Google not business but liberal action force

[RedRock]

www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-google-leaderships-dismayed-reaction-to-trump-election/

It's clear, and disgusting, watching this that Google is simply not a business trying to serve people who want to access and retrieve information in a free and open fashion, but instead is just a liberal progressive socialistic action force to destroy the US and conservatives and President Trump.

Google's power to do this needs to be stripped.

[Lamron]

We keep discovering more and more examples of how Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. all attempted to unethically influence the last election while maintaining the claim of being neutral service providers. The IRS targeting conservative groups greatly hindered their ability to be effective (or even exist). There's also been large amounts of voter fraud found in several states. But Trump still won decisively. How did this happen? My hope/theory is that the "silent majority" of Americans are not fooled by it and are swinging back towards conservative values. The perception that half or more of the country is liberal is brought to us by the same media that we already know can't be trusted. The left has done a great job of making it hard on people who speak against them, both professionally and personally. But based on polling vs actual results, there seems to be a large number of people who will keep quiet or say the "right things" out loud, but inside the privacy of the voting booth can freely vote their conscience. For the numbers to work, many people who voted for Obama must have voted for Trump. Those people are never going to wear a MAGA hat or even admit to their friends and family what they did, but must have seen something they didn't like about the way the country was under Democrats and Rinos. The crazier the Left gets, the more reasonable people start to be annoyed by it. Screaming "Racist" and "Sexist" at people who clearly aren't makes them mad enough to start questioning everything else you say.

RedRock said:

Google's power to do this needs to be stripped.

I'm as upset as anybody about the censoring of conservatives in search engines and social media, but what can be done about it in a legal sense? They are private companies, they do have the right to control what information flows through them. Its not libel to leave things out. You might say that its fraudulent if they claim unbiased results and don't deliver, but they have that covered by the fine print stating that they block things they have "determined to be false" in order to provide better service. Or, like Twitter, state that they remove anything that violates their Terms Of Service, and the TOS prohibits "hate speech" (anything they are offended by). This forum here is hosted by Proboards and there is a TOS that I have to follow/enforce here or we will get removed, as is their right because I agreed to it when I signed up.

Generally, these types of questions are solved by the free market providing alternatives that become more popular with consumers that don't like the practices of a particular company. The internet is a weird thing though. On the one hand, ANYBODY really can start up a new service. I could create my own search engine, E-mail service, social media site, etc. and host it on my own computer in my home, and anyone in the world could access it. In a technical sense, other than my internet connection being able to service a limited number of simultaneous users, there is no barrier to me directly competing with Google. However, the service Google provides is a so much better than my service that any user would be foolish to choose me. There's no crime in providing such a good product/service that consumers decide not to buy from your competitors.

The bias is a big problem, but I don't see a way to attack it legally or with market pressure. At least not until there is enough of a cultural shift that people value truth over convenience enough that they will put in the effort to seek out alternatives.

[RedRock]

Still feel that way? Don't think it's like phone and electricity and other modern "essentials" or "necessities" that need to be taken over by government, for open and fair access by all?

Consider:
"Leaked Google Briefing Admits Abandonment of Free Speech for ‘Safety And Civility’"
Yeah, it's Breitbart, but read it for yourself.
www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/10/09/the-good-censor-leaked-google-briefing-admits-abandonment-of-free-speech-for-safety-and-civility/

But the 85-page briefing, titled “The Good Censor,” admits that Google and other tech platforms now “control the majority of online conversations” and have undertaken a “shift towards censorship” in response to unwelcome political events around the world.

Examples cited in the document include the 2016 election and the rise of Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) in Germany.

Responding to the leak, an official Google source said the document should be considered internal research, and not an official company position.

Read some of the discussion at Free Republic, too:
www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3695245/posts

[Lamron]

That officially confirms what we suspected, that censorship is a core goal of Google, and not just the actions of a few individual employees.

So what can we do about it?

[RedRock]

Dunno. Above my paygrade.

[Lamron]

Well, if I was Benevolent Dictator of the whole country, you'd see alot of things being done differently.

[Lamron]

This is interesting. This may be an effective tactic against them. This complaint asserts that their clear bias against Republicans rises to the level of contributing to Democrats in a way that violates Campaign Finance laws.

bigleaguepolitics.com/breaking-fec-complaint-filed-against-google-facebook-and-twitter-for-election-interference/

[RedRock]

One can hope.