Google News, Censorship or Responsible Journalism? 694
MSTCrow5429 writes to mention an article published by WorldNetDaily attacking the policies and actions of Google News. The author takes issue with the practice of removing sites that offer very frank discussions about radical Islam and terrorism as "hate speech." Several sites have complained about removal including The Jawa Report, MichNews, and most recently The New Media Journal. In the termination email to The New Media Journal Google cited several stories as objectionable in order to further explain the action.
Good on you google! (Score:5, Insightful)
Mich News has appalling layout & a rather distasteful red, white, blue color scheme (why is he so obsessed with the french flag?) [google.com]
In short, the blogs were not news sources, they were at best aggregators of chauvinistic news, at worst (like the first link), poorly written anti-moslem blogs, that just happen to tie in current events.
Frankly, I new google news was going to hit this sort of trouble as soon as they started indexing this blog [google.com].
Anyway, good on you google for not linking to hate as 'news' - the reaction of the moslem haters is as predictable as allways, crying about censorship, but frankly, everyone just thinks you're a bunch of whiners.
blog != news (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't wait till
Re:This is Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Conservatism [wikipedia.org] and Islamophobia [wikipedia.org] have nothing in common.
The new media journal is not a conservative rag, it is an Islam-fear-spreading propaganda machine.
Sorry!
Answer: Responsible Journalism (Score:5, Insightful)
I fail to see how these blogs are news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, how is this news? (Score:4, Insightful)
The content of the articles aside, one has to wonder why an site that is unabashedly slanted towards political commentary can really be considered news in the first place. There is a big difference between political analysis of world events (i.e. what one party is doing, what is going on with legislation, etc.) and political commentary (diatribes about various organized groups, short fictions about the way the world works, etc.). WND comes down in the later camp, it always has, and the fact they were ever included in a 'News' aggregator is troublesome.
I mean, isn't there a line somewhere, where information stops being news and starts being propaganda? I always thought it had something to do with whether or not a story is a recitation of facts or someone's personal opinion. There seems to be some confusion between objectivity and fairness these days, where a plurality of viewpoints (slanted in one direction or the other) is considered a substitute for faithfulness to events in themselves.
M
Yet another example... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good on you google! (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't find it in my heart to feel sorry for a Nazi skinhead who's beaten up in jail - and I can't find it in my heart to feel sorry for a racist jackass whose blog has been "censored" from Google News. Perhaps the editors might actually look at both sides of an issue before they post propaganda from hate groups?
What was I thinking? This is /.!
lets try this from another angle (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm curious to see how these same people would react if Google started indexing sites lambasting Christianity and calling Christ a false prophet and pedophile and whatnot. I'm willing to bet that they'd launch a "Boycott Google" campaign if those sites weren't immediately removed.
Re:Good on you google! (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, my newspaper kept referring to the may 1 protests as immigrant rights protests, when they really should have said illegal immigrant. rights protests. Little changes like that can make a big difference when read. I don't think many writers realize this though.
Get a dictionary (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Only acceptable news (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good on you google! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the slashdot editors are to some extent forced to post issues to the front page when they get big enough on the internet. I mean, there's been plenty of slashdot readers, like this dimwit [slashdot.org] who are talking about this (his sig is "Liberal Slashdot Bias. [slashdot.org]")
Anyway, I don't hold slashdot to the same standards as other organisations - after all, you can just read the comments - they'll certainly let you know if the story's wrong! (Something none of the linked blogs have the courage to do)
Free Speech Is Too Dangerous For Mere Mortals (Score:1, Insightful)
Only we enlightened "Progressives" can be trusted with the awesome power of free speech.
Now, go back to your MTV and iPods and let us protect you from the evil right-wing neo-con republikkklans.
So-called "hate speech" (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Same as Hirshi Ali said ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Reference please? (Nederlands of Engels)
And anyway:
1) Ayaan Hirsi Ali got woman of the year because she is an amazing woman.
2) Criticism from within a culture is different to criticism from without - can you imagine if it'd been an arab who made piss christ? [wikipedia.org]
Anyway, I thought Americans were so big on freedom of speech. I'd said get ready for some real rucus, because Hirshi Ali (or Magan actually) is coming your way!
Not a freedom of speech issue - you can still find all those sites using google. Google's removed them from their news sites, because they're not news sites they're hate sites!
Re:Good on you google! (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference between calling illegal immigrants "illegal immigrants" and just plain old "immigrants" is negligible, especially because there were more than just illegals in the protests, and it was more than just the rights of the illegals that were at stake. Regular, ol' fashioned immigrants were fighting for their rights as well.
Finally, who is to say that Google is not censoring the other side? I don't happen to look at Google's Arabic news, and I can't read or speak the language, so I can't definitively say one way or the other. If you're harping on Al Jazeera being cited as news, what is their replacement?
now freedom of politically correct speech. (Score:4, Insightful)
I discount most arguments used any side to any argument when they toss out the terms "hate speech" or "racist". Its the old "boy who cried wolf" syndrom. After awhile the people using the terms so compromise them that they no longer have any real effectiveness.
I think the issue with google news is that it is bending to pressure from outside groups to modify its content. Just as they caved into the Chinese they cave into groups who claim that any non-compliance is the same as supporting hate-speech or racism. It is no different than the blackmail some groups use against corporate interest. Either pay us or we will sully your name.
Discussion is only permitted if you agree with the PC stance. Any deviation from the PC stance and you will be villified. If you fight back you will have the extreme examples tossed at you as if they were the majority and not the minority they are. Favorite phrases will include "you don't like Nazis do you" while comparing the target you are defending to them. Along the lines of "its for the children" to thereby attempt to dissuade any potential objection.
If Google News is going to be unbiased then they need to list all views, even those the staff at Google does not agree with. Anything else reduces the value of their service.
And yet, Google considers THIS news... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is Slashdot (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:now freedom of politically correct speech. (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, it's news they're trying to aggregate...
No, you're wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
In the USofA, the "Free Speech" is about saying the government is wrong and not being arrested for saying that.
There is still "libel" and other other categories where "speech" is not "Free".You seem to have problems with this "category" concept.
A "blog" may contain actual news items. In which case, it is news.
Or a "blog" may contain nothing more than someone's bigotted rantings. In which case it is not news.
So claiming that all "blogs" should be removed from a news site simply because one sub-category was is ignorant.The "discussion" is about the "blogs" and how they do not contain any news. Just some bigot's rantings.
Google is a company, not a government.
You can still find those site via Google's web index. They just aren't listed as news sites on Google's news index. And, again, that is because they don't have any news, just some bigot's rantings.
And if you don't agree that those are the rantings of bigots, then go back and read the article that says Islam is a "cult" and a "false" religion. Then look at the stats for followers of each religion.
Re:This is Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a Freedom of Speech issue.
1) They're still saying it.
2) Google search engine is still linking to them.
3) They've been kicked from a news site because they're not news sites, but hate sites.
But do you look at both sides of the story (Score:5, Insightful)
What if a muslim gay basher is beaten up in jail by skinheads? Would you cry for him?
Lots of left-wing people seem unable to fathom the idea that some muslims might just be right wingers who just happen to be muslim rather then protestant and have a slightly darker tan.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend is an old saying and is the way a lot of the world seems to think. Sadly it is also 100% wrong.
It led to a lot america's foreign problems. India was the friend of the soviet union, wich was america's enemy, pakistan was the enemy of india therefore america now finds itself the friend of a military dictatorship and on shaky terms with the world largest democracy.
It led to america being friends with Saddam because he was the enemy of Iran. That all worked out wonderfull didn't it?
Same with the support to Al Queda in their fight against the hated soviets. Another wonderfull case of the enemy of my enemy is my enemy as well.
If you are leftwing you are probably for gay rights. So how do you defend being pro-muslim then a religion that is very anti-gay rights? How come so many leftwingers defend right wing muslims when they would never ever defend a right wing christian?
It is not that all muslims are right wing offcourse. Far from it. In fact a lot of the real refugeee muslims came here precisly because they were left wing. but they tend to keep quiet. Just as in the west it is the right wingers that make the most noise.
But just because they are muslim doesn't mean they are not right wingers and oppose every politcial ideal of left wingers.
Hatred because of someone's religion is very bad, but so is loving someone because of his religion. Judge a person on his political believes. If they are not yours then act like it and don't led the fear of being called a racist stop you from calling them out on their ideas.
Re:Ah, the old double standard (Score:3, Insightful)
That's precisely what I mean, those (stupid & ill-informed) protests were a reaction to criticism from without. Plenty of moslems have done things as bad as the cartoons without the same reaction.
What you imply is that if a culture suppresses criticism from itself, it should be immune from all criticism.
No. You inferred incorrecctly. I believe change comes quicker following criticism from within. (and yes, there's plenty that I think should change in the muslim world)
Criticism from outside makes a culture or country more insular, less prone to change (just look at the reactions of the vast majority of the US after external criticisms)
That is a double standard. Further, you imply that the validity of a critique depends not on what it says but on who says it. That's ad-hominem. It's standard leftist ideology, and it's amazing that any person can espouse it and claim to be educated; the cognitive dissonance required to hold it should break any functioning mind.
Frankly, I am amazed that anyone other then a pipe-smoking-leftist-literature-and-post-modernis
Re:Ah, the old double standard (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, in my experience, it's only "educated" people that espouse it. As the saying goes, you'd have to hold several advanced degrees to be that stupid.
Most reasonably intelligent people with a high-school education can figure out that something can be true or false, good advice or bad, independent of where it's coming from; it seems to be universities (and particular departments of universities) that convince people that the source of a particular viewpoint is more important than its content, and that some viewpoints are more valid than others.
At any rate, bull on that. While I'm not saying that some people don't have more background or authority on which to speak from than others, to blindly write off "external" criticism amounts to sticking one's head in the sand (especially in cases where most if not all "internal" criticism is suppressed or self-censored). That sort of litmus testing is totally contrary to the pursuit of knowledge, truth, and greater understanding; unfortunately, it's almost endemic in some places.
Re:I'm not paying for a filter (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course you are, to the extent that you're paying them at all by using Google and viewing ads. The entire point behind Google is that it uses "intelligent searching algorithms" to filter out the nonsense and only show actual relevant results.
I find that statement really amusing, because that's exactly what Google sells themself as doing. They evaluate the site based on their PageRank algorithm, and decide what you should or should not see based on that. The entire point behind Google is that it filters content. A search is a filter, and then the order is determined based on other filters. Google is a filter - that's why you use it, to filter out things that aren't relevant to what you're looking for.
What Google is doing here is declaring that some blogs aren't worth appearing on Google News, and is removing them as a source from Google News (although not the Google Search index). You'll still be able to find them using Google, just not Google News, since Google News is supposed to be a filter returning only valid news sites. (Why it still returns results from Slashdot in that case is anyone's guess. :))
Re:now freedom of politically correct speech. (Score:3, Insightful)
Either that, or the definition of "hate speech" has been changing over time.
Yeah, I am dutch and ashamed (Score:5, Insightful)
Dutch policy seems to be to cover everything up and hope it goes away.
We hoped WW2 would pass us by too. That worked well.
Re:Good on you google! (Score:2, Insightful)
If you don't think the majority of slashdot readers are liberal, you are the dimwitted one.
Automatic filter (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, now we see that's not the case. There are actually editorial decisions being made as to what is and is not considered news. There is also some criticism that those decisions are not being applied in a uniform manner. Those may be unfair criticisms mainly because blogs definitely blur the line between news and opinion but many people have seen a lot of major news outlets also willfully blur those lines of late.
So, yes Google has the right to list whatever and whoever they want and it's not a First Ammendment issue as they're not the government. Just if they are going to start filtering then they need to acknowledge it and drop any claims to a pure unbiased machine created news source.
Re:Political Correctness & Elitism (Score:4, Insightful)
Doesn't the U.S. also have private clubs which can more or less deny you access for whatever reason they like?
In the Middle East, the imans or Islamic Religious rulers dictate how you live your life even to the type of clothes you wear such as jeans not being acceptable.
The U.S. has no shortage of conservative church leaders who would be glad to tell you what type of clothes to wear, what activities you may engage in, who to associate with, and who to vote for. We even have some factions which would like to enforce their religious rules on all citizens.
In this country, it is the liberals that have disdain towards common people.
There is no shortage of conservatives who do all of the things you mention. Does that mean that conservatives have disdain toward the common people too? Elitism crosses political, religious, and economic lines. Egos are a part of human nature, and few/none are immune. Elites in the U.S. push policies from all sides. They do not show disdain towards the common people because they are "liberal" or "conservative", but because they view themselves as above the common people. Some of them simply have no understanding of what life as a common person is like. What you may perceive as "disdain" may simply be them looking out for their own interests.
Personally, I think one of the many unfortunate things about the current U.S. political scene is the demonization and redefinition of the word "liberal". In the U.S., we should all be liberals of one type or another. The set of beliefs we supposedly agree on (like the Constitution) are liberal. Conservatives should be opposed to radicals. All of us liberals should be opposed to authoritarians. If I were cynical, I might believe that the demonization of liberalism was done intentionally to widen the door for authoritarianism, which seems to cross political and economic boundaries as well.
If either the "liberals" or the "conservatives" not elitist, why are they discussing getting rid of the "death tax" (which only hits the elite) and not the self-employment tax?
Pretty Poor "News" site (Score:4, Insightful)
From the first link to The New Media Journal, "Come to think of it, before 9/11, we never heard of words like Al Qaeda, Taliban, Jihad, Homeland Security..." With the exception of Homeland Security (which didn't actually exist at the time, except as a fictional deptartment in various fiction stories about dystopian, totalitarian futures) all these other things were in the news or elsewhere long before 9/11. Perhaps most glaring is Al Qaeda. It would have been hard to miss when they bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, or when they bombed the USS Cole in 2000, unless, of course, you paid no attention to the news. I even remember thinking after the bombing on the Cole how Al Qaeda kept coming up in the news. So, yeah, I wouldn't exactly trust this guy to report the news. Taking this site out of Google news was almost certainly the right decision.
Google IS a filter (Score:4, Insightful)
Seeing as they are running a news service, one would expect the users of the service to be searching for NEWS. A few blogs that are slightly more read than the average bitchfest apparently do not count as news sites for google anymore.
I understand some people might agree with the drivel posted on those sites, but that doesn't make those sites news. The Google News service is nothing but a FILTER that only shows you sites on the internet that are news.
Re:Good on you google! (Score:3, Insightful)
Please note that I'm not suggesting Conservative is the opposite, just that this tenuous, divisive categorisation tends to be levelled wherever the other words above could by interchanged.
See, for example David Horowitz: "University campuses are filled with liberals".
Re:Good on you google! (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you don't see that liberal is an extremely subjective term, then you're the dimwitted one.
For instance, from where I'm sitting in the Netherlands, most posters on slashdot seem conservative, but I imagine that someone reading slashdot from Saudi Arabia would see most posters as Liberal.
I presume that from where your sitting, you would see most posters as Liberal, but I hope you can also see that Liberalism/Conservatism are comparative terms.
Re:blog != news (Score:4, Insightful)
The "opinion" vs. "news" argument is incorrect, too. It is easily the popular opinion around here that any site that happens to be critical and frank about the Islamic religion is a "hate" site (but of course, that does not apply to the Christian religion in this case, does it?). We can all hide our heads in the sand here as the good Google fanboys we are here and say Google is being "responsible", but since when did I commission Google to tell me what I should hear and what I shouldn't hear? There is plenty of opinion indexed on Google News -- it is downright dishonest to claim otherwise. So why will Google index Islamofascist propaganda sites al-Manar (owned by Hezbollah) and Khilafah.com, but decide that I don't need to see some other site that happens to point out terrorist bombings in Indonesia and the West Bank all the time? What do you define as "unbiased" or "news" here?
Let's not even begin to talk about cases where Google has been discovered to editorialize news headlines, such as removing the word "alleged" from a headline describing Guantanamo Bay as a "torture camp".
Lord help my karma for pointing out the unpopular opinion.
Re:Ah, the old double standard (Score:3, Insightful)
For example imagine an uninvited outsider criticizes some aspect of your family. We tend to receive these types of criticism as threatening even though they may be true. If the criticism originated from a family member we tend to be more receptive.
Even in the scientific community, criticisms from non-scientists are often discarded. This is just a human phenomenon that may stem from our tribal past. We have to be at least sensitive to these issues while introducing directed critiques as an outsider.
Re:Simple formula (Score:3, Insightful)
Liberals much like conservatives in America are a mix of both those educated and those not educated. If you didn't allow anyone to vote without having a high school diploma, do you think the democrats would win any more national elections?
Majority of Slashdot users = smart
Maybe.
and educated Perhaps.
The crossover there means that yeah, of course a lot of slashdot readers will be liberals.
Have you ever heard the saying:
If you are under 30 and a conservative you have no heart, if you are over 30 and a liberal you have no brain.
While I realize that might offend you, it makes an important point...many liberals are young people much like the slashdot crowd is.
Re:Political Correctness & Elitism (Score:3, Insightful)
You have obviously never visited Europe let alone lived there. The reasons why Europeans and most people in the world hate America (i.e. the US administation and its military/industrial complex) is because of its attempt to unilaterally control the entire world. This has involved over the past century the US killing millions of innocent civilians putting, it on a par with Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia.
Europeans don't hate americans, in fact they even quite like individual americans. However europeans have a contempt and pity for a lot of americans as the widespread hypocrisy and double standards applied by the US administration is reflected in the views of a lot of americans. These americans are stupid enough to blame their own problems on "liberalism" rather than on US capitalism and imperialism.
Out in the rest of the world (the real world) a lot of people are out fighting the real evil "liberalism" that is the neoliberalism which is the ideology behind the global economic policies promoted by US capitalism.
So to sum up we don't really hate you we just pity you.
Re:lets try this from another angle (Score:3, Insightful)
Google indexes WND too. We're talking about the Google News aggregator, which is more actively filtered, not what sites Google indexes.
Talk about "uninformed rubbish".
Re:Good on you google! (Score:1, Insightful)
--At times attributed to any of Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw or Benjamin Disraeli.
Re:Good on you google! (Score:4, Insightful)
liberal group think. (Score:4, Insightful)
I know this is a talking point, but it's absolutely false. In fact, the more educated and well-paid people are, the tendency is that they become more conservative.
Liberals have a long history of espousing that they'll help the poor, but in reality they either don't help at all or worse, give them no way out of being poor. Worse, the really radical liberals think that people in countries that support oppressive dictators aren't worth trying to help. I mean, how weird is that? They call conservatives in this country facists, yet they turn around and support facist dictatorships. Doesn't sound too "educated" to me.
Don't give me any lines about "what about universities, they're really educated, and they're liberal". The liberals there have a base camp from which they can't be extracted because they can't be fired. They grant this same status only to people who buy into the same "group think" they do; rarely do conservatives slip past this gauntlet. Look at that kook in Colorado who's been posing as a Native American and has been proven a plagurist. The guy is a complete wack job they STILL can't get rid of him.
Yeah, real "educated".
Re:now freedom of politically correct speech. (Score:3, Insightful)
Most "hate speech groups" are a small handful of angry rednecks scapegoating their current situation on "them durn (insert group here)".
Re:But do you look at both sides of the story (Score:3, Insightful)
> need financial support - he did, and still does, have large numbers of arab backers.
Poor deluded moonbat. All the money and arab backers in the world might have got Bin Laden a single Stinger missle. US (and CIA) backing got him Stingers by the truckload so he could shoot em at the Soviets til they couldn't sustain the losses anymore.
Please stop rewriting history to match the current party line. Facts ARE, we have not always been at war with Eastasia. I'm a conservative and I can deal with the fact we did indeed support Bin Laden once upon a time yet still understand the absolute need to destroy him now.
> The CIA supported muj that may have acted in tandem with UBL, but 'Al Queda' ('the database', colloqualiasm)
> were not in receipt of any US aid.
No, it is pretty well established as historical fact that UBL was directly associated with groups receiving direct US aid. You are correct that "Al Queda" didn't exist yet since it was formed after the liberation of Afganistan (from the Soviets) to export jihad. It was UBL's way to take the practical knowledge gained on the battlefield and pass it on and grow a worldwide movement.
Re:Simple formula (Score:4, Insightful)
Majority of Slashdot users = smart and educated
When is this stupid myth going to die. The actual "curve" is U shaped. The majority of high-school dropouts are liberal, the majority of phds are liberal. High school graduates have a slight liberal edge, and masters degrees have a slight republican edge, and 4-year degree holders have a slight republican edge. I don't have to time to dig up the numbers and provide a source, but it's reasonably easy to find, if I remember.
Furthermore, the average slashdot reader is definitely not smart (ha ha). More seriously, he doesn't have a phd. It has nothing to do with education. If you want to find a correlation between slashdot audience and political spectrum, you should try age. I realize you want to believe the reason you are liberal is because you are smart and educated, however the real correlation to be found has to do with youth.
Re:Simple formula (Score:3, Insightful)
You realize, you are implying that 'religious' people (ie Christians) in those red states marry their cousins. That is as bad as the stuff google is censoring.
we wouldn't be in this mess." Is the kind of thing that's said in liberal circles. Of course, it's BS too. It's all about perspective ^_^
I don't think it is BS. If you subtracted certain interest groups from either party and they wouldn't win any national elections.
Of course, they would find new groups to pander to, since that is the nature of a two party beast.
Re:Good on you google! (Score:5, Insightful)
> analysis of the growing inequities in post WW1 Germany does not make it news.
I'm sorry to see yet another product of public education. Mein Kampf sits on the shelves of every public library in the country, right beside Das Kapital, The Communist Manifesto and Chainman Mao's Little Red Book. I'd also bet you can find the text of all three on Google if you try just a little. And yes serious historians DO study Mein Kampf in their studies of Pre War Germany. Hitler's arguments have the annoying reality that they were successful (remember, he WAS popularly elected... once.) so a study of his writings are pretty much required to gain a full understanding of his times.
You can't have an open debate and free inquiry while slapping a 'hate speech' label on all opposing views and banning from the public square. Protecting the right of Free Speech is at it's most important when it is something you don't like. I think Daily Kos is an almost perfect example of 'hate speech' but I would never move to bad it, would oppose Google dropping it from their index and in fact pass by and check up on 'the disloyal opposition' every couple of days. An echo chamber reflecting only your own positions isn't useful for learning new things.
Re:Nazi style clothing (Score:2, Insightful)
This doesn't really apply to the current situation. Those were cohesive countries who had working governments. Iraq is a country that has been ruled by whichever despot initiated the last coup for many years meaning that the entire nation is divided, none of them are willing to work with the other groups to surrender or make it better because they cannot imagine working with the other groups, they have been fighting and their lives have been on the line for so long that it no longer frightens them. Whereas the Germans and Japanese had seen peace in their country before world war II. Now granted some of the germans were alive during and after WWI as well and there have been occasional attacks on liberty by people who fancy themselves nazi's even up to this day which explains this small part of it. For the most part however the countries gave up and began to rebuild because they were a cohesive country who realized that they had been defeated and wanted to see things get back to normal. For the Iraqi's this IS normal, no one has been able to help them to have peace or make life better in the past so why should they trust us to be able to do so now, especially when we ravaged their country and then pulled out and left them to their own devices only about 15 years ago?
Oh yah, and HOW are you going to invoke Godwin and then go on to talk about the Germans in a way that REQUIRES someone to compare a current group of people to nazis in order to counter your argument. There was a really good rant about a week ago on
Re:Simple formula (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes I do realize that. It was my point, in fact. That's why I said it was BS.
If you subtracted certain interest groups from either party and they wouldn't win any national elections.
Of course not, but if one interest group a) consists of a massive portion of your consituency and b) cuts into what would be your opposition, they sure help. Poor people generally are thought to be democrats, but that breaks down when you add in a specific religion. Here in the south, converting someone to Southern Babtist = converting someone to the Republican party.
A non-religious example (on the state level) would be the hispanic population in Florida. Usually Democrats think they have minorities in the bag, but the Cubans Floridans tend to vote Republican.
Of course, they would find new groups to pander to, since that is the nature of a two party beast.
Well, ideally. We Democrats have got to find someone else to pander to. College kids are not reliable voters
Re:But do you look at both sides of the story (Score:5, Insightful)
The enemy of my enemy is my friend is an old saying and is the way a lot of the world seems to think. Sadly it is also 100% wrong.
Here's another saying, "There is no black or white, only shades of gray."
You build a false dichotomy of "right-wing" and "left-wing" assigning motivations and beliefs with broad, inaccurate strokes. You try to make it sound as if freedom of religion and freedom to make individual life choices are mutually exclusive. It is possible, you know, to support everyone's right to choose any religion they want and at the same time support the right for people to choose to screw people of the same sex if the feel like it. Both are wholly consistent with the view that individuals should make choices about their own life, for themselves.
There is no such thing as a "right-winger." I imagine most devout muslims hold beliefs I disagree with. I take issue with several fundamental themes advocated by the religion, while I appreciate and agree with yet others. So what? If someone has beliefs I disagree with, should I fight with them over it? Why should I care what they believe so long as they don't try to force that belief upon me, and if they do is it the fault of the religion? No, it is the fault of the individual.
Hatred because of someone's religion is very bad, but so is loving someone because of his religion.
Who here ever proposed that muslims are all blameless and perfect because they are muslims? I've never seen it.
Judge a person on his political believes[sic].
Judge a person based upon their actions.
You need to stop buying into all these imaginary classifications and start looking at what individuals think and do. I know it is a lot harder to judge people as individuals, but anything else is called, "prejudice."
Re:Good on you google! (Score:5, Insightful)
Mein Kampf isn't current so it isn't 'news'. It is history however, and making it illegal is stupid. It's a link to how one of the worst regimes ever in history came to power, and ignoring it, censoring it, and making it unavailable as they do in many european countries is downright stupid.
Free speech is important, especially when dealing with radical opinions. I'd rather have the racist yelling in my town square so people can argue against him, rather than having private meetings where his garbage goes unchallenged.
The internet is the same way, I'd rather have access to both the far left and far right news websites via google, then just the mainstream media. The beauty of the net is that you get to hear different opinions, and if they are nutty you have the forum to say so.
The difference between calling illegal immigrants "illegal immigrants" and just plain old "immigrants" is negligible,
Bullshit. The whole debate is about illegal immigration, not immigration. Many want to streamline the process of legal immigration. Very few people want to end immigration in the US, but the majority of people want to end illegal immigration. Thus, calling illegal immigrants just immigrants makes a huge difference. Especially to the uninformed shmuck who turns on the evening news once a week and hears 'immigrants come out to protest!'. It frames the debate in a dishonest way.
especially because there were more than just illegals in the protests, and it was more than just the rights of the illegals that were at stake.
Really? Who else had their 'rights' at stake. Please inform us.
Double Standard maybe, but not Censorship... (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, if it is true (I am not saying that it is true... I am not that familiar with Google News) that left wing bigotry and racism are tolerated while right wing bigotry and racism isn't, that would clearly be a double standard. While Google has the legal right to present any information they want, in any way they want, they do have an ethical obligation not to slant the news presented to be of any one viewpoint.
At the least, Google should publish an objective set of criteria that is used to evaluate if a news source is "acceptable" or "not", and keep the whole process transparent.
Two problems (Score:3, Insightful)
I've got two problems with Google's censorship here. The first is that people don't just use Google for "news", but for research of various kinds. That means that they need to find whatever is out there. If you want to understand political attitudes, for example, you certainly need to know the positions and arguments of those with whom you may disagree violently. As a left-wing secular Jew I have not the slightest sympathy for Nazism, but I have read Mein Kampf and think that it should be widely available, precisely so that people can understand the evil of Nazism and how the Nazis rose to power. Similarly, anyone trying to understand such topics as the relationship between the West and the Muslim world or American views on foreign policy needs to look at web sites offering the full range of views, even if some of them are considered by most people to be vile.
The second problem is that Google evidently has an overly broad notion of hate speech, as do many /-ers. True hate speech falsely vilifies a group of people and urges violence or discrimination against them. Criticism of a movement or ideology is not hate speech. Islam is an ideology with both religious and political elements, and it is also a movement (or if you like collection of movements), and it is legitimately subject to criticism just like any other religion or political movement. If it is legitimate to condemn Communism, Neo-Conservatism, Nazism, or right-wing Christian fundamentalism, why is not legitimate to condemn Islam?
One can argue about the accuracy of some of the material in the allegedly objectionable posts - I, for example, wonder about the accuracy of the claims that Mohammed slept with nine=year old girls and had 20 wives - but much of what they say is quite true. In its mainstream forms, Islam is an expansionist movement, it is intolerant of other religions and atheism, it is exclusive, it does advocate theocracy, it does consider the use of force to conquer territory for Islam justifiable, it is oppressive of women, etc. It is by no means the only religion with such properties (Christianity in the forms dominant in the 15th century, for example, had very similar faults), but it is not false and defamatory to raise these issues. We need to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Islam and other ideologies and movements, and deliberate or reckless demonization of particular ethnic groups or followers of an ideology and advocacy of violence against them.