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Google Caught In Censorship

About 2 weeks ago, I wrote about why I thought that Peer to Peer would be the future of the Internet, instead of centralized services like Live.com and Google. I warned in that post about the fact that these kinds of centralized services take control away from the user and put it into the hands of a few, who can decide what gets published and what they do with all that data and content.

Alex Jones reported yesterday that he caught Google resetting viewer numbers on his video “Terror Storm” (you can also download it here) so that they wouldn’t make it into the most popular videos on the Google Video site. There is also a screenshot posted on Alex Jones’s website. Some from the article:

Following last week’s buzz about Terror Storm being available for viewing free on Google Video, numerous websites linked to our promo page and as a result viewing figures for all versions of Terror Storm at Google Video began to climb rapidly.

However, upon checking the same viewer figures on Sunday, Alex Jones noticed that many had been reset to zero and had only begun to climb into the hundreds and early thousands, nowhere near their previous levels of tens and hundreds of thousands for the previous days. The trends had been artificially reversed and this prevented Terror Storm from entering the top ten list of Google Video which would have ensured an explosion of further circulation of the video.

As you can see from the screenshot a reader e mailed us below, Terror Storm was being highlighted as one of Google Video’s most popular selections and was heading for the top ten, until late Saturday/early Sunday when viewership totals for the video were inexplicably reset.

This is not the first time we have caught Google engaging in censorship of Alex Jones and his websites.

During our Charlie Sheen coverage, Google intentionally blocked news stories pertaining to Sheen’s comments which were first made on the Alex Jones Show and turned into a nationwide media spectacle.

Even after the story had gone supernova, and our original write-up had been linked all over the web, including the Drudge Report, Google’s main search engine did not list the article.

After we blew the whistle on this act of censorship, the story was re-listed and Google even began carrying some of our content in their news section – a practice that has now also ceased.

Google’s penchant for abandoning their founding principle of “don’t be evil” and kissing up to Communist China for privileged access into the world’s biggest untapped Internet market, was exemplified in February this when Google completely erased the Space War website from its search engine. Space War is a large mainstream news website that carries articles about geopolitics and the defense industry from AFP.

Space War speculated that it was their reporting on advancements in China’s military technology and missile programs that provoked a censorship order from the totalitarian Chinese government which Google acted upon. Again, after a mass e mailing campaign which we fully supported, Google re-indexed the Space War website.

When you see “Terror Storm”, you’ll understand why Google would want to make it appear less popular on its website. 9/11 Eyewitness, Rick Siegel, also seems to have caught Google censoring some information in its cache of webpages in the past.

Make sure you read my previous post on this subject, as it contains more information and insight into how these centralized services are ultimately not good for the user. When I read Alex Jones’s story, I wasn’t suprised at all. When you pay attention to the right information, you can see this stuff coming way in advance. And if I’m correct, it will get much worse in the future.

Pingbacks

  1. Karel Donk » Archive » Google admits to censorship, then does it again (08/10/2006)
  2. Karel Donk » Archive » Google ‘in bed’ with CIA (01/11/2006)

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