Conspiracy Theory About Google In League With UN Corruption Doesn't Pass The Sniff Test
from the um,-please dept
It's no secret that people are fairly opinionated (one way or the other) about Fox News. I'm not going to weigh in on that debate, other than to note that there's a bizarre story making the rounds on FoxNews.com claiming that Google made a journalist "disappear" from Google due to his efforts to expose UN corruption. The problem is that this is simply untrue, and any basic fact checking by the Fox reporter would have made that clear. The guy in question wasn't removed from Google, but from Google News, which the search engine is quite clear is only a hand-chosen collection of publications, which the company reviews regularly. For better or for worse (and I actually tend to think for worse), Google has set some rules in terms of what types of sources can appear in Google News -- and this guy's site did not appear to qualify, hence the site getting bounced from the Google News index (not the wider Google). However, when people complained, and the guy provided proof that his organization might actually meet Google's standards, Google News agreed to put it back in the index. In other words, there's no story here. It has nothing to do with his reporting on UN corruption or Google's political views. It's certainly unlikely that the UN asked Google to remove him (as the guy implies). It's nice to cook up some conspiracy theory, but there's nothing to support the charges here. The Fox article does lay out some of these details at the end of the article, but the headline and opening certainly make you think that Google vindictively removed this guy from its index to punish him for exposing UN corruption.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: google news, un corruption
Companies: google
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Faux News
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Faux News
They are all wrong and biased. The vast majority (read every single one other than a few radio shows and Fox News) are left-biased. So it depends on what your personal bias is as to which news source is biased...
They are all incorrect all the time though. To say that ONLY Fox is because they do not share your view is short-sighted and closed-minded.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Faux News
cough cough
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Faux News
Though they are all horrible versus any practical standards.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Fox's M.O.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I'd say they have already made their intentions clear. Why is it that people go on and on and on about how Google caters to China, but an accusation is made about Google giving in to the UN and everyone's like "OMG no, it couldn't happen!"
Really?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
China represents 1.2 billion potential customers. UN represents... err... represents... nothing of value to Google. Yes, you are right, Google made their intentions clear, they are all about business and UN has no effect on it. Case closed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Misleading Headlines?!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Google News - As Leftist as it gets
People familiar with Google News' history shouldn't be surprised at this.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]