Difference between revisions of "Google"

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|constitutes=Big Tech, Search Engine, Global surveillance
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|interests=Platformization, Confirmation bias
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|sponsors=WEF/Young Global Leaders,Center for American Progress,Institute for Strategic Dialogue,European Forum Alpbach
 
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'''Google''''s core product has always been its [[search engine]], and its influence is such that it has been termed "the world’s biggest censor".<ref>http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-06-22/google-is-the-worlds-biggest-censor-and-its-power-must-be-regulated</ref>
+
'''Google''''s core product has always been its [[search engine]], and its influence is such that it has been termed "the world’s biggest [[ Google/Censorship|censor]]".<ref>http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-06-22/google-is-the-worlds-biggest-censor-and-its-power-must-be-regulated</ref> As of June 2020, it had 91.75% of market share of search engines. The most effective search engine for some purposes, it has a ever expanding [[Google/Censorship|censorship]] policy, so ''[[Wikispooks]] editors are not recommended to rely upon it - a variety of different [[search engine]]s is undoubtedly a more effective way of accessing a range of material.''
 +
 
 
==Origins==
 
==Origins==
−
[[NSA]]-backed. Started by Pd.D. students [[Larry Page]] and [[Sergey Brin]].
+
Google was started by Pd.D. students [[Larry Page]] and [[Sergey Brin]] and received seed-funding from both the [[NSA]] and [[CIA]]. [[Nafeez Ahmed]] has published an insightful piece on the origins of Google<ref>https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e</ref>.
  
 
==Government connections==
 
==Government connections==
 
''[[The Register]]'' noted in 2016 that "Aside from the fact it is persistently one of the biggest lobbyists in DC, there has also been: the last-minute change made to [[net neutrality]] rules solely because of a letter received from Google; the unusual dropping of [[anti-trust]] investigations into the search giant; the curious "non prosecution agreement" it reached with the [[FBI]] over drug ads; and the fact that a review of logs showed that Google execs meet with White House officials on average once a week..<ref>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/18/latest_clinton_email_release_google_foreign_policy_efforts/</ref>
 
''[[The Register]]'' noted in 2016 that "Aside from the fact it is persistently one of the biggest lobbyists in DC, there has also been: the last-minute change made to [[net neutrality]] rules solely because of a letter received from Google; the unusual dropping of [[anti-trust]] investigations into the search giant; the curious "non prosecution agreement" it reached with the [[FBI]] over drug ads; and the fact that a review of logs showed that Google execs meet with White House officials on average once a week..<ref>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/18/latest_clinton_email_release_google_foreign_policy_efforts/</ref>
 +
 +
===Military===
 +
"Google's [[artificial intelligence]] technologies are being used by the US military for one of its [[drone]] projects."<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/07/google-ai-us-department-of-defense-military-drone-project-maven-tensorflow</ref>
  
 
===Revolving door===
 
===Revolving door===
Line 29: Line 37:
 
===Censorship===
 
===Censorship===
 
{{FA|Google/Censorship}}
 
{{FA|Google/Censorship}}
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[[image:google censor.png|left|300px]]
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[[image:google censor.png|left|300px|thumb]]
−
Google has been censoring content since at least 2010.<ref>https://www.2600.com/googleblacklist/</ref> The extent of its censorship is harder to assess than with other types of website. In 2017 modifications to its algorithms resulted in reduced traffic to "left-wing, progressive and anti-war websites, which cut the search traffic of 13 leading news outlets by 55 percent since April". The World Socialist Web Site reported an 85% drop in search referrals over that period.<ref>https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/19/goog-s19.html</ref>
+
Google has been censoring content since at least 2010.<ref>https://www.2600.com/googleblacklist/</ref> The extent of its censorship is harder to assess than with other types of website. In 2017 modifications to its algorithms resulted in reduced traffic to "left-wing, progressive and anti-war websites, which cut the search traffic of 13 leading news outlets by 55 percent since April". The World Socialist Web Site reported an 85% drop in search referrals over that period.<ref>https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/19/goog-s19.html</ref> [[Project Veritas]] published information from [[Zach Vorhies]] in 2019 that showed considerable manipulation and political bias.<ref>https://www.theepochtimes.com/google-engineer-leaks-nearly-1000-internal-documents-alleging-bias-censorship_3042234.html</ref> In 2020, it removed a lot of sites, reportedly due to a "technical issue".<ref>https://thenationalpulse.com/news/google-axes-conservative-media/</ref>
  
−
==="Have Speech"===
+
==Culture==
−
On May 31, 2016, Google agreed with [[Facebook]], [[Microsoft]] and [[Twitter]] to a [[European Union]] code of conduct obligating them to review "[the] majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal [[hate speech]]" posted on their services within 24 hours.<ref name="guardian-euhatespeech">{{cite web|title=Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft sign EU hate speech code|url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/31/facebook-youtube-twitter-microsoft-eu-hate-speech-code|website=The Guardian|accessdate=7 June 2016}}</ref>
+
''[[The Register]]'' reports that Google has an "introspective – some would say, cult-like – corporate culture".<ref name=regnov18/>
 +
 
 +
In October 2018, "more than 20,000 Google employees walked out of their offices to protest at how several executives had been secretly paid off following allegations of [[sexual harassment]]."<ref name=regnov18>https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/30/google_internal_revolt/</ref>
 +
 
 +
==="Hate Speech"===
 +
On May 31, 2016, Google agreed with [[Facebook]], [[Microsoft]] and [[Twitter]] to a [[European Union]] code of conduct obligating them to review "[the] majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal [[hate speech]]" posted on their services within 24 hours.<ref name="guardian-euhatespeech">https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/31/facebook-youtube-twitter-microsoft-eu-hate-speech-code</ref>
  
 
[[Ben Gomes]], Google's vice president for engineering, announced in April 2017 that Google’s search engine would block access to “offensive” sites, while working to surface more “authoritative content.” A 2017 march to protest Google's decision to reduce traffic to sites critical of the government's {{on}} was cancelled after threats of violence.<ref>http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=156290</ref>
 
[[Ben Gomes]], Google's vice president for engineering, announced in April 2017 that Google’s search engine would block access to “offensive” sites, while working to surface more “authoritative content.” A 2017 march to protest Google's decision to reduce traffic to sites critical of the government's {{on}} was cancelled after threats of violence.<ref>http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=156290</ref>
  
−
==Aims==
 
 
"It’s quite obvious [Google] want to be Skynet (of ‘''The Terminator''’). They have their own military robots, and have stated that they desire to create a profile on every human.”<ref>http://whowhatwhy.org/2015/09/19/want-online-privacy-heres-how-hint-dont-google/</ref>
 
"It’s quite obvious [Google] want to be Skynet (of ‘''The Terminator''’). They have their own military robots, and have stated that they desire to create a profile on every human.”<ref>http://whowhatwhy.org/2015/09/19/want-online-privacy-heres-how-hint-dont-google/</ref>
 +
 +
===Homepage===
 +
[[image:Google_supports_veterans.png|right|280px|caption|thumbnail|"Google engaging in more troop worship - trying to keep those recruitment numbers up by propagating the lie that military members are heroes who serve their country."<ref>https://imgur.com/NDps2Vh</ref>]]
 +
Google sometimes adorns its homepage with an icon or phrase in honour of a special event or anniversary. Various groups have criticised it for its selections (or sometimes non-selections).
 +
 +
==Google trends==
 +
[[image:Google trend non-violent extremism.png|left|520px|thumbnail|Google trends data illustrating how the phrase "[[non-violent extremism]]" suddenly emerged in January 2011]].
 +
[[Google trends]] is a website that allows users to search on recorded data of who searched for what when. It has been very helpful why trying to establish the vintage of particular words and phrases.
 +
 +
==Manipulation of search results ==
 +
{{FA|Algorithm manipulation}}
 +
Google has repeatedly denied manual intervention in any particular search results, arguing that it only works at the level of modifying algorithms.<ref>https://dailycaller.com/2019/04/09/google-news-blacklist-search-manipulation/</ref> However, this is contradicted by whistleblowers including [[Zach Vorbies]], who provided a internal documents about the process.
  
 
==Search Engine alternatives==
 
==Search Engine alternatives==
−
Among non-commercially controlled search engines is the [http://www.digplanet.com/wiki/Seeks seeks-project] and its successor [https://github.com/asciimoo/searx searx].
+
{{YouTubeVideo
−
{{QB | Seeks aims to give the control of the ranking of results to the users.
+
|code=gE_DyB7uS8E
−
Seeks is a p2p pattern matching overlay network on top of existing search engines. It provides collaborative filtering regrouping users based on the similarity of their queries and letting them reorganize and evaluate the search results together.
+
|caption=So You've Decided To Boycott Google... <ref>https://www.corbettreport.com/so-youve-decided-to-boycott-google/</ref>
 +
}}
  
−
https://github.com/beniz/seeks/wiki/FAQ }}
+
Although the most popular search engine, Google is certainly not the only one. This site currently lists {{SMWCount|Search engine}} [[search engines]], including some which are [[open source]], such as [[SearX]] and [[Gigablast]].
−
A list of working searx nodes can be found at: http://stats.searx.oe5tpo.com/
 
  
−
To order results to their personal liking users can run a searx instance and specify their own rules. The installation scripts make this easy. This is an effective way to break out of the [http://dontbubble.us/ search bubble].
+
===Searx===
 +
{{FA|Searx}}
 +
[[Searx]] is an open source metasearch engine. The successor to [[Seeks]], and has been operating since 2014. Users are allowed to specify their own rules about ordering search results. This provides an effective way to break out of the [[search bubble]]s associated with search engines such as Google that profile users.
 +
 
 +
===Gigablast===
 +
{{FA|Gigablast}}
 +
[[Gigablast]] is an open source search engine that went beta in 2002 and as of 2019 was still under active development.
 
{{SMWDocs}}
 
{{SMWDocs}}
 +
 
==References==
 
==References==
 
{{reflist}}
 
{{reflist}}

Latest revision as of 11:18, 6 September 2023

Group.png Google  
(Big Tech, Search Engine, Global surveillance) Powerbase Sourcewatch Twitter Website WikiquoteRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
Google.jpg
Founders• Larry Page in the European Parliament, 17.06.2009 (cropped).jpg Larry Page
• Sergey Brin cropped.jpg Sergey Brin
Parent organizationAlphabet
HeadquartersGoogleplex, Mountain View, California, U.S.
Type Subsidiary
Subgroups List of subsidiaries
Staff57,148
SloganDon't be evil
InterestsPlatformization, Confirmation bias
Interest ofRobert Epstein, Ray Kurzweil, Bob Lee, Project Veritas
Member ofCentre for European Policy Studies/Corporate Members, Council on Foreign Relations/Corporate Members, European Policy Centre, Highlands Forum, WEF/Strategic Partners
Founder ofSingularity University
Sponsor ofWEF/Young Global Leaders, Center for American Progress, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, European Forum Alpbach
Exposed byGreg Coppola, Zach Vorhies
Subpage•Google/CFO
•Google/Censorship
•Google/Chrome
•Google/Playstore
Global Internet/Skynet conglomerate

Google's core product has always been its search engine, and its influence is such that it has been termed "the world’s biggest censor".[1] As of June 2020, it had 91.75% of market share of search engines. The most effective search engine for some purposes, it has a ever expanding censorship policy, so Wikispooks editors are not recommended to rely upon it - a variety of different search engines is undoubtedly a more effective way of accessing a range of material.

Origins

Google was started by Pd.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin and received seed-funding from both the NSA and CIA. Nafeez Ahmed has published an insightful piece on the origins of Google[2].

Government connections

The Register noted in 2016 that "Aside from the fact it is persistently one of the biggest lobbyists in DC, there has also been: the last-minute change made to net neutrality rules solely because of a letter received from Google; the unusual dropping of anti-trust investigations into the search giant; the curious "non prosecution agreement" it reached with the FBI over drug ads; and the fact that a review of logs showed that Google execs meet with White House officials on average once a week..[3]

Military

"Google's artificial intelligence technologies are being used by the US military for one of its drone projects."[4]

Revolving door

Full article: Revolving door

Watchdog.org reports that "More than 250 people have moved from Google and related firms to the federal government or vice versa since President Barack Obama took office."[5]

Censorship

Full article: Google/Censorship
Google censor.png

Google has been censoring content since at least 2010.[6] The extent of its censorship is harder to assess than with other types of website. In 2017 modifications to its algorithms resulted in reduced traffic to "left-wing, progressive and anti-war websites, which cut the search traffic of 13 leading news outlets by 55 percent since April". The World Socialist Web Site reported an 85% drop in search referrals over that period.[7] Project Veritas published information from Zach Vorhies in 2019 that showed considerable manipulation and political bias.[8] In 2020, it removed a lot of sites, reportedly due to a "technical issue".[9]

Culture

The Register reports that Google has an "introspective – some would say, cult-like – corporate culture".[10]

In October 2018, "more than 20,000 Google employees walked out of their offices to protest at how several executives had been secretly paid off following allegations of sexual harassment."[10]

"Hate Speech"

On May 31, 2016, Google agreed with Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter to a European Union code of conduct obligating them to review "[the] majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech" posted on their services within 24 hours.[11]

Ben Gomes, Google's vice president for engineering, announced in April 2017 that Google’s search engine would block access to “offensive” sites, while working to surface more “authoritative content.” A 2017 march to protest Google's decision to reduce traffic to sites critical of the government's official narrative was cancelled after threats of violence.[12]

"It’s quite obvious [Google] want to be Skynet (of ‘The Terminator’). They have their own military robots, and have stated that they desire to create a profile on every human.”[13]

Homepage

"Google engaging in more troop worship - trying to keep those recruitment numbers up by propagating the lie that military members are heroes who serve their country."[14]

Google sometimes adorns its homepage with an icon or phrase in honour of a special event or anniversary. Various groups have criticised it for its selections (or sometimes non-selections).

Google trends

Google trends data illustrating how the phrase "non-violent extremism" suddenly emerged in January 2011

.

Google trends is a website that allows users to search on recorded data of who searched for what when. It has been very helpful why trying to establish the vintage of particular words and phrases.

Manipulation of search results

Full article: Algorithm manipulation

Google has repeatedly denied manual intervention in any particular search results, arguing that it only works at the level of modifying algorithms.[15] However, this is contradicted by whistleblowers including Zach Vorbies, who provided a internal documents about the process.

Search Engine alternatives

So You've Decided To Boycott Google... [16]

Although the most popular search engine, Google is certainly not the only one. This site currently lists 21 search engines, including some which are open source, such as SearX and Gigablast.

Searx

Full article: Searx

Searx is an open source metasearch engine. The successor to Seeks, and has been operating since 2014. Users are allowed to specify their own rules about ordering search results. This provides an effective way to break out of the search bubbles associated with search engines such as Google that profile users.

Gigablast

Full article: Gigablast

Gigablast is an open source search engine that went beta in 2002 and as of 2019 was still under active development.

 

Related Quotations

PageQuoteAuthorDate
Big Tech“So one of the things that these five companies have done kind of masterfully is create these platforms that startups have to use to get to customers. So they all own these cloud-storage services. So Amazon is an example. If you want to store your media online - so, for example, all the movies that you watch on Netflix are actually stored on Amazon servers - so every time you use Netflix, Netflix is kind of paying Amazon for that kind of storage.

Yeah. It's surprising, first of all, because they're such different companies. You wouldn't really know - you wouldn't really think that they would have that kind of connection. And then they're also competitors. Netflix makes original TV shows and so does Amazon. And so, you know, in this way, Netflix has this dependence on one of its competitors. There are lots of different examples of this though.

There - you know, all app makers have to put their apps in the Apple app store or the Google app store. And when they sell in those apps, 30 percent of that money goes to Apple or Google. They all have to advertise on Facebook or Google to get customers because that's become the way to advertise on digital platforms. And so any new app - Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, all the other sort of smaller companies online - have to go through these five to get to their customers. And what ends up happening is that other companies succeed, but always these five benefit off of that success.”		Farhad Manjoo26 October 2017
Platformization“So one of the things that these five companies have done kind of masterfully is create these platforms that startups have to use to get to customers. So they all own these cloud-storage services. So Amazon is an example. If you want to store your media online - so, for example, all the movies that you watch on Netflix are actually stored on Amazon servers - so every time you use Netflix, Netflix is kind of paying Amazon for that kind of storage.

Yeah. It's surprising, first of all, because they're such different companies. You wouldn't really know - you wouldn't really think that they would have that kind of connection. And then they're also competitors. Netflix makes original TV shows and so does Amazon. And so, you know, in this way, Netflix has this dependence on one of its competitors. There are lots of different examples of this though.

There - you know, all app makers have to put their apps in the Apple app store or the Google app store. And when they sell in those apps, 30 percent of that money goes to Apple or Google. They all have to advertise on Facebook or Google to get customers because that's become the way to advertise on digital platforms. And so any new app - Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, all the other sort of smaller companies online - have to go through these five to get to their customers. And what ends up happening is that other companies succeed, but always these five benefit off of that success.”		Farhad Manjoo26 October 2017
Search engine“When trying to triangulate truth these days, it is often useful to employ multiple different search engines.”Robert Malone28 January 2023

 

Employees on Wikispooks

EmployeeJobAppointedEndDescription
Vint CerfChief Internet Evangelist2005
Michelle GuthrieManaging director for the Asia-Pacific region20112015
Andrew NgFounded and directed the Google Brain project20112012Attended Bilderberg 2013
Zach VorhiesProgrammer20112019

 

Related Documents

TitleTypePublication dateAuthor(s)Description
Document:Google and the NSAarticle24 August 2013Julian Assange
Document:Huawei’s phone business would be decimated without Google’s AndroidArticle20 May 2019Vlad SavovA resolution to the ongoing trade dispute between the US and China is now more urgent than ever. However, China is unlikely to react positively to the bullying tactics of the US. And that means Huawei’s phone business may be in limbo for a while yet.
Document:Jews Boast of Owning Hollywood - But Slam Gentiles Who Say the Same Thingarticle6 July 2014Editorial staffJewish control of Hollywood, Censorship by Google and the taboo on mentioning it by Gentiles
Document:The new mind controlarticleMarch 2016Robert EpsteinThe internet has spawned subtle forms of influence that can flip elections and manipulate everything we say, think and do

 

A document sourced from Google

TitleTypeSubject(s)Publication dateAuthor(s)Description
Maldives RevisitedReportMalaysia Airlines Flight 370
Indian Ocean
Malaysia Airlines
Malaysia
Maldives		12 August 2016Blaine GibsonPrivate investigator Blaine Gibson went with a team of private citizens to the islands of the Maldives, to find the citizens that claimed they saw a plane similar to MH370 in a very narrow time span the night of the disappearance. After also finding debris - in fact, even out-performing a $200 million joint-search by the authorities, one of Gibsons associates was assassinated, he was threatened to be next in line and subsequently went in hiding.
Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.



References

  1. ↑ http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-06-22/google-is-the-worlds-biggest-censor-and-its-power-must-be-regulated
  2. ↑ https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e
  3. ↑ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/18/latest_clinton_email_release_google_foreign_policy_efforts/
  4. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/07/google-ai-us-department-of-defense-military-drone-project-maven-tensorflow
  5. ↑ http://watchdog.org/265844/google-obama-revolving-door/
  6. ↑ https://www.2600.com/googleblacklist/
  7. ↑ https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/19/goog-s19.html
  8. ↑ https://www.theepochtimes.com/google-engineer-leaks-nearly-1000-internal-documents-alleging-bias-censorship_3042234.html
  9. ↑ https://thenationalpulse.com/news/google-axes-conservative-media/
  10. ↑ a b https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/30/google_internal_revolt/
  11. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/31/facebook-youtube-twitter-microsoft-eu-hate-speech-code
  12. ↑ http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=156290
  13. ↑ http://whowhatwhy.org/2015/09/19/want-online-privacy-heres-how-hint-dont-google/
  14. ↑ https://imgur.com/NDps2Vh
  15. ↑ https://dailycaller.com/2019/04/09/google-news-blacklist-search-manipulation/
  16. ↑ https://www.corbettreport.com/so-youve-decided-to-boycott-google/
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