Shocking Censorship at Google News and the Future of Net Neutrality

The recent federal court ruling in favor of censorship on the part of internet companies representing the interests of the Business Roundtable — Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner — is a serious threat to the dissemination of critical information vital to the functioning of our democracy.

The consolidation of media companies that has occurred in traditional media outlets, such as newspapers, radio and television, has led to the strategic dumbing down of the U.S. population.
Under tight control by the most powerful corporations on the planet, U.S. mainstream media has become an omnipresent propaganda system designed to divide, distract, confuse and create apathy among the U.S. populace.
In the process, mainstream corporate controlled media has obscured, isolated and suppressed dissent and understanding of our present ruling class.

The internet has emerged as a vital countervailing force to powerful interests who seek to undermine the founding ideals of our country and further impoverish an unsuspecting middle class of hardworking Americans.
Thanks to the tireless hard work of - citizen journalists (bloggers)- across the political spectrum, a growing number of American citizens have become informed and engaged to a level not seen since the pamphleteers enlightened the citizenry and sparked the first American Revolution.

Those of us who have spent many hours working on this — often very hard unpaid work, yet vital and rewarding — task of exposing corruption and abuse at the highest levels of power, must remain vigilant, and not be naïve to the growing forces of power who seek to silence our First Amendment rights by controlling the internet, just as they have controlled all previous mediums of mass communication.

I speak as someone who has already had firsthand experience in censorship.

When we first created our news site AmpedStatus.com,

we spent a considerable amount of time filling out a form requested by Google News, to get our news site listed in their search results.

We carefully worded and submitted our information to meet Google’s requirements. However, after waiting several days, we received a form email stating that our request had been denied. Unlike Rupert Murdoch, who obviously has no understanding of how the internet works, I know it is vital to get listed on Google News.
(Note to Stupert Murdoch: Not getting listed on Google News is like not having your newspapers displayed on newsstands.)

So right from the start, I knew my work at AmpedStatus would have a hard time reaching a wide audience due to Google’s rejection (censorship). We then decided to put much effort and our limited resources into Search Engine Optimization. At least we could maximize Google’s general search results.
However, when I released my report “The Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society,” Google blocked it from appearing in their general search results.
I wrote a brief post about Google censoring my report and tried to contact Google several times but never got a response. Thankfully, after I had submitted my emails of complaint and many other sites had picked up the report — well over a million people had read it — the report suddenly reappeared in their search results.

Knowing Google’s apparent desire to censor our work, I was thankful to have sites across the internet which were willing to publish them. A key ally in our attempts to overcome censorship is the news site, The Public Record. On a personal level, they have published all my recent reports.
(How ironic that a site called The Public Record has come to our aid.)

Shocking Censorship at Google News

One of the great things about The Public Record is that it is listed in Google News search results.
So, even though we were censored, we have been able to still get our work listed in this vital online newsstand.
However, the powers-that-be at Google seem to have caught on to the fact that The Public Record is publishing our work.
My latest report is the first report that The Public Record has ever had removed from Google News search results.
This is obviously a case a selective censorship !
By David DeGraw

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