[Peace] Google rigging and blocking websites.......

[John W.]

There are other search engines you can use, though they're not nearly as
popular as Google.  I use Goodsearch, which has the added advantage of
donating money to my favorite charity each time I do a web search.

John Wason


On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 6:25 AM, Karen Aram via Peace <
peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>    - Print
>    <http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/07/28/pers-j28.html?view=print>
>    - Leaflet
>    <http://intsse.com/wswspdf/en/articles/2017/07/28/pers-j28.pdf>
>    - Feedback
>    <http://www.wsws.org/en/special/contact.html?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsws.org%2Fen%2Farticles%2F2017%2F07%2F28%2Fpers-j28.html&t=Google%20rigs%20searches%20to%20block%20access%20to%20World%20Socialist%20Web%20Site>
>    - Share » <http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/07/28/pers-j28.html#>
>
> Google rigs searches to block access to World Socialist Web Site 28 July
> 2017
>
> An examination of web traffic data clearly shows that Internet giant
> Google is manipulating search results to block access to the *World
> Socialist Web Site.*
>
> In April, under the guise of combatting “fake news,” Google introduced new
> procedures that give extraordinary powers to unnamed “evaluators” to demote
> web pages and websites. These procedures have been used to exclude the WSWS
> and other anti-war and oppositional sites.
>
> Over the past three months, traffic originating from Google to the WSWS
> has fallen by approximately 70 percent. In key searches relevant to a wide
> range of topics the WSWS regularly covers—including US military operations
> and the threat of war, social conditions, inequality, and even
> socialism—the number of search impressions referencing the *World
> Socialist Web Site* has fallen drastically.
>
> An “impression” is a technical term referring to a link shown by Google in
> response to a search result. If a search for “socialism” leads a user’s
> computer to show one link to the WSWS, that counts as an impression.
>
> By manipulating the “search ranking” assigned to the pages of the WSWS,
> Google can drive its content lower down on the list of results. This
> reduces the total number of impressions, which, in turn, leads to a very
> low number of “clicks,” or visits to the site.
>
> According to Google’s Webmaster Tools Service, the number of daily
> impressions for the *World Socialist Web Site* fell from 467,890 to
> 138,275 over the past three months.
>
> The WSWS has analyzed data related to the results of specific searches
> between May and July, that is, the period after Google implemented its new
> website exclusion policies.
>
> During the month of May, Google searches including the word “war” produced
> 61,795 WSWS impressions. In July, WSWS impressions fell by approximately 90
> percent, to 6,613.
>
> Searches for the term “Korean war” produced 20,392 impressions in May. In
> July, searches using the same words produced *zero* WSWS impressions.
> Searches for “North Korea war” produced 4,626 impressions in May. In July,
> the result of the same search produced *zero* WSWS impressions. “India
> Pakistan war” produced 4,394 impressions in May. In July, the result,
> again, was *zero*. And “Nuclear war 2017” produced 2,319 impressions in
> May, and zero in July.
>
> To cite some other searches: “WikiLeaks,” fell from 6,576 impressions to
> zero, “Julian Assange” fell from 3,701 impressions to zero, and “Laura
> Poitras” fell from 4,499 impressions to zero. A search for “Michael
> Hastings”—the reporter who died in 2013 under suspicious
> circumstances—produced 33,464 impressions in May, but only 5,227
> impressions in July.
>
> In addition to geopolitics, the WSWS regularly covers a broad range of
> social issues, many of which have seen precipitous drops in search results.
> Searches for “food stamps,” “Ford layoffs,” “Amazon warehouse,” and
> “secretary of education” all went down from more than 5,000 impressions in
> May to zero impressions in July.
>
> The number of search impressions for WSWS articles in searches including
> the term “strike” fell by 85 percent between May and July, from 19,395 to
> 2,964.
>
> Many people who conduct Google searches for these terms do so because they
> are critical of establishment politics and would be interested in hearing
> what socialists have to say. However, as a result of Google’s actions, they
> will not find material published by the *World Socialist Web Site*.
>
> But what about those directly looking for socialist politics? In May, the
> search term “socialism” generated 31,696 impressions, and the WSWS was
> ranked between 5th and 6th in search results. In June, the WSWS was removed
> from the top 100 search results for the term. Thus searches for “socialism”
> produced *zero* impressions for the *World Socialist Web Site*, the most
> widely read online socialist publication.
>
> What about those who are already committed socialists, and want to find
> out more about Leon Trotsky? Here, too, the WSWS, published by the
> Trotskyist movement, is being blocked. While a query for “Leon Trotsky”
> resulted in 5,893 impressions in May, that number fell to *zero* in July.
>
> When the WSWS contacted Robert Epstein with our findings, the noted
> psychologist and Google critic concluded, “I have little doubt that Google
> demoted you.” Epstein said research that he and his colleagues conducted
> showed “the evidence is rock solid” that “Google is manipulating people
> through search suggestions.”
>
> The policy guiding these actions is made absolutely clear in the April 25,
> 2017 blog post by Google’s Vice President for Engineering, Ben Gomes, and
> the updated “Search Quality Rater Guidelines” published at the same time.
> The post refers to the need to flag and demote “unexpected offensive
> results, hoaxes and conspiracy theories”—broad and amorphous language used
> to exclude any oppositional content.
>
> The rater guidelines are even more explicit. The unnamed “evaluators” are
> instructed to flag as the “lowest” rating sites that have “factually
> inaccurate information to manipulate users in order to benefit a person,
> business, government, or other organization politically, monetarily, or
> otherwise.” The “lowest” rating is also to be given to a website that
> “presents unsubstantiated conspiracy theories or hoaxes as if the
> information were factual.”
>
> It is impossible to formulate a more explicit policy of suppression of
> free speech. These guidelines are written in a way to allow Google to
> demote or block a massive array of websites that are critical of the
> government and expose its lies.
>
> Who precisely is to determine what is “factually inaccurate information”
> or what constitutes an “unsubstantiated conspiracy theory”? It in effect
> bars all expression of opinions, other than those that are acceptable to
> Google and its allies in the state, particularly the Democratic Party.
> There is not a publication or journal worth reading that would not fall
> afoul of these “guidelines.”
>
> Adding to the cynicism of the new procedures is the fact that numerous
> sources have documented Google’s active involvement in supporting political
> candidates, specifically Hillary Clinton, by manipulating search results.
> In his recently published book, *Move Fast and Break Things: How
> Facebook, Google, and Amazon cornered culture and undermined democracy*,
> Jonathan Taplin documents the role of Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google’s
> parent company Alphabet, in founding a firm called The Groundwork to
> directly assist the Clinton campaign.
>
> Moreover, earlier this year, the European Commission exposed Google’s
> widespread, deliberate, and criminal manipulation of its search results to
> promote its own comparison shopping service to the detriment of its
> competitors. The company was fined $2.7 billion.
>
> In the name of combating “fake news,” Google is providing fake searches.
> It has been transformed from a search engine into an instrument of
> censorship.
>
> The WSWS will continue to expose Google’s unconstitutional attack on
> democratic rights. We demand that Google give a full accounting of its
> procedures, and that it identify who has been given the power to “evaluate”
> websites. All of Google’s algorithms must be placed in the public domain.
>
> Ultimately, the actions of Google provide yet another demonstration of the
> need to take the dissemination of information out of private control.
> Powerful search engines cannot be run by monopolies controlled by
> billionaire oligarchs. They must be placed under democratic control by the
> working population of the world.
>
> There is no question that Google’s action has blocked tens of thousands of
> people that normally would have found the WSWS from accessing the site.
> This is the aim. However, a very substantial portion of WSWS readers access
> the site directly, via social media, or through other search engines, which
> at least up to this point have not implemented rules that go as far as
> Google.
>
> The WSWS has a loyal and large base of readers and continues to record
> hundreds of thousands of individual visits a month. We will oppose Google’s
> political censorship, but we need your support.
>
> We are calling on our readers to become actively involved, to fight for
> the WSWS. Assist the distribution of WSWS articles. Post our content on
> social media. Email our articles to your friends and co-workers. Make
> Google’s actions as widely known as possible.
>
> Send us your email address
> <http://www.wsws.org/en/special/contact.html?type=google> so that you can
> receive daily updates of material from the WSWS. Leave a statement of
> opposition to the actions of Google. Finally, we are fighting one of the
> most powerful corporations, with the closest links to the government and
> vast resources. We need financial support
> <http://www.wsws.org/donate/google.html> to continue and expand our
> counteroffensive against censorship and the suppression of free speech.
>
> WSWS Editorial Board
>
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