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| WND : Google dumps news sites that criticize radical Islam |
| 2006-05-23 |
Search engine giant Google has cut off its news relationship with a number of online news publications that include frank discussions of radical Islam – the New Media Journal becoming the latest termination. as its owner just discovered. Frank Salvato, who began the agreement with Google News last September, said he received a reply from the company's help desk Friday indicating there had been complaints of "hate speech" on his site, as first reported by media watchdog Newsbusters.org. The e-mail, which cited three articles that dealt with radical Islam and its relationship to terrorism, read: Hi Frank, Newsbusters says it has observed a pattern of intolerance toward conservative sites that deal with radical Islam and terrorism. Rusty Shackleford, owner of The Jawa Report, received a similar e-mail message March 29 informing him: "Upon recent review, we've found that your site contains hate speech, and we will no longer be including it in Google News." Two weeks later, Jim Sesi's MichNews.com was cut off, with Google providing three examples of "hate speech" by conservative writer J. Grant Swank, Jr. Newsbusters commented: "At first blush, one can easily ignore such business decisions by the most powerful company on the Internet as being routine. However, on closer examination, such behavior could give one relatively small technological corporation (when measured by the size of its workforce) a degree of political might that frankly dwarfs its current financial prowess." The media watchdog noted columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin wrote in February 2005 her difficulties in becoming part of Google News. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs had a similar complaint. When Google News launched its beta site in April 2002, it said its mission was to construct an unbiased news engine free of human intervention using new methods of aggregating news from sources worldwide. According to the April Nielsen/NetRatings report, 49 percent of all searches conducted in the U.S. in March 2006 were carried out on Google. Along with the dropping of conservative news providers, Google has received other complaints of liberal bias. Last June, a conservative book publisher said Google rejected his ad for a book critical of Bill and Hillary Clinton while continuing to accept anti-Bush themes. Eric Jackson, CEO of World Ahead, said his ads for "Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine" were rejected, without further explanation, due to "unacceptable content." As WND reported, 98 percent of all political donations by Google employees went to support Democrats. CEO Eric Schmidt gave the maximum legal limit of donations to Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry and to primary candidate Howard Dean. Schmidt also contributed the maximum amount to Sen. Clinton, whose role in helping her husband intimidate his female accusers is addressed in the new book. In May 2005, Google rejected an attempt by the conservative activist group RightMarch.com to run ads critical of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., while continuing to run attack ads against besieged House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. Also, Google agreed to allow the communist Chinese government to have the search engine block "objectionable" search terms such as "democracy." In addition, the company came under fire for an editorial decision to rank news articles in search results by "quality," giving preferential placement to large and predominately liberal media outlets such as CNN and the BBC over conservative news sources, even if they are more recent or pertinent. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #18 The Failed Left > eight years of Bill Clinton in and by itself wiped out any each every and all defects or failures of Leftism-Socialism and aligned in all forms since the beginning of time, thus it should be no surprise that the burden is on America and Rightism-Conservatism, and only the same, to "justify" Leftism for the Lefties, Secularism for the Secularists, Communism and Totalitarianism for the Commies and extreme Absolutists, ...etal. so why not Radical Islam andor general Islam for the Radical Islamists and Muslims. Within this context, the Left > America's and Dubya's utility is to help Radical Iran achieve its nukes and Iran-centric Regional-Global Caliphate, NOT hinder or stop them. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-05-23 21:27 |
| #17 "Mr. Murdoch owns Fox. Mr. Clinton was charged by President Bush to raise funds for people, earthquake vistims, etc. Former President Bush was also." Mr. Clinton is a former President of the United States. Mrs. Clinton is a current United States Senator from the State of New York. Mr. Murdoch is aiding Senator Clinton in her fundraising. I am not sure which is the bigger sin for a Rantburg reader, the failure to comprehend what one reads, or political ignorance. |
| Posted by: Fordesque 2006-05-23 19:17 |
| #16 Murdoch is helping HILLARY with her campaign fundraising... If Hillary runs that should make for some interesting news (and high ratings). Is Murdoch dumb like a fox? |
| Posted by: Parabellum 2006-05-23 18:57 |
| #15 bk, Murdoch is helping HILLARY with her campaign fundraising. Different kettle of fish than helping ole Bubba with his humanitarian stuff. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-05-23 12:20 |
| #14 I can only hope that Mr. Murdoch is backing a loser. |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2006-05-23 12:03 |
| #13 And your point is ? |
| Posted by: wxjames 2006-05-23 11:43 |
| #12 Mr. Murdoch owns Fox. Mr. Clinton was charged by President Bush to raise funds for people,earthquake vistims, etc. Former President Bush was also. |
| Posted by: bk 2006-05-23 11:31 |
| #11 Here's a challenge: there are a lot of conservative techies around. Google's specific text retrieval approaches are patented and in some cases trade secrets, but the field is pretty mature. Maybe it's time for a group of conservatives to fund and put up an unbiased version of Google News. The issue would be the copyright bit for articles indexed, maybe. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-05-23 10:49 |
| #10 You mean the same Mr. Murdoch that is helping Senator Clinton with fundraising? |
| Posted by: Fordesque 2006-05-23 10:46 |
| #9 Not since that billionaire Saudi prince bought 5% or more of the stock in Fox. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-05-23 10:20 |
| #8 Google is a private company ... you think Rupert Murdoch kind of balences them out. I think so... |
| Posted by: bk 2006-05-23 10:16 |
| #7 Oh and on that basis - can I start gettingthem to ban all kinds of lefty plcase that attack Catholicism and Christianity? Or those sites that promote islamic violence? heh. Go looking folks - then hammer Google with the TRUTH to excpose thier political biases. |
| Posted by: Oldspook 2006-05-23 10:07 |
| #6 Google still carry "news" from indymedia? Htats about as hate filled as you can get. |
| Posted by: Oldspook 2006-05-23 10:06 |
| #5 I read those three articles last one by an Iranian dissident. Who the hell are Google to moralise and say an ex-Muslim cannot criticise their old religion? Who is anyone to restrict the free criticism of a belief system? It is now a crime in many European countries and yes, even in Australia under our vilification laws. Freedom of speech, debate and discussing ideas is dead. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for not vilifying people on the basis of genetic characteristics over which they have no control: race (hair, eye colour), sex (being female/male) or sexuality (born gay, straight or bi). But it should be CONSTITUTIONALLY protected that people have the right to criticise any and all ideas and belief systems because people can be wrong and people can change. If someone has a ridiculous religious cult like aum-Shinrikyo, I should be free to criticise and despise it all I want. And even if it is large, followed by many people like Islam, Christianity, Buddhism etc, the same rules should apply! |
| Posted by: anon1 2006-05-23 09:44 |
| #4 sad. "They" lost control of the news with the internet and now they are working to control that too. I suppose they will be successful since our governments and universities are complict. We are in for some hard times ahead. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-05-23 08:48 |
| #3 They are wackos at Google. Is there a politically incorret alternative? |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-05-23 08:48 |
| #2 Lgf had Goggle news trouble too, as mentioned in the article. I wonder why?... |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-05-23 08:46 |
| #1 Looked at the top given link, I don't see a damn thing wrong with telling the truth, I do NOT see "Hate Speech" only painful truth. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2006-05-23 08:42 |