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Mycroft
Skeptic Friend
USA
427 Posts |
 Posted - 02/19/2008 : 00:38:07
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Journalist Who Exposes U.N. Corruption Disappears From Google
NEW YORK — How big do you have to be to earn the wrath of the United Nations and Internet giant Google?
If you're journalist Matthew Lee, all it takes are some critical articles and a scrappy little Web site.
Lee is the editor-in-chief, Webmaster and pretty much the only reporter for Inner City Press, a pint-sized Internet news operation that's taken on Goliath-sized entities like Citigroup since 1987.
Since 2005, he's been focusing almost entirely on stories that deal with internal corruption inside the U.N., posting several stores online almost daily.
He's been especially interested in the inner workings of what could be called the practical-applications arm of the international organization, the United Nations Development Programme.
Many of Lee's stories were featured prominently whenever Web users looked for news about the U.N. using the powerful Google News search engine, a vital way for media outlets both large and small to get their articles read.
But beginning Feb. 13, Google News users could no longer find new stories from the Inner City Press.
"I think they said, 'If we can't get this guy out of the U.N., let's disappear him from the Internet,'" Lee said.
It began with an innocuous-sounding yet chilling form letter from Google to Lee, e-mailed on Feb. 8:
"We periodically review news sources, particularly following user complaints, to ensure Google News offers a high quality experience for our users," it said. "When we reviewed your site we've found that we can no longer include it in Google News."
As soon as he read it, Lee immediately suspected one thing: That someone at the UNDP had pressured Google into "de-listing" him from Google News — essentially preventing Inner City Press from being classified on Google News as a legitimate news source and from having its stories pop up when someone conducts a Google News search. |
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,331106,00.html
I'm skeptical that Google really did silence this guy for his political reporting, but it does raise an important issue. Google is becoming the most powerful gatekeeper of information there ever was, what responsibility do they have to keep their own ideological biases out of out internet searches?
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Edited by - Mycroft on 02/19/2008 12:44:01
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2008 : 01:07:51 [Permalink]
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Well, it seems that you are accusing Google of injecting their ideology into this, beyond following an established practice of sorting internet content (which is what they do, after all).
Using this search string in Google (quotes included) "Inner City Press", leads to this page.
So I guess it is just typical FAUXNews bullshit to claim the site has been "disappeared" from Google. Typical fabrication, tabloid style, from those imbeciles.
All that aside...
Google makes its money by sorting and classifying data. They should, indeed, remain clinical in that task. I have yet to see any evidence to suggest that they aren't doing just that.
Also, Google is a private company. They have a right to implement any censorship policy they so choose, and it isn't illegal or unconstitutional. We'd all probably agree it would be unethical (like the china thing), and in the spirit of free market capitalism we'd just have to let the market decide their fate .
Seriously though, after reading a few things on the Inner City Press site, I can see why they would consider his site non-news de-list him from their news page. Errors of spelling and grammar everywhere, makes the whole thing look like some amateur opinion blog.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2008 : 09:13:54 [Permalink]
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The irony is that doing a Google News search for inner city press results in lots of mention of Lee and his alleged plight, and also at least one Inner City Press story. In other words, if Google had once delisted ICP, they've relisted it already. And if their intent was to shut Lee up, then all mentions of this story - including the FOX News piece - should have been culled from Google's results, too.
People get mistakenly delisted from Google all the time. They get relisted, too. I can't help but think that Lee has a paranoid streak, as he seems to have jumped to the worst possible conclusion. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2008 : 12:53:50 [Permalink]
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| It's not that you can't find him on Google, it's that he's not a news source for Google News anymore. Big deal. Neither am I. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2008 : 13:11:31 [Permalink]
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| After 2/12/08? |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2008 : 13:42:55 [Permalink]
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Today. Right now. If you click the link I provided and scroll down, you will find links in the Google News results leading to pieces like "Sanctions on Child Soldier Recruiters Debated at UN, Some Accused Question Report's Fairness" and "As Seas Rise, Island States Look for Concrete Partners, Doubts on UN's Overhead," both Inner City Press pieces by Matthew Russell Lee.
As I said, if he was delisted, he no longer is. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2008 : 13:58:02 [Permalink]
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| Both February 12 stories, aren't they? He was taken off as of 2/13, or am I reading something wrong? |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2008 : 15:42:08 [Permalink]
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Oh, I see what the problem is. "Delisted" means "removed." His older articles haven't been removed, and Inner City Press certainly hasn't been removed from the database as Lee claims Google said. In fact, from that article, we can see Lee's crappy journalism. Compare Lee's claims:...in a February 8 message referring to the receipt of a complaint, Google said it would be removing Inner City Press from the news database.
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...Inner City Press was notified by "Google Team," with no further attribution, that it would be de-listed from the Google News service... to the email Lee prints:We periodically review news sources, particularly following user complaints, to ensure Google News offers a high quality experience for our users. When we reviewed your site we've found that we can no longer include it in Google News. Lee apparently just made up the "database" claim, because even though he sources the email and even prints the email, the email simply doesn't say what Lee says it says. Nor does the email say "de-listed," which has a specific meaning to Google. The reporting is nothing but sensationalism.
Furthermore, Lee himself writes:Thursday afternoon, Nancy Ngo of Google's office of Global Communications stated that Inner City Press would be included "in a few weeks." And we get even more sensationalism from Lee in the FOX piece:"I think they said, 'If we can't get this guy out of the U.N., let's disappear him from the Internet,'" Lee said. But of course, the articles that Lee wrote that you can't find on Google News are available on a Google Web search. If Google wanted to "disappear" the guy, why does Google provide all sorts of evidence that he exists?
In fact, here's a Google Web search that results in Lee's article about Google. The worst case of a person being "disappeared," ever. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2008 : 03:30:19 [Permalink]
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| Perhaps Google just "ordered" it's bots to stop indexing Lee for the News section. His old articles would still remained indexed in the database but no new articles would be included. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
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Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2008 : 04:18:13 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
Perhaps Google just "ordered" it's bots to stop indexing Lee for the News section. His old articles would still remained indexed in the database but no new articles would be included.
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That's what I had assumed. I didn't know about the "de-listed" terminology, but then they put it in quotes, so I'm not sure what they meant. He's obviously exaggerating when talking about being disappeared from the internet. For now, anyway. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Mycroft
Skeptic Friend
USA
427 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2008 : 23:01:18 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Well, it seems that you are accusing Google of injecting their ideology into this, beyond following an established practice of sorting internet content (which is what they do, after all). |
Nope. You missed where I said, "I'm skeptical that Google really did silence this guy..."
I think the most likely explanation is someone complained about the guy, Google made a knee-jerk reaction and then changed their mind. I strongly doubt any action from Google was motivated by anything political. I'm not accusing Google of doing anything wrong, that would miss the point.
Originally posted by Dude
Google makes its money by sorting and classifying data. They should, indeed, remain clinical in that task. I have yet to see any evidence to suggest that they aren't doing just that. |
No, Google makes its money by selling advertising. The sorting and classifying data is just to get eyeballs to view the advertising. That's an easy mistake to make, just like thinking the "task" of network television is to entertain and to inform.
| Originally posted by DudeAlso, Google is a private company. They have a right to implement any censorship policy they so choose, and it isn't illegal or unconstitutional. We'd all probably agree it would be unethical (like the china thing), and in the spirit of free market capitalism we'd just have to let the market decide their fate. |
Google is a private company, and they do have a right to implement whatever censorship they want. Neither I nor the article claimed Google had broken any law.
I'm not as much of a free market capitalist as you are. I believe often regulation is necessary and beneficial.
Originally posted by Dude
Seriously though, after reading a few things on the Inner City Press site, I can see why they would consider his site non-news de-list him from their news page. Errors of spelling and grammar everywhere, makes the whole thing look like some amateur opinion blog.
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Which puts it a step above most "indymedia" sites.
I've looked the site over. In my opinion he's a professional whistle blower. Which is okay, the world needs whistle blowers even if sometimes they get a little shrill.
Who or what he is isn't the point. If Google did anything illegal or not isn't the point. That this story involves Google is just incidental, five or ten years ago it might have been AOL.
The point is that market dominance can bring a company the power to control information in ways undreamed of just a few decades ago. I think that's fodder for discussion. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2008 : 00:00:02 [Permalink]
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m7ycroft said:
No, Google makes its money by selling advertising. The sorting and classifying data is just to get eyeballs to view the advertising. That's an easy mistake to make, just like thinking the "task" of network television is to entertain and to inform.
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If they didn't have the sorting/classifying service they wouldn't be able to sell ads on it. Their ability to make money is predicated on their ability to provide, and convince people to use, that search service. Just like TVs ability to make money is predicated on the quality of their shows(i.e. how many people watch). So there is no mistake on my part there.
You missed where I said, "I'm skeptical that Google really did silence this guy..."
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No, I read that part. But you followed it with: "Google is becoming the most powerful gatekeeper of information there ever was, what responsibility do they have to keep their own ideological biases out of out internet searches?"
Which is why I said "it seems that you are accusing Google of injecting their ideology into this", rather than insist that you were actually doing it.
| I'm not as much of a free market capitalist as you are. |
I was being sarcastic.
| The point is that market dominance can bring a company the power to control information in ways undreamed of just a few decades ago. I think that's fodder for discussion. |
I agree! And if Google had ripped this guy because he said something they didn't agree with, then I'd be very critical of them. There is enough of that crap done by the media conglomerates already, we definitely don't need anymore.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Corporate control of the Internet
