Google News Seems to Be CENSORING it's News Search Results

[Vinnie From Indy]

I know that the founders of the company appear to be left leaning, but ever since the election I have found the Google News Front Page to be similar to the rest of the mainstream media. There are seldom any stories critical of the BushCo. regime and the rest are all fluff and distraction. I am not certain, but it appears that Google is actively censoring the search results on the news engine as well. It has been widely reported that Google censors their Chinese News Search engine to remove any critical stories about the Beijing government. They would not have been allowed to operate in that country without filtering these stories. The question is if they are doing so on the US site as well.

[purduejake]

1. Probably- both governments have an interest...

in hiding the truth so the people will not immediately overthrow them.

[complain jane]

2. I have a Google Alert set up for PNAC news

and I get the alerts almost every day, from alternative news sources that Google sends me.

:shrug:

[merwin]

3. The majority of the 'front page' news comes from AP or similar, and if

they don't write anything bad about * then how do you expect it to make it to the front page?

[BlueEyedSon]

4. Proof of google censorship:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=52&threadid=1410716

Background: I was discussing Abu Ghraib with a friend this weekend. She mentioned that, in one of the photos, the word "rapist" was written on the backside of a prisoner. The thing is, it was misspelled r-a-p-e-i-s-t. She seemed to think it was pretty sad and one of those "icing on the cake" moments.

Having never noticed the spelling, I went to Google Images to search for it. "Abu Ghraib" brought up only photos of the outside of the prison. Not a single photo from the scandal. Next I searched for "Lynndie England", not a single picture. Next I decided to look for "Charles Graner" her boyfriend who was also prominently features in the pictures, nothing.

I tried many different spellings for each name, used quotes, didn't use quotes and checked to make sure SafeSearch was not enabled.

Needless to say, I was a little confused. Less than two weeks earlier, I had searched Google Images for Abu Ghraib photos with great success.

Where did the Agu Ghraib photos go?

What is Google's policy on controversial information?

I have heard that Google cooperates with a few countries to filter search results, blocking some content in France and Germany. Is this happening in the US also? If so to what extent? I know some websites are permanently de-linked, but I thought they were primarily concerned with drug trade, terrorists, improvised weapons and illegal pornography pages. Am I being naive?

Isn't Google Images a bot?

Wouldn't the pictures have to be removed by an actual flesh and blood person?

I know Google Images often misses pictures, but there are none! I know they did exist on Image Search.

Any ideas?

[GAspnes]

5. It looks like a 'most hits' algorithm

Extract key words from the stories on the 10,000 news services, see which key words are most common, rank the stories by how widely they're being reported.

This would result in exactly the outcome you describe, without any human intervention in the selection process.

I've seen inconsequential sites referenced when the story is being covered very widely. The Google front page is often 90% identical to the CNN & MSNBC home pages at any given time.

[papau]

6. I think you are correct - search results have changed - and reports bad

for the GOP no longer are as visible.

But the change in search results is obvious in non-political searches.

I am curious about the change they made to their engine - I know the cottage industry of how to get listed high on a goggle search was not making goggle happy - but they may haved thrown the baby out with the bath water.