
Google intensifies censorship of left-wing websites - zeep
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/19/goog-s19.html
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EasyAI
Likely this is not targeted at left wing websites, and they are just a
convenient victim. I also believe there are other factors. Peoples news
preferences are changing a lot lately, but also I believe this change by
Googles algorithm is in partnership with establishment preferred media, to
promote them, rather than to target either the left or the right. There’s
nothing to indicate the left is specifically targeted here. Establishment
media is promoting itself. Anti establishment media is being “censored”
whether left or right. When Huffpo and Salon start getting affected, I’ll
reconsider my conclusion.

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vorotato
Technically speaking as far as I can tell huffpo and salon aren't left,
they're liberal. They don't actually support any anticapitialist policies,
though they do support a number of liberal policies.

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EasyAI
They are not liberal at all, they are socially progressive, which is leftist.
Bill Maher, is a liberal.

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vorotato
I wasn't able to find any articles on Salon's page that were anti-corporate,
or pro-social programs. I'm pretty sure they're liberal my dude. Leftist
thought is strictly around the economic axis and has nothing to do with
"progressive".

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dragonwriter
> Leftist thought is strictly around the economic axis and has nothing to do
> with "progressive".

That's a narrow and ahistorical view of Leftism. It's true that modern
progressivism is not the same as leftism, but the two are not unrelated (and
overlap.)

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vorotato
Sure but at least in American politics that's really the rift in the
democratic party, Liberal or Left. Meaning identity focused politics vs
economic focused politics. Salon and The Hill and Mother Jones in this divide
are all predominately liberal.

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dragonwriter
> Sure but at least in American politics that's really the rift in the
> democratic party, Liberal or Left. Meaning identity focused politics vs
> economic focused politics.

No, that's almost completely wrong. Being _extremely_ generous, it could be
interpreted to only slightly misstate something that was approximately true in
the early 1990s, at the height of the “neoliberal consensus”. At that time,
the difference between the (dominant, from Bill Clinton on) neoliberal faction
of the Democratic Party and the then-dominant faction of the Republican Party
was largely over issues of rights of disadvantaged identity groups (though it
must be noted that this was primarily about _economic_ rights, so it is still
about the economy) whereas the difference between the progressive wing of the
Democratic party and the dominant faction of the Republican Party was more
over issues of economic class and structure. (Note that even then, provision
of healthcare access was an exception to this, as an economic but not
identity-group issue on which both major factions of the Democratic Party
differed from then dominant faction of the Republican Party.)

However, that is not because the neoliberal wing is less focussed on economics
(neoliberalism, after all, is a label that applies to an economic policy
orientation), and with neoliberal economics no longer dominant in the
Republican Party, both Democratic factions differ from the dominant faction of
the opposing party on core economic issues.

Note that I use “neoliberal” and “progressive” rather than “liberal” and
“left” because “liberal" is heavily overloaded in US politics, and the center
of mass of the two wings are basically center-right (neoliberal) and somewhere
between center and center-left (progressive); there's essentially no
substantial true Leftist faction in the Democratic Party.

As far as the outlets you list, _Mother Jones_ is mostly associated with the
progressive wing of the party, though that’s far from a perfect alignment; I'd
agree that the other two, insofar as they align with either Democratic
faction, tend to be more in line with the neoliberal faction.

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robocat
Negative SEO?

If well funded right wing players invested time and effort to degrade the rank
of popular left wing sites, would they have a significant effect on Google
rankings?

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EasyAI
Doubt it. It’s not left vs right. It’s establishment media trying to force
itself back into relevancy.

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chris_wot
Just how reliable are a lot of these websites?

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EasyAI
They’re all antiestablishment, independent players. The “Vox Day”, “infowars”,
“dailymail”, and “Drudge Report” of the left. It has nothing to do with the
left and everything to do with anti-establishment, whether left or right.

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drcongo
Is search traffic dropping for “Vox Day”, “infowars”, “dailymail”, and “Drudge
Report” also then?

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EasyAI
Since April/May, infowars organic traffic from google.com dropped from just
below 1 million down to just above 500k.

Breitbart.com is down almost a million since April from almost 3 million.

The other sites mentioned are pretty mainstream with the right now, in a “too
big to fall” kinda way, except voxday.blogspot.com but according to semrush,
every single one of them have seen declines in organic traffic since
April/May.

If you look very far to the right, Daily Stormer is outright banned from
Google, and Godaddy.

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drcongo
Thanks for the extra context, much appreciated.

