freely enter their market."

The article then says this may explain deeper economic maladies: lower demand for labor, lower wages for low-skilled workers, discouraging people from working, barriers t...


How can we ever find time to deal with this small issue, while some 5'10 130lb kid at Berkeley is hitting a Nazi with a stick?

Liberals ruined everything
10   Y   2017 Sep 1, 11:58am  

It's all up for grabs...

drBu says
Tenpoundbass says
Regean ...gave black people the right to vote.

That seems to be a new interpretation of history,

11   Tenpoundbass   2017 Sep 1, 12:01pm  

We'll enter a new era of Fake Schools thanks to the Libtards.
12   lostand confused   2017 Sep 1, 2:03pm  

errc says
Liberals ruined everything


Yup Google is a liberal utopia and shows what happens when the elft gains power for free speech.
13   Dan8267   2017 Sep 1, 3:09pm  

lostand confused says
Yup Google is a liberal utopia and shows what happens when the elft gains power for free speech.


It's impossible to be both liberal and part of the left. The left is as conservative as the right.
14   MisdemeanorRebel   2017 Sep 1, 4:08pm  

Anne-Marie Slaughter, a revolving door Neoliberal Professor who was hired by Hillary when she was Secretary of State, fired Barry Lynn from New America's, a think tank, Open Markets group.

His crime? Applauding Google's $2.7B fine from the EU.



The New America Foundation’s Open Markets group was a rare, loud voice of protest against Google’s ever-growing consolidation of economic and technological power around the world. But New America, like many of its fellow think tanks, received millions in funding from one of the targets of its anti-monopoly work, and according to a New York Times report today, pulled the plug after the company’s chief executive had enough dissent.

After EU regulators fined Google $2.7 billion earlier this summer, Barry Lynn, who ran the Open Markets division, cheered the decision, adding that “U.S. enforcers should apply the traditional American approach to network monopoly, which is to cleanly separate ownership of the network from ownership of the products and services sold on that network, as they did in the original Microsoft case of the late 1990s.” It didn’t take long for Lynn and his colleagues to suffer the consequences, the Times reports:

Those worries seemed to be substantiated a couple of days later, when Ms. Slaughter summoned the scholar who wrote the critical statement, Barry Lynn, to her office. He ran a New America initiative called Open Markets that has led a growing chorus of liberal criticism of the market dominance of telecom and tech giants, including Google, which is now part of a larger corporate entity known as Alphabet, for which Mr. Schmidt serves as executive chairman.

Ms. Slaughter told Mr. Lynn that “the time has come for Open Markets and New America to part ways,” according to an email from Ms. Slaughter to Mr. Lynn. The email suggested that the entire Open Markets team — nearly 10 full-time employees and unpaid fellows — would be exiled from New America.

[…]

“We are in the process of trying to expand our relationship with Google on some absolutely key points,” Ms. Slaughter wrote in an email to Mr. Lynn, urging him to “just THINK about how you are imperiling funding for others.”

New America president Anne-Marie Slaughter quickly informed Lynn that his team would no longer be welcome at the think tank, presenting about as tidy and flagrant a case of conflict of interest and monied suppression of criticism as one can imagine. But on Twitter, Slaughter disputed the Times report, claiming that it was simply “false”:

New America’s statement, however, disputes literally not a single fact in the Times story or any of Lynn’s claims:


The Intercept reviewed the full termination email sent from Slaughter to Lynn that was cited and quoted in the Times report and found that they were reported and characterized with complete accuracy. The full text does, however, show that Slaughter threatened to make Lynn’s firing more difficult for him and his team should it generate any negative publicity for New America.

https://theintercept.com/2017/08/30/google-funded-think-tank-fired-google-critics-after-they-dared-criticize-google/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne-Marie_Slaughter literally believes that national sovereignity doesn't mean shit, a true neolib-con Internationalist Radical Extremist.
15   FortWayne   2017 Sep 1, 4:22pm  

That article is a real eye opener.
16   Patrick   2017 Sep 1, 4:34pm  

OK, that's 3 cases lately where Google was stomping on attempted free speech:

1. James Damore
2. New America Foundation’s Open Markets group
3. the article above (though the incident is 6 years ago)
17   Y   2017 Sep 1, 6:47pm  

That's it.
I'm sanctioning their calendar app from my google app suite until they clean their shit up...

Patrick says
OK, that's 3 cases lately where Google was stomping on attempted free speech:

1. James Damore
2. New America Foundation’s Open Markets group
3. the article above (though the incident is 6 years ago)
18   Patrick   2017 Sep 1, 11:00pm  

And here's another one:

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/08/31/google-issues-ultimatum-to-conservative-website-remove-hateful-article-or-lose-ad-revenue/

On Tuesday evening, Google sent a conservative website an ultimatum: remove one of your articles, or lose the ability to make ad revenue on your website. The website was strong-armed into removing the content, and then warned that the page was "just an example and that the same violations may exist on other pages of this website."

...

Trejo argued that the article Google specified "contained no offensive content." Rather, it "was merely distinguishing the many differences between the alt-right and literal Nazis."

The Liberty Conservative writer suggested that the article was singled out because it was written by former Liberty Conservative contributor James Allsup. Allsup was involved in the "Unite the Right" riot (which Trejo described as a "rally-turned-riot") in Charlottesville, Va. Trejo said the article was targeted because "it was authored by a man deemed to be an 'unperson' by the corporate elite."
20   Tenpoundbass   2017 Sep 2, 7:27am  

My Grand Daughter can't use my Galaxy Tab to watch YouTube videos, because it's tied to my account. And Google knows I am an outspoken critic of them.
I bought a new tab, and when I activated it, it downloaded the YouTube profile for my account.
That profile is set up to return the most ville disgusting demonic shit for Children videos you could possibly find on the Internet.
Disgusting shit, I don't think ISIS shows kids the Shit YouTube shows kids of parents they deem anti Google.

Now why do I say this. Because when my Grand daughter uses on of my daughter's iPads which have their own seperate Google association to their accounts.
When she searches for Elmo, Barney and other type Videos, it returns the videos as expected.

Google is the most Vile Disgusting organization on the planet, and must be busted up and shut down, and search engines declared a Federal Utilty ran by the FCC.

Fuck Google!
21   Patrick   2017 Sep 2, 2:21pm  

https://www.rt.com/usa/197104-google-usa-political-campaign/

Google has ramped up its political contributions and spent more money on political campaigns this year than global investment bank, Goldman Sachs. The tech giant is looking to gain more political clout in Washington,it was revealed.
22   marcus   2017 Sep 2, 2:29pm  

Tenpoundbass says
Google knows I am an outspoken critic of them.
I bought a new tab, and when I activated it, it downloaded the YouTube profile for my account.
That profile is set up to return the most ville disgusting demonic shit for Children videos you could possibly find on the Internet.
Disgusting shit, I don't think ISIS shows kids the Shit YouTube shows kids of parents they deem anti Google.

Now why do I say this. Because when my Grand daughter uses on of my daughter's iPads which have their own separate Google association to their accounts.
When she searches for Elmo, Barney and other type Videos, it returns the videos as expected.


Brilliant. You think google is monitoring who likes them and who doesn't, and since they have you on their shit list, they are going to give you different children's videos than they give your daughter ? That is, with the intention of harming your granddaughter ?

You can't think of a simpler explanation ?

They think it's you using your account not your granddaughter. The results are based not on what you think of google but simply on you and your generally more crazy internet viewing habits. I wonder how much shopping you've done for a baby or young child from the google on that machine associated with that account, compared to your daughter ?

As "smart" as google can be about the user, it's still basically "garbage in garbage out. "

Out of all the people on Patrick.net, you've got to be the only one that would be shocked that your internet habits would lead to such a different search result than your daughters - and who would interpret the results in such a paranoid way.

Tenpoundbass says
Google knows I am an outspoken critic of them


Truly unbelievable.

I do think though that there's room for criticizing google for gearing your search results to the stuff that you want to read, reinforcing your biases and keeping you in your self perpetuating crazy right wing bubble.
23   Patrick   2017 Sep 2, 2:58pm  

marcus says
You think google is monitoring who likes them and who doesn't


The definitely have the means, the motive and the opportunity.
25   Tenpoundbass   2017 Oct 4, 11:29am  

marcus says
You think google is monitoring who likes them and who doesn't, and since they have you on their shit list, they are going to give you different children's videos than they give your daughter ? That is, with the intention of harming your granddaughter ?


Google personaly with a live person? No! Algorithms and bots? Yes!
26   zzyzzx   2017 Nov 6, 10:37am  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3754655/Google-buries-Clinton-body-count-Search-engine-accused-hiding-negative-stories-Hillary-s-campaign.html

Google buries 'Clinton body count': Search engine accused of hiding negative stories during Hillary's campaign

When users type 'Clinton body', Google's top results are car repair shops





27   Booger   2017 Nov 9, 7:14pm  

I remember when the internet was the wild west of comments and opinions. Now everywhere is a safe space.
29   Patrick   2017 Nov 30, 7:22am  

https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/27/why-did-protonmail-vanish-from-google-search-results-for-months/amp/
If you’re the maker of a popular, zero access encrypted webmail product and suddenly discover your product is no longer featuring in Google search results for queries such as “secure email” and “encrypted email,” what do you conclude?

That something is amiss, for sure.

But the rather more pertinent question is whether your product’s disappearance is accidental or intentional — given that Google also offers a popular webmail product, Gmail, albeit one that does not offer zero access because users “pay” the company with their personal data
30   Booger   2017 Dec 6, 4:21pm  

If a bakery HAS to bake the cake then facebook and twitter HAVE to allow my conservative posts
31   anonymous   2017 Dec 27, 5:33pm  

32   zzyzzx   2018 Jan 9, 10:06am  

http://dailycaller.com/2018/01/09/googles-new-fact-check-feature-almost-exclusively-targets-conservative-sites/
Google’s New Fact-Check Feature Almost Exclusively Targets Conservative Sites
33   anonymous   2018 Jan 9, 10:54am  

anon_c6dfa says


How do you "save" people who believe content written by Bulgarian criminals aka Zero Hedge? You know the people who act like their are fight club Tyler Durden while they live in luxury generated by "clicks"....
34   HappyGilmore   2018 Jan 9, 11:06am  

zzyzzx says
http://dailycaller.com/2018/01/09/googles-new-fact-check-feature-almost-exclusively-targets-conservative-sites/
Google’s New Fact-Check Feature Almost Exclusively Targets Conservative Sites


New law against murder almost exclusively targets people who kill other people.
35   Patrick   2018 Jan 9, 11:07pm  

Google is also offering to cache news stories on its own servers in a certain format called AMP to "speed them up".

But this is also a power play designed to give them control over the news.

We are a community of individuals who have a significant interest in the development and health of the World Wide Web (“the Web”), and we are deeply concerned about Accelerated Mobile Pages (“AMP”), a Google project that purportedly seeks to improve the user experience of the Web.

In fact, AMP keeps users within Google’s domain and diverts traffic away from other websites for the benefit of Google. At a scale of billions of users, this has the effect of further reinforcing Google’s dominance of the Web.


http://ampletter.org/
38   anonymous   2018 Jan 10, 2:35pm  

Tenpoundbass says
That profile is set up to return the most ville disgusting demonic shit for Children videos you could possibly find on the Internet.


There is some weird shit out there for kids. Adults dressed like Spiderman, all kinds of bizarre shit on Youtube. And no good filtering either.

How do I "Stop showing my kid videos of adults dressed as superheroes playing with toys?"
39   Booger   2018 Feb 11, 7:32pm  

Google used to be amazing, finding a,, sorts of useful information by anyone that posted it on any subject. Now it only delivers commercial results, ranked by how much they pay, sanitized to their own flavor of political correctness and motives.

At this point it’s near fucking useless and I am sad and upset at the loss to humanity in the greater sense.

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