
Google blocked every one of the WSWS’s 45 top search terms - fmblwntr
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/04/goog-a04.html
======
squarefoot
I have no way to tell if this was deliberate or not, but personally I lost any
respect and trust in Google the day they removed the discussion search filter.
Before that day I could find common people talking about a product or a
political issue, now unless I'm prepared to jump dozens of pages I'm inundated
by sites selling that product or affiliated with that political orientation.

~~~
rand_r
> they removed the discussion search filter.

Could you provide more detail on this search filter? I haven't heard about its
removal before and it sounds interesting.

~~~
squarefoot
A search for "google discussion search" brings lots of results.

[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/websearch/Psb6O...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/websearch/Psb6OmlLJTg/WOLoez6mUBEJ)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/2b54ux/google_compl...](https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/2b54ux/google_completely_removed_discussions_search_is/)

[http://www.realitymod.com/forum/f11-off-topic-
discussion/130...](http://www.realitymod.com/forum/f11-off-topic-
discussion/130894-rip-google-discussion-search.html)

...etc.

~~~
captainlego
For now...

------
yeahsureokay
This has been fairly thoroughly debunked:

[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/0Y...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/0YippLN0KoA;context-
place=topicsearchin/webmasters/category$3Achit-
chat%7Csort:relevance%7Cspell:false)

~~~
quickben
Of course, support.google.com opinion on this matter is entirely unbiased :P

~~~
joatmon-snoo
Well, considering it's a support forum and none of the people who have
answered are affiliated with Google, yeah, it's unbiased.

~~~
ue_
I don't have any particular say on this issue in particular, but what about
the fact that Google can silently remove replies without telling you (which
gives the image of non-bias) and further that people may be biased in favour
of Google without actually being affiliated with Google?

------
macspoofing
>The WSWS has been blacklisted in searches dealing with history, and in
particular historical topics related to the revolutionary struggles of the
20th century. These include the terms “Russian revolution,” “Bolshevik
revolution” and “October revolution,” all of which returned results in the top
50 in April

That's probably ... correct.

~~~
ReadEvalPost
Why is that correct? Looking at their website they're currently running a
lecture series/look back at the Russian revolution:
[http://www.wsws.org/en/special/1917/chronology.html](http://www.wsws.org/en/special/1917/chronology.html)

None of it seems to be conspiracy theory or low-quality material.

~~~
LamaOfRuin
"...what Google, working with the highest levels of the state intelligence
apparatus, does not want them to find."

I'd classify that as conspiracy theory.

~~~
hellbanner
It is a conspiracy theory.

Do you have a better explanation?

~~~
macspoofing
Yeah. The NSA and the CIA doesn't care about WSWS, and Google simply made an
editorial decision that these guys don't have a credible or objective view of
history and shouldn't be a search result for neutral terms on history. How's
that for a non-conspiratorial version?

~~~
majewsky
Since when is Google making "editorial decisions"?

~~~
macspoofing
Bad choice of words. "Tuning their search engine" is more apt. Search is
intrinsically a subjective domain.

~~~
immanuelcan
But this "editorial decision" (ahem, "tuning") is in fact a political decision
to downgrade results for a site that by any objective measure has a wide,
international readership (Alexa global rank, 30-40k). It is also an objective
fact that Google has close relations to the state (top federal campaign
contributor, regular visitor to the White House, Eric Schmidt book praised by
Michael Hayden, etc.). So it is a "conspiracy theory" that Google's actions
might be motivated by political considerations? Of course, Google might think
so... As for the WSWS, it was recently the subject of editorials throughout
the German media for its campaign against Jorg Baberowski, a right-wing
historian at Humboldt University who is attempting to whitewash the crimes of
the Nazis. If you think that the WSWS is not getting the attention of the
state, then you aren't following developments closely.

~~~
macspoofing
>But this "editorial decision" (ahem, "tuning") is in fact a political
decision to downgrade results for a site that by any objective measure has a
wide, international readership (Alexa global rank, 30-40k).

WSWS has a skewed view of history that is outside of what mainstream
historians would accept. For that reason displaying them for neutral
historical search queries is dishonest. So it seems reasonable that whatever
version of search algorithm they updated to might assign them a lower
priority.

>It is also an objective fact that Google has close relations to the state
(top federal campaign contributor, regular visitor to the White House, Eric
Schmidt book praised by Michael Hayden, etc.)

So? Doesn't mean regulatory bodies are interfering in day-to-day operational
decision or in this specific instance.

>So it is a "conspiracy theory" that Google's actions might be motivated by
political considerations?

Anything is possible but there's no evidence - so yes, it is a "conspiracy
theory", especially considering there's an alternative explanation that is
more reasonable and doesn't necessitate invoking sinister shadow governmental
actions.

~~~
immanuelcan
Consider the concepts you are using. "skewed view of history," "mainstream
historians." According to whom? Google? Amazon? The Hoover Institution? Who
make this decision? If you search for "Russian Revolution," the works of Sean
McMeekin will be very high, in part because the book is being heavily promoted
by the New York Times, Amazon, large publishing houses, etc. And by Google.
Yet McMeekin's book is based on largely discredited slanders about German gold
financing the Russian Revolution. As soon as Google makes these decisions, it
is in fact casting its large, well-financed, foot on the balance of historical
truth--in favor of the established, "authoritative," i.e., state- and
corporate-sanctioned version of events, whether historical or contemporary. As
for "conspiracy theories," the problem is that history is full of
conspiracies, and therefore theories based on conspiracies are often true. In
any case, I don't believe you have given your "alternative explanation,"
unless it is the SEO explanation, which has not real factual foundation?

~~~
macspoofing
>Consider the concepts you are using. "skewed view of history," "mainstream
historians."

The first line in their 'Russian Revolution' chronology uses terms like
'bourgeois' \- a loaded ideological term used exclusively by Communists and
Marxists. It's not hard to see what their spin is.

> I don't believe you have given your "alternative explanation," unless it is
> the SEO explanation, which has not real factual foundation?

But I did give you an alternate explanation - you just prefer your crazy
tinfoil conspiracy. Flat-Earthers are the same. They ask for a picture of a
round earth to prove to them the earth is round, and when you show them one,
they say NASA faked it.

~~~
immanuelcan
Again, you are inserting your own political prejudices. This is of course
fine, but it is not Google to do. (Bourgeoisie is in fact a term that is
broadly used in social scientific writing. While it is particularly associated
with Marxism to refer to the class that owns the means of production, it is
both more broadly used and arose prior to Marx). And to compare the analysis
being made with flat-earthers is ridiculous. Google's new search algorithm had
a direct and immediate impact on a broad range of left-wing and progressive
websites. The VP more or less said what they were doing--combating "fake
news," as part of a campaign supported by the state and the corporate media--
and then the results came: a fall in search traffic to left-wing sites. The
conclusion is fairly self-evident, in my view, but in any case it certainly is
not unfounded.

------
nebabyte
> The physical censorship implemented by Google is so extensive that of the
> top 150 search terms that, as late as April 2017, connected the WSWS with
> readers, 145 no longer do so.

> These findings make clear that the decline in Google search traffic to the
> WSWS is not the result of some technical issue, but a deliberate policy of
> censorship.

...or that they have not been keeping up with their SEO, are getting edged out
by AMP sites, tripped over some other google rule, etc...

~~~
immanuelcan
This is partially addressed here:
[http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/08/goog-a08.html](http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/08/goog-a08.html)
and here
[http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/02/pers-a02.html](http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/02/pers-a02.html)

The change has effected a broad array of left-wing websites, with different
SEO methods. It has also happened directly after Google's new algorithm, which
stated clearly what they were planning on doing.

------
guelo
FWIW, searching on Bing "russian revolution" wsws.org shows up on page 5.

~~~
diego_moita
Searching on duckduckgo, "russian revolution" shows wsws.org on 80th place.
Didn't show up for "proletariat".

The irony: they prefer to cry wolf instead of doing SEO and don't want to be
called a conspiracy theory site.

~~~
diogenescynic
I guess they'd rather play the victim and try to get free PR.

------
samplonius
Bullshit. A Google search for "socialist news" returns wsws.org as the #2
response. #1 is socialistworks.org, a competing site.

~~~
leereeves
> the company instructed its search evaluators to flag pages returning
> “conspiracy theories” or “upsetting” content unless “the query clearly
> indicates the user is seeking an alternative viewpoint.”

"Socialist news" would be one of the searches that "indicates the user is
seeking an alternative viewpoint."

------
oh_sigh
> These findings make clear that the decline in Google search traffic to the
> WSWS is not the result of some technical issue, but a deliberate policy of
> censorship.

Quite a claim.

~~~
dibujante
It would be _very interesting_ to prove this, but their argument is mostly
circumstantial so far.

~~~
thisrod
The fact that Google is refusing to deny it is, in my view, pretty strong
circumstantial evidence.

~~~
dibujante
Not necessarily. Google may not comment on these things as a matter of policy;
for example, let's say that Google is required by some law to censor a
particular search result. If they are in the habit of announcing their
censorship decisions, then their silence on that one site would be non-
silence. They would have to lie about the site instead. So, from a company
liability perspective, Google is cautious about revealing information.

~~~
thisrod
That's true. But this isn't about Google releasing a whole class of
information by policy. It's about them responding, or not, to a specific
question of the form, "We run a legitimate website on the topic that the
American government has censored more often, and more harshly, than any other
topic. Could you please confirm that our recent drop in search rankings is not
the result of deliberate action by Google employees?"

------
edpichler
Unfortunately, some companies are becoming too powerful. Concurrency must be
encouraged, it's always good.

~~~
thephyber
At first glance, this looks extremely ironic. Don't Socialists advocate for a
centralization of economic capital (among others like political and news) or
do I misunderstand? If purist socialists had there way, wouldn't there only be
one search engine?

Obviously it would be great if others could compete, but I think it's simply a
market gap (innovation, capital investment, etc) at this point and not for
lack of competitors trying. Many died out (Yahoo!, Excite, Altavista), some
survive as niche (DuckDuckGo), some still exist (Bing, Ask/Jeebs), and some
are still massive but serve other markets (Baidu, Yandex).

Google has become so successful that their search is very advanced compared to
upstarts. The more Google learns from their massive index corpus and userbase,
the further ahead they get. Baidu might have a comparable dataset and
userbase, but they specialize in different markets with different languages
and cultures.

~~~
etplayer
>Don't Socialists advocate for a centralization of economic capital (among
others like political and news) or do I misunderstand?

Not necessarily (distributed economic planning, comumnal planning and indeed
some (though not I) advance market Socialism), and further, things like search
can be decentralised, as I'm sure mosts Socialists would agree with if aware
that such technology exists.

>If purist socialists had there way, wouldn't there only be one search engine?

No, I see no reason to think that. This is largely stemming from the myth that
"everyone has one car under Socialism"; it neglects that aside from seeking
profit, different cars have different uses and advantages. It's probably the
same with search engines and GNU/Linux distros.

>Google has become so successful that their search is very advanced compared
to upstarts.

I agree, and I think that in a world where there is less incentive to keep
secrets (though of course there is always incentive, such as personal pride,
mastery, or even embarrassment over how your code looks!) because profit
doesn't need to be protected from "theives", such research might even be
public for others to benefit from. The learning technology can be free. Google
would not have to collect data "on the sly", perhaps.

However the response to this is - would people willingly (and by this I mean
when properly and fully informed of what they are doing) give over this data
that Google uses to learn in such a way? If the answer is no, perhaps it's
time to consider the ethical ramifications of such 'learning'.

------
eljee
This is why [http://levelnews.org](http://levelnews.org) was created. It is a
place to find real-time independent, progressive public-interest news.

If you would like to know more about the project, the blog is here:
[http://blog.levelnews.org](http://blog.levelnews.org)

Much of the codebase is open source and can be found on GitHub if you'd like
to contribute:
[https://github.com/levelnewsorg](https://github.com/levelnewsorg)

------
yAnonymous
If they haven't been blacklisted for spreading conspiracy theories, they now
probably should be.

------
redm
Google adjusts its search results all the time for business reasons but also
for political or legal reasons. The PC description is "tuning the search
algorithm". That may encompass any number of effects to the search results or
Google interfaces. While I hate the idea of regulation, Google Search is such
a basic utility in the US that it really should be regulated by the
government.

Regulation is done on utilities like cell providers, cable/internet providers
and consumers are usually aware of multiple choices. If I ask a non-tech user
to name a search engine other than Google, they likely can't. So users do
their search and interact with the results they are presented.

Edit: Removed my personal experience. Added thoughts on regulation.

~~~
beambot
How would that work? You want Congress to determine SEO rank?

~~~
redm
I expect it would prevent making changes that are not firmly based organic
search quality; not changes that benefit Google's other businesses including
advertising, maps, plus, etc. or political views.

~~~
beambot
So every algorithm change would require congressional approval. That seems
very untenable.

------
CurtMonash
I'm an anti-censorship extremist, but this doesn't feel to me like censorship.
After all, the site is being discussed here on HN, and I'm sure it could also
be found through many other search engines, portals, or whatever.

Even if we get to the point that certain pages are only likely to be found via
10-20 year old technologies, so what? Those technologies were invented for
text articles and still work well for them, and text articles are what matter
most. Similar things are also true about the runners-up in "matter most",
which in some order are straightforward image, sound and video files.

~~~
mhermher
Then you're probably not an anti-censorship extremist. If (big if) what the
post is alleging is true, then it is pretty egregious.

~~~
rodgerd
So not getting #1 is search results is censorship?

The word is becoming meaningless dribble in the hands of axe-grinding cretins
who believe that everyone must be forced to read their material.

------
leereeves
When Google, Facebook, and others announced that they were banning "fake
news", many on the left cheered.

But it was probably naive to assume Google would limit itself to censoring
political opinions with which one disagrees.

~~~
evolve2017
I don't quite understand the snark in your response - were you, unlike the
purported cheering liberals, fond of the purveyors of fake news?

~~~
leereeves
I don't believe it was ever about "fake news", rather it's about establishing
"acceptable opinion".

As the article said:

> In a set of guidelines issued to Google evaluators in March, elaborated in
> April by Google VP of Engineering Ben Gomes, the company instructed its
> search evaluators to flag pages returning “conspiracy theories” or
> “upsetting” content unless “the query clearly indicates the user is seeking
> an alternative viewpoint.” The changes to the search rankings of WSWS
> content are consistent with such a mechanism.

Notice how Google said "alternative viewpoint". Alternative to what? Google
seems to be establishing a new orthodoxy.

~~~
dc_gregory
In this context, I read "alternative viewpoint" as a polite way of saying
"complete bullshit".

~~~
KekDemaga
Why not say "factually inaccurate information" if that is what you mean?

------
diogenescynic
Meh, I have a hard time caring about this because I want Google to block
propaganda and misinformation. From my experience, socialist websites and
forums tend to ignore, rewrite, or white wash the history of communism in
Russia/USSR, Venezuela, and even North Korea. So much so that the No True
Scotsman fallacy should just be the No True Socialist fallacy. Go check out
/r/socialism if you want your head to spin. According to that sub, there were
no famines in the USSR, Stalin never killed anyone, and everything bad we hear
about Venezuela is just media bias. And then when it's objectively true and
can't be dodged, they aren't really socialists.

~~~
dibujante
...how far does "propaganda and misinformation" go? Political parties also put
out propaganda and misinformation, as do businesses and individuals.

------
soft_serve
Sometimes sites are "punished" for aggressive / misleading "SEO" tactics.

------
pmarreck
Gee, wouldn't it be great if we could just look up the open-source code for
the most popular search engine on the "open" Internet?

Given the amount of power and money they now have, effectively having "won the
game," it seems ethical to me to open-source their entire search algorithm.

~~~
laser
But if it's open, people will game it...

~~~
pmarreck
Do people game open encryption?

~~~
laser
Just because they both use the word "open", does not make them structurally
the same. Show me a ranking algorithm I can't game...

------
gremlinsinc
I wonder if it'd be possible... (i know it'd be extremely challenging) - to
have some sort of open-source-ai search engine that runs on the blockchain...
-- something that anyone could use the API to make a frontend interface ala
google, but all the rankings/etc... are controlled by the blockchain, and
people using the sites could maybe thumbs up/down if it was a good search and
then the AI could use those indicators to hone it's algorithms.

------
exikyut
EDIT: I've noticed all the replies and I'd like to acknowledge them.
Unfortunately I feel very stupid for not screenshotting what I saw when I
searched one hour ago. I now see 62,900 results, and I can load up to page 6.
I can't prove that I was not able to load page 2 before, but it's true.

My original comment remains unedited below.

\--

For a concrete demonstration of pathological de-ranking, do a query for
"site:web.archive.org".

I get "59,000 results" on page 1, but page 2 will never load!

There _are_ a few results, which proves that a) web.archive.org are not using
robots.txt or other blocking techniques, and b) that Google's infrastructure
is inhaling content. But it's invisible.

Think about how sad this is - once a site goes dead, it's offline, _even
though the content is still publicly accessible._ If only that context was
indexed using a decent search engine.

Practically speaking, I totally acknowledge that archived content is complex
to surface; sites can be pulled offline because content needs to be
disappeared for any number of reasons, etc. I recognize the general difficulty
of getting this right. So I'm _not_ _really_ arguing "if only this were
surfaced", because it's unfair to - I'm more saying "hey look, this is what it
looks like when something has been completely killed," as a demonstrable and
extreme datapoint.

~~~
leereeves
Page 2 loads for me, though there's a slight delay.

