Марк Дайс - The True Story of Fake News - How Mainstream Media Manipulates Millions

Due to laws in the U.K., Google must remove certain search results when someone obtains a court order to enforce their “right to be forgotten law” which prevents not only the media from reporting on certain facts, but also prevents Google from including them in the search results in all countries that are part of the European Union as well. 635

As I discussed previously, singer Elton John was able to obtain a court order to silence the British media about him and his ‘husband’s’ fake marriage and deviant lifestyle, as well as remove tweets on Twitter (and videos on YouTube) that mentioned their names in connection with their sex scandal, and that censorship was also implemented on Google as well. Any article mentioning the keywords “celebrity threesome sex scandal” and Elton John’s name were dumped down a memory hole and don’t show up for people in Europe. 636Google has different filters in different countries, so in the United States pages will still show up, but in Europe Google has to follow the law and censor such results. 637

Sky News found that one of their articles about Kelly Osbourne getting sick on the set of her show The Fashion Police was removed from Google in Britain (Google.co.uk). 638This was just two months after the “right to be forgotten” law had passed, enabling people to request the removal of search results they claim are “outdated or damaging” to their character.

The Guardian found that stories about a former Scottish soccer referee who admitted lying about the reason for rescinding a penalty issued to a team had been removed. 639 The Telegraph had stories of theirs hidden about the former president of the British Law Society who made fake complains about a colleague of his hoping to get him fired. 640The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) reported that shortly after the law was put in place Google had censored at least a dozen links to some of their stories as well. 641

In 2013 when sexually explicit selfies of dozens of A-list celebrities were hacked from their iCloud accounts and posted online, Google made most of the direct links to the photos un-Googleable, and removed the pictures from their Google Image search. 642

The Church of Scientology has used a number of DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notices to have information about their ‘scriptures’ removed which reveal the strange beliefs of high-level Scientologists about the “Lord Xenu” and the creation myth founder L. Ron Hubbard (a former science fiction writer) concocted for his cult. 643Scientology has also had search results blocked in the EU by using the right to be forgotten statutes. 644

Google has admitted censoring results for the Chinese government and other oppressive regimes around the world. For example, until 2010 Google had filtered out all websites supporting the independence of Tibet and Taiwan, and even any search results about the infamous Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 where hundreds, possibly thousands, of student protesters were killed by the Chinese government during a pro-democracy demonstration. 645

Websites and articles in Australia, Israel, Canada, France, Germany, India, and others have also been censored◦— either due to court orders, or to comply with those countries ‘hate speech’ laws. 646And of course Google Earth and Google Street view have removed images that governments consider matters of national security.

People within the Federal Trade Commission have actually recommended filing a lawsuit against Google for their search manipulation. 647In 2012 the FTC ended a two year investigation into Google after repeated complaints that their dominance gives them an unfair advantage over other companies because they aren’t just in the search engine business, they’re in the cell phone business (Android), and also sell books, music, and movies through their Google Play store.

Google even has their own product and restaurant reviews that are in direct competition with Yelp, which they have threatened to remove from their search results altogether. 648The Federal Trade Commission investigation revealed that Google had placed restrictions on search results for content from their competitors, but despite high level staff members at the FTC wanting to file an antitrust suit against them because they were using their monopoly to cause “real harm to consumers and to innovation” through anticompetitive tactics, the commission surprisingly did nothing. 649Google did however agree to make some voluntary changes in the way they run the algorithms, trying to appease the FTC.

FTC senior advisor Tim Wu admitted Google is “reducing consumer welfare.” 650And during the antitrust hearing Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said that, “While the company is a great American success story, their position in the marketplace has led to legitimate questions about whether they have used their market power to disadvantage competitors unfairly and ultimately limit consumer choice.” 651

A few years later the European Union charged Google with antitrust violations for unfair business practices and fined the company $2.7 billion dollars. 652One of the officials involved in the decision said, “Google has given its own comparison shopping service an illegal advantage by abusing its dominance in general Internet search. It has promoted its own service, and demoted rival services. It has harmed competition and consumers. That’s illegal under EU antitrust rules… Google has come up with many innovative products and services that have made a difference to our lives. That’s a good thing. But Google’s strategy for its comparison shopping service wasn’t just about attracting customers by making its product better than those of its rivals. Instead, Google abused its market dominance as a search engine by promoting its own comparison shopping service in its search results, and demoting those of competitors.” 653

Aside from manipulating and censoring search results, Google is engaged in more disturbing and dangerous activities◦— putting people’s personal information, their homes, and even their lives at risk.

Google keeps a log of everything that everyone searches for and puts tracking cookies (small files) on your computer. Such information is sold to advertisers. This means Google (and anyone they sell that information to) knows about people’s possible health problems from them looking up their symptoms, as well as any personal interests that may be embarrassing if made public. They even know people’s political leanings, which could be used to discriminate against them by a current or potential employer.

Google’s terms of service have changed over the years, at one time the tracking cookies ‘expired’ after 31 years, 654but more recently they claim the cookies will now expire after two years. 655The advocacy group Privacy International said Google was “hostile to privacy” and gave them their lowest ranking of any company in their assessment. Even browsing in ‘incognito’ mode on Google Chrome is not private as most people are led to believe. 656Google knows what you’ve been looking up, and so do countless advertising agencies, political organizations, law enforcement, and anyone else Google wants to give that information to.

For years Gmail users had the content of their emails scanned and read by Google in order to use them to show people advertisements based on what they were writing about. 657Users consented to this when they agreed to the terms of service which hardly anyone even reads or thinks twice about. After word of this creepy tactic started making headlines, Google announced that they would stop doing so.

In response to critics about their privacy concerns CEO Eric Schmidt, declared, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” 658An interesting statement from a man who allegedly has an open marriage and had his $15 million dollar Manhattan penthouse soundproofed, which New York Magazine called a “depraved sex palace” for him and his presumed mistresses. 659