Guest essay by Larry Hamlin
The recent political shenanigan revelations of the Twitter social networking system exposed by the Musk purchase show government efforts to manipulate and control information so only their viewpoints and positions are presented and supported while contrarian views are concealed, rejected, or disposed of as flawed and irrelevant. One can only wonder how extensive this government manipulation has spread in the social networking information sites.
Some examples are provided below of recent significant climate science data outcomes that do not support climate alarmist claims of a “climate emergency” and how these scientific data outcomes have been delt with in the information web world.
The year 2022 North Atlantic Hurricane season has concluded with NOAA’s “climate model“ predictions provided in their May and August forecasts of an “above normal” season proven to be flawed and failed as noted in the WUWT article below.
A Google search for information sources addressing the year 2022 North Atlantic hurricane season shows the following:
NOAAs failed “70% confidence” claim (shown below) for its year 2022 model projections is completely ignored in the Google search heading options with the most prominent search heading being “Damaging 2022 Atlantic hurricane season comes to a close”. Google appears to avoid alerting anyone to a search option result that did not support the “climate emergency” hype or the fact that NOAA “model” forecasts even in August 2022 (halfway into the season) still could not get it right.
Nor were there any search options offered to the data provided by Colorado State University’s extensive tropical storm records, data and analysis shown below indication that the 2022 North Atlantic Hurricane season had a total energy ACE level that was more than 22% below the average for such seasons as measured for the 30 year period of 1991 to 2020.
The global average temperature anomaly data is now available for the year the 2022 average temperature anomaly that shows a continuing declining trend for the period 2015 to 2022. Provided below is a Google search for information regarding this continuing global average temperature anomaly declining trend outcome.
There is no information provided in the Google search options that addresses the significant outcome of a declining global average temperature anomaly trend during the last 8 years of the “climate emergency” as shown below from NOAA’s global temperature anomaly data website that indicates a negative -1.05 degrees C per century declining global temperature anomaly trend between 2015 to 2022.
Once again Google search options seem to make sure that information about a negative global average temperature anomaly 8-year trend during the “climate emergency” is somehow not addressed.
The year 2022 U.S. tornado season is now complete with below average numbers of tornadoes occurring. Provide below is a Google search for information about year 2022 tornado outcomes.
The most complete information regarding U.S. yearly tornado outcomes is available directly from NOAA’s tornado website as shown below which shows data covering the last 18 years (inclusive of 2005 through 2022) that clearly indicates tornado numbers are not climbing during this period of “climate emergency” with the outlier highest 2 years occurring 12 to 15 years ago.
For some reason this most comprehensive and complete data website regarding the 2022 tornado season is not included in Googles most prominent search options.
How strange.
Given what has come out about Twitter, and the FBI, DHS, etc making “suggestions” to the platform, just how much “guidance” is Google/Alphabet taking from various Feds?
It just could be that they are based in Northern California, and hire leftist True Believers who do so spontaneously, but outsourced censorship is still censorship.
As a peculiarity, the late nutritionist Ancel Keys is whitewashed on Google compared to DuckDuckGo. It was difficult to find anything about his suppressing his own study that did not fit his pet model that fat caused heart disease.
I googled (“US tornado season 2022” NOAA) and Google returned ZERO results
Maybe you arent using google right . I got a whole list as you might expect
And this was highest ranking
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/tornadoes/202211
get some simple skills dude.
That’s an interesting page. They combine counts before doppler radar with current, post doppler radar, counts. It gives the illusion of increasing tornado frequency. It is a very misleading graph and, the narrative is pure alarmism.
There used to be a paragraph explaining this on the NOAA site, suggesting that you use the only F3, F4, and F5 as a comparison.
Unsurprising. See also: paleoclimatology, “ozone holes” measurements, and so forth.
Fascinating. SMC already mentioned the conflation of methodology with the totals. But what also stands out to me is that even with the bias, there’s no significant change over the last 30 years. But the CO2 level was around 350 ppm back then and is over 400 ppm today. Is it your contention that APG affected tornado development once, about 30 years ago, and then decided “enough of that, time to move on to the polar bears?” Give us your logic here.
Nope. Im not disagreeing the NOAA is inflating minor tornadoes or using ‘reports’.
Its just that someone cant use google search or more likely hes well known handle for complete BS
Use the quotes as indicated … as appended by Google Advanced Search
Now, instead of finding nothing, Google returns only my post
https://www.google.com/search?as_q=&as_epq=US+tornado+season+2022&as_oq=NOAA&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=&as_occt=&safe=images&as_filetype=&as_rights=not+filtered+by+license&tbs=
Try this search
US tornado season 2022 AND NOAA
Removing the quotes and placing AND between 2022 and NOAA I get the same page returned top as you.
Any different to the type of private censorship of say Fox news? or the fellow company Wall Street Journal
Or the NY Times which has a type of storys that suits its ‘upscale’ ( their term for ‘elites’ they cater for)
Strangely enough the recipes section of their food colums are the most popular part of the online paper
You are conflating private editorial spin and diktats by the government. Fox has made a decision to cater to Republicans, as The New York Times caters to limousine liberal Democrats.
If Trump had ordered the Sulzburgers to print what he wanted, or else (revenge not quite stated), the Sulzburgers would regard that as an impeachable offense.
The FBI making “suggestions” to social media (nice business you have here, pity if anything happens to it. . .) is the same sort of unconstitutional extortion, and a blatant violation of the First Amendment.
What suggestions ? Arent they for direct law enforcement purposes, which all police agencies do world wide
Doing so privately would be incredibly improper. Political purposes all the way down, as with the Hunter Biden laptop story that was suppressed.
twitter had a policy against information that was taken from hacked sources.
Bidens Laptop seemed to fit into that, others might disagree
Twitter was always a rats nest anyway, that I dont bother with but all social media sites including this one have lists of ‘no go ‘ areas.
Some seem to think they shouldnt do so. Dreams are free
You have clearly not been following the story. Twitter was warned off covering the story by the FBI and DHS, and the bit about hacked material was known to be false even as it was offered.
The laptop case was clear censorship on behalf of the Democratic Party by a faction of the permanent government.
FOX news is very much a part of the MSM. So is the WSJ for that matter.
And a pox on all their houses.
“Any different to the type of private censorship of say Fox news? or the fellow company Wall Street Journal”
Well said Duker! Thank you for poignantly (ancient) pointing out how critical it is we remember that our moral standards are wholly dependent upon the behavior of others.
I’m with you, i.e., thinking for ourselves be damned straight to Hades!
sycomputing unfortunately needed to add /s apparently
Now that’s just sad Tony…just sad…
Everyone knows Fox news skews one way, and CNN another.
And now everyone knows Google skews its results one way…
Why taking and not giving?
Goo definitely is a major part of the same oligarchy, if their bosses get to discuss things like “not allowing [OrangeManBad] situation” and aren’t crushed for jumping above their position.
May even count as a “semi-official” branch like Murky Stream Press or universities, at least from the time they were allowed to own spy satellites (or contracted to run crowdsource analysis on the same? po-tah-to, poh-ta-to…)
The answer to the headline question is “Yes, of course they do. So far as I can see Google is a corrupt censoring organisation which is a total stranger to fairness.”
Sue me if you like – I trust the Scottish Courts to arrive at the truth.
I googled three things: Climate Change, Global Warming, and Climategate.
the first two had no reference to WUWT for the first four pages +
Climategate came in at number 9 on the first page
I thought WUWT was “The world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change”
According to google it isn’t.
Google doesn’t want it to be
Google doesn’t censor anyone. It is a private company with its own algorithm that publishes its prefered ranking of webpages. Algorithms count as free speech in US law and thus google has a constitutional right to rank webpages however it likes. Censoring happens when web hosting companies take down webpages. There is a huge difference between not ranking a webpage highly and refusing to host the same website.
Izaak, you state boldly that “Google doesn’t censor anyone” …
… and you know this how?
Say I have a search engine. If my own “algorithm” doesn’t report any results for anything written by anyone with the first name “Izaak”, are you being censored?
I say yes. May not be illegal but it’s sure unethical, and it’s damn sure censorship.
However, the rot goes far deeper—the FBI/DOJ/White House were asking Twitter and Facebook (and presumably Google as well) to blatantly censor people like Tucker Carlson, and subjects like Hunter’s notebook.
And that, under the Hatch Act, is totally illegal.
w.
Willis,
Under your scenario I would still say that I am not being censored. This website for instance has a list of other people’s blogs. It doesn’t however list blogs that are critical of it. Is that censorship or just an excerise of free speech?
Does google have to list every website on the internet? Does it have to list them in a particular order? And if it found that it could make more money by not listing sites written by Izaak then it would be free to do so in a free society.
Are you purposefully lying, or were you just too lazy to look at the list? Just to mention two, Steven Mosher’s blog and Skeptical Science, invalidate your claim.
Obviously not. However, your first statement is false.
Dang, Izaak, miss the point much?
w.
Willis,
what was the point? Is it what is the definition of censorship or the fact that the US government has been colluding with industry to violate the rights of US citizens? If it is the later then you are about 100 years too late. The homestead strike of 1892 showed clearly that the government was on the side of business. And if it wasn’t clear the anti-communist activities of the FBI in the 50s and 60s made it clear. Then of course there was the patriot act which allowed massive survillance of US citizens all in the name of the war on terror. So why should anyone be surprised that twitter is collaborating with the US government?
You are right, Izaak. The rot we are seeing is much older than just the last few years, and much deeper than just the FBI “encouraging” Twitter/FB/Google to censor certain people and viewpoints. But now it is all rapidly coming out into the open. People are waking up! Hurray!
Steve, you’re conflating rot in the FBI with the recent government use of the media to censor people’s speech.
You’re correct, the rot is indeed deeper than the recent censorship, but that doesn’t mean the recent censorship isn’t very real, very important, and very illegal.
w.
Very true, I was not trying to make light of the seriousness of the situation in any way.
Izaak, the definition of censorship is when the government acts to take away the citizens’ freedom of speech.
It’s not about “anti-business” or “anti-communist”. It’s about preventing the ordinary citizen from speaking their mind or reading the truth.
For definitive proof that it’s happened with Facebook, see here. What is described is censorship.
w.
I would like to know what business the government has “advising” these companies on what to allow or suppress in the first place? Or “advising” ANY company on any policy, for that matter.
As for legality of anything, that’s why companies have lawyers. The laws they need to comply with are written in the law books. If it’s not, then it’s not a law to comply with.
Willis wrote “However, the rot goes far deeper—the FBI/DOJ/White House were asking Twitter and Facebook (and presumably Google as well) to blatantly censor people like Tucker Carlson, and subjects like Hunter’s notebook.”
You are correct, Willis. Note that you didn’t say “The FBI and DOJ and W.H. and Twitter and FB and Google can’t all be corrupt and colluding with each other, that’s just common sense. You must be lying. Bovine excrement!” (Would that have been the official Willis Eschenbach “common sense” three years ago?) So, in your mind, how is that rot different from the deep rot in the false SURFRAD station graphs?
Half of your brain is awake, just wake up the other half now… you are almost there!
stevekj, is your vile unpleasantness a natural gift, or did you have to practice to become so ugly?
Pass.
w.
No, Willis, I am not being unpleasant. Just trying to wake you up. It’s a difficult challenge but I am up for it. Others may stoop to cheap insults when confronted with your vast and comprehensive ignorance on a variety of subjects, but not I.
So, since you can’t disagree with my point about the SURFRAD physics on its own merits, since you don’t understand the physics in the slightest, but you do seem to be along the path of waking up to the deep and pervasive rot in government, let’s try it this way. Since you have no issue with putting words in my mouth, I’m going to put a bunch in yours, and you obviously won’t have any problem with that, so here we go:
1) On Watts Up With That, the world’s most viewed web site on global warming, which only exists because the entire global climate science establishment is fundamentally corrupt, a theme which indeed runs through every article you have posted here, you want us to believe that:
2) The deeply rotten US Government, which at this point is best viewed as an organized crime outfit, and no, that is not a recent development either, nor is it limited to the USA, is nevertheless mysteriously:
3) Paying those same corrupt climate scientists to, ostensibly, tell the truth?
Is that an accurate representation of what you’re selling? As “common sense”, no less? Who, besides you, and your
threefive groupies, is buying that?Steve, I fear that at this point, for me you fall under the First Rule of Pig Wrestling, viz:
So I’m gonna pass. If you think the SURFAD scientists are all wrong, I encourage you to explain to them just where they went off of the rails.
Because I’m not interested in your conspiracy theories in the slightest. You’ve burned your bridges with me.
w.
No, Willis, it is not up to me to explain to the SURFRAD scientists where they went off the rails. I am not the one claiming that what they said is true. A wise man does not say “Steve, please make the grown-ups stop lying to me.” Children say that. I would engage with them, except that they are being paid to lie, and I am not the one paying them, so they certainly aren’t going to listen to me. That would be a complete waste of my time.
You, on the other hand, are under no obligation to push their propaganda for them, especially on a web site that is ostensibly devoted to being skeptical of exactly those guys. So whenever you do that, I point out that you are wrong, and why. You cannot defend your own words, which makes you, well, not a pig per se, but an ignoramus. Why would you keep writing something you do not understand, and cannot defend? Who does that? Besides liars, or morons, or paid government stooges?
And the “conspiracy theory” label is no better than your argument from authority. It is a term that people use when they don’t want to think too carefully about a subject, lest it hurt their brain. Or their ego. You can’t use that label when I say the government is deeply rotten, because you said that too. And if you want to use it to contradict what I said about climate scientists being corrupt, and colluding to deceive the public, that stopped being a “conspiracy theory” many years ago, back in the Climategate days, and became a “conspiracy fact”. Perhaps you missed that whole episode. Maybe you were out fishing, or asleep. In any case, it happened, so there is no “theory” about it any more. Wake up…
Pass. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him think.
w.
Hahaha “Pass”? Which of us is refusing to think, exactly?
Didn’t Facehug censor mentions of Benford’s Law for a while?
Anyhow, “the Big Tech” is PWN’ed quite thoroughly, and usually without participation of the secret police at all.
From the latest Twittergate file dumps, it appears that Democrat representative Schiff, pressured Twitter to suspend the account of journalist Paul Sperry, for no other reason than Sperry’s reporting was exposing things Schiff wanted to keep hidden.
Imagine you are in a library and are looking for information. There are several doors into other rooms containing information. The owner of the library has locked none of them.
But one of the doors is disguised as a bookshelf. You need to know the exact book to pull to make the secret door open. And you need to know there is a secret door there, in the first place.
Has the owner censored the information in the secret room?
That is the wrong analogy. Suppose rather that two different people decide to write a catalog for that library. One is eccentric and decides to list books according to the number of letters in each book while the other lists them alphabetically. Is either catalog censoring the information?
You’re still missing the point, Izaak.
When the FBI asks Twitter to reduce the visibility of something that hurts Joe Biden and they do so, that’s censorship.
The same is true of Facebook, or Google, or the NY Times.
w.
My analogy is better because it refers to a case where someone does want to find the information.
There is no obvious reason why anyone would prefer a book based on the number of leters it contains. But there is a reason why people might want to read the original Climategate emails (for instance) and make up their own minds.
Would that reader even know the original Climategate emails were there to be read if they are hidden in a secret room?
Would that person know that there are books with letters in them or that the letters are part of an alphabet? Your analogy assumes that the reader is illiterate.
My analogy is better.
You said “Google doesn’t censor anyone”.
That may be true in a literal sense: Perhaps Google doesn’t reduce/remove exposure, hide information, change search rankings or post warnings on pages and search results for outright censorship purposes.
But then again, Twitter has shown that Twitter definitely stepped over the line into censorship many times.
Why exactly would Google be different? Especially since Twitter, Facebook and Google all toe the same ideological lines, as well as share the same revolving doored, large numbers of ex-3 letter agency, ex-political party and/or ex-government bureaucrat people?
Google billionaires plan to make more billions courtesy of you. Manipulating search engine results is just a small part of this plan.
And Fox news doesnt manipulate the news storys it chooses. ?
As they are private businesses , they can and do as it suits….gasp I hear they get money to rank some sites even higher
infamy infamy , they have got it in for me !
You got fox news on the brain, get help.
Really ? You mean theres sites and even specific writers you ignore because experience tells its rubbish.
Fox is just an obvious example of top down ‘content moderation’…which they can do of course . Doesnt mean I have to watch it
I gave NY Times and Fox examples of both sides. is your tutu crushed because I called them out for blatant media bias.
Remember Fox news has a public license for its TV frequencies so cant legally be totally one sided. They are in serious dog doo over the lies told about Dominion voting systems , but Dominion is using the courts to gets its financial redress for defamation
To the far left, the center is obviously biased.
Did know that Tucker Carlson has his own production team, independent of FNN, to prevent the Network from influencing the content and tone of his show? It is like Tucker has his own podcast that is then transmitted by FNN without that Network having any say in the content.
Now why would a conservative commentator have things set up that way if FNN was as biased right as you claim? He wouldn’t!
You harp on FNN and leave out MSNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS etc from your examples of bias. They all have obviously bias but only ONE network catches your attention. And that obviously because it spouts views you disagree with.
Funny that!
hes independent ?
he say the sorts of things they want to hear at Fox, id not his contract is toast
Its a common answer – “the network/newspaper doesnt tell me what to write/say”
The network/newspaper WILL only publish/broadcast what fits their agenda.
Carslon is an apex host so has more freedom, and in many ways very good at his job ( unlike the rest of the Fox ninnies)
NY Times a few years back fired one of their editors because he allowed a Senator to write a one off column that was ‘incendiary’ by their standards.
Fox has fired and not renewed hosts for similar faux pas.
Remember the calling Arizona for Biden controversy, the Fox election analysts were right but powerful people didnt like it . The consequences for being right at the wrong time meant their future at Fox was over.
A fanatic is one who entrenches himself in invincible ignorance.
You don’t want to know obviously.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FmHpb3nXEAIPIl5?format=jpg&name=small
What, literally “I did not read Pasternak — but decisively condemn him”?
I thought the “watermelons” are supposed to have an opaque green hide thick enough to hide that juicy red stuffing — and here it is, bursts right on the surface again…
I generally enjoy these pokemon fights, but that’s a little too… overripe.
Publishing things you would rather not know is not the same thing as publishing rubbish.
Well, what the shills are to do? They cannot promote some real opposition even to decry it, can they? I mean, they could not name 8chan “8chan” until it got eaten, and even half-tame People’s Cube is but a “nameless malware-spreading site”.
Of course, this in itself is a good indicator…
You seem obsessed with FOX news for some reason. They are just as much a part of the MSM as CNN or MSNBC. FOX News just presents the appropriate, accepted news in a fashion that caters to the folks that don’t watch CNN or MSNBC.
Every network sells advertising to the same manufacturers, banks and and insurance companies as the others. Yet nobody ever blames them for content they disagree with. Strange, since they are the ones paying the bills.
Not quite the case, doonman – see all the boycotts leveled against FOX advertisers, or those against specific people like Tucker Carlson. The advertisers DO get attacked, usually from only one side of the political spectrum.
You are correct that any publisher that has a bias is often guilty of censorship. However, it is still censorship even if it is legal.
As they are private businesses , they can and do as it suits
Doesn’t make it right.
Do you have any evidence that Fox refuses to cover stories based solely on which party is hurt by the story?
Or do you just assume that since your side does, everyone else must be doing it as well?
Six weeks later and only Fox News has reported on Elon Musks release of internal Twitter emails that show the US government conspired and colluded with major social media companies to restrict information to the public.
doonman,
What counts as manipulating search engine results? Would you use a search engine that returns an list of sites ranked alphabetically? Or in order of when they were created?
Google’s search engine is optimsed to maximise its profit. But as a private company it is free to use whatever algorithm it likes to rank web pages. This isn’t manipulation but just free speech in action.
When Alphabet cooks web searches to cater to a political party, particularly the party threatening to “ regulate” them, is a civil rights violation.
Tom,
what civil rights are violated by google publishing a list of websites in a particular order? If there are n websites then there are n! possible rankings of them. Anybody and indeed any private company is free to use whichever ranking they want. Forcing them to choose one ranking over another is depriving them of their freedom of speech.
Google like any other company behaves in a way to maximise its profits. And that includes optimising the ranking to maximise the profits it obtains from advertisers. The fact that it is free to do so is a consequence of its being located in a free market. If you don’t like it you can either lobby the government to restrict the market or write your own search engine.
YGBSM. Altering search results to cater to their political bosses is a First Amendment violation, as it means hiding accurate information that does not serve their purpose.
Of course, Watermelons and Social Justice Warriors can do no wrong, at least in their own minds.
Tom,
Google are not altering search results. They are ranking webpages in an order that you object to. Again if there are n pages that contain a particular term then there are n! ways of ranking them. Google is free to choose any one of those n! ways and present the results to the public. You are also free to rank the webpages in a different way and present that to the public. And there is no objective way of saying which one is best. Google (I am guessing) chooses the rankings that will maximise its advertising revenue. Expecting it to use any other ranking would appear to be delusional.
Similarly google does not hide accurate information. If you know the URL of a particular website then you can go straight there. But again google does not have to show you the way to that website. It is free to choose which websites it ranks and which it doesn’t.
If you really believe Google does not use politics, including such politically fraught subjects as sexuality, food, GMOs, climate, or energy policy, may I interest you in a venture into voodoo acupuncture? Such blind faith would be transferable, and result in a major placebo effect.
Tom,
you appear to misunderstand my point. Firstly google is entitled to use whatever criteria it likes to rank webpages. This is in the US protected by the constitution since computer code counts as free speech.
Google ranking websites in a particular way is not censorship. It doesn’t have to rank or index any particular website and as a private company is free to do so. Furthermore there are alternative companies that try to index the web and you are free to use them or indeed to write your own search engine.
Google might well use political criteria to rank sites. But that is its right as a private company. But again that is not censorship. That is simply a private company excising its right to act in a particular way.
Censor
– to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable
– to suppress or delete as objectionable
The issue, Isaak, is that Google and other social media firms are doing so on the implicit or explicit orders of the government. If Google was actually doing so on their own, without threats of “regulation”, you might have a point. But the elephant in the room you are ignoring is the state security apparat making “ suggestions”. Nominally private companies doing the State’s bidding is a characteristic of classical fascism.
Actually it is in kind contributions to the political party campaigns and individual candidates, and the oligarchs who own and run these corporations, Twitter, FB, UTube, Google, etc. need to be prosecute for exceeding their campaign contribution limits. It is like they are paying for campaign adds.
Don’t know what the statute of limitations is, but RICO charges should also apply since they all communicated with each other.
With political corruption, it is always difficult to tell who initiated the corruption. Is it the oligarchs corrupting the bureaucrats, or the bureaucrats bosses soliciting “cooperation” or else?
Is it bribery, or extortion?
And, a prostitute is free to represent herself as being a virgin. That doesn’t mean it is ethical or that she should be believed. The problem is, the news media is assumed to be telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, since they don’t publish a disclaimer to that assumption. Legality aside, there are still issues of ethics and morality, which you seem to be eager to ignore.
Clyde,
ethics and morality doesn’t enter into it. People are free in the US to publish pornography. They are free to divorce and sleep with other people’s wives or husbands. All of which are protected by the bill of rights. The same is true for google. Regulating search engines would violate the constitution in the USA since it is well established that computer code counts as free speech.
Other countries do things differently. In the EU there is a right to be forgotten which means that google can’t link to particular websites. Which state of affairs is better is perhaps a matter of personal preference. I would prefer the US approach but that means that while I can’t complain about how google ranks sites I do get to write my own search engine and if people prefer it then google will go bankrupt and I will become rich.
False advertising is unethical. If some entity offers a search service with the implication that its value is being able to find all the available publications, but doesn’t return ‘hits’ that their algorithm is designed to exclude, then I maintain they are being unethical. We do have laws relating to honesty in advertising. And, the Federal Communications Commission still regulates what words and images can be used in radio and TV transmissions over the air.
Incidentally, I’d appreciate you pointing out which amendment in the Bill of Rights protects adultery.
But Goggle isn’t the news media.
Google and other web search engines act as news distributors, so one step removed from the source.
Au contraire! Google is in the business of not only providing internet searches, but it also provides news, maps, and translations. Is it ethical to distort news, maps, or translations to promote their politics?
At this point I’ll provide my definition of “unethical”:
Any behavior that results in an actual or potential short-term gain in exchange for an actual or potential long-term loss. Those gains and losses can be financial or reputational, and are often also considered to be illegal. That is, petty theft, lying (commission or omission), violation of a verbal contract, or not honoring a moral obligation, I consider to be unethical, whether illegal or not.
By my definition, a service company that implies it is giving unbiased results (and doesn’t even offer ‘fine print’ to qualify what it actually does), is acting unethically, and in a perfect world will be punished for such behavior by people taking their business elsewhere.
On my phone I read news from, #1 Breitbart, #2 Newsmax and #3 Fox. I start with B, then R and get Breitbart, for the other two I start the search with N and get News and Newsmax, finally I remove the MAX part and search for “news” only and I only ever open Fox, but fox is ALWAYS 6 or more lines down, after google news, of course then all of the usual subjects, cnn, abe MSnbc etc. I have been doing it this way for over a year to see if Google could learn my preferences, which it doesn’t appear to be able to do.
When I searched “news” just now, Fox was #8, WSJ#32, 6 after AL Jazeera, and 7 after marines.mil???, and Breitbart and OANN did not show u in the first 100, even though the goodnewsnetwork did.
So leftist bias in their search algorithms, no doubt. I have no problem with that as long as, like on a pack of cigarettes, they are required to plainly state their biases.
On your hated FOX news, all the hour shows in prime time STATE that they are opinion shows with news. On ALL the non, conservative leaning networks, they NEVER state that they are opinion shows. They claim to be NEWS shows.
And you are OK with that, since you support their narrative.
It is far past time for congress to require notice of opinion and editorial content and fact based NEWS. Segment by segment. And declarations of conflict of interest.
Control the information people have available to make an informed decision, you control the people’s opinions.
How does Google profit? Ask the CEOs.
(Maybe it’s all for “The Cause” as long as they can keep their limos?)
A question.
Does Google own eBay?
No . Googles parent company Alphabet owne these well known sites
Mandiant
fitbit
looker
nest
Waze
Doubleclick
and this biggy Youtube
They also own 23 and Me genetic testing company. Think what they can do with that.
Unlike the Twitter files, I suspect the Google results are mostly just an indirect result of their algorithms rather than intentional human censorship.
Remember Google rank ordering is essentially a popularity contest. Most viewed is highest ranked. So less popular stuff (like climate skepticism) is going to be ranked lower. And ‘obscure’ stuff (like actual NOAA tornadoes history) may not get ranked at all because very few go there to look it up themselves.
It is the same reason that MSM articles about new climate papers are often ranked higher than the papers themselves. The MSM deliberately provides clickbait headlines about them; science papers usually don’t. Google ranks based essentially on clicks.
I find that carefully formulating Google search queries works around this ‘defect’ most of the time. Not all the time.
They could easily give extra points for references so that the actual research paper rates higher than media articles based on it. Shouldn’t be too hard…airlines price their tickets depending on how many people are clicking on that flight, how fast it’s filling up, how close to departure date….
“…I suspect the Google results are mostly just an indirect result of their algorithms rather than intentional human censorship.”
I disagree with you. There are plenty of articles, going back years from multiple sources, that document the ways Google (Alphabet) has censored and altered search results. These altered search results occur via changes to the algorithm Google uses or, due to direct intervention. Even Wikipedia has a page that talks about Google censorship and Google’s alteration of search results. Censorship by Google – Wikipedia. The Wiki article is spun in such a way to make the censorship seem ‘reasonable’ but, it is very clear, from the Wiki article, that Google censors and manipulates search results.
“Google rank ordering is essentially a popularity contest” – when it is used. I am sure that Google manipulates results before sending them back to me. Wattsupwiththat.com will be buried deep on page 24 of query results for a most popular climate site. I now use duckduckgo.
Update: No longer true. Just now it came on top. Still I’ll stick with ducks.
One should always have their ducks in line.
The search string doesn’t always help. It just buries you under heaps of preferred articles. It would seem like a sensible question to ask: How many people are currently in U.S. hospitals with confirmed Covid? How many of these are vaccinated (or unvaccinated)?
Hundreds of articles top the Google search results detailing the efficacy of the government vaccination program, and if articles do delve into “breakthough cases” they will base that on the government (sometimes local government’s) algorithms of extremely low breakout percentages. Raw data is very rare.
Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment has slipped up a couple of times on their dashboard and reported the two figures side by side and they were surprising: a March Colorado Public Radio report citing the CDPHE dashboard proclaimed:
Fifty-two percent of those now hospitalized are unvaccinated
I saw comperable percentage on a more recent CDPHE dashboard last month. Total hospitalizations with confirmed Covid vs. the number of hospitalizations of Covid patients who were unvaccinated: About half.
This figure tells us is a lot about vaccine efficacy (late?) in the pandemic. You (may) have about a 50% chance of being hospitalized with Covid regardless of whether you’re fully vaccinated.
Presumably the figure would be used to help get more people vaccinated. Even with Colorado’s high vaccine rate (I think we’re now at around 80% fully vaccinated), but if it’s true, what it screams is around half of hospitalized patients have had their shots.
This is not information hospitals, let along Google, will reveal on a cursory search. And it’s not because people find vaccine reassurance a more “popular” topic. It’s because CDC and local health authorities don’t want that information transparently available.
So, maybe you are right about the algorithms. Maybe they simply are weathervanes that show which way the popular winds are blowing. But a better metaphor imo is a version of the guy looking for his car keys under the street light when the keys have been thrown as far from the light as some prankster could heave them.
Thats why booster shots are recommended . No vaccine is ever a golden shield for protection.
Just as well theres anti virals for after an infection , but some might not take them ($100 per course) because of dis information?
back in early 2020 before there wasnt even talk of a vaccine let alone having billions in production I got the pneumonia vaccine shot protects against 12 types . needs a booster after 5 years but good for life ( mostly). Pneumonia is a side effect and a killer for severe respiratory illness amoung others
It isn’t a vaccine in the first place as many people still got infected afterwards anyway while a real vaccine stops infections from the start which is why they are immunized.
WRONG
In general, most vaccines do not completely prevent infection but do prevent the infection from spreading within the body and from causing disease.
That must be why the polio and smallpox epidemics were slow to subside.
It is you who is totally wrong, the WuFlu injections are gene therapies, totally divorced from traditional vaccines. They trick/transform your body into producing the spike protein portion of the WuFlu virus, hoping this will induce some kind of immunity response.
Totally unlike traditional vaccines which inject an inert or dead version of a particular virus to induce an immune response.
The spike protein is toxic and damages all kinds of systems in the body. People are literally dropping dead as a result of taking the gene “therapies”.
In the summer of 2021 the CDC silently changed the definition of “virus” so that it was no longer necessary to prevent infection. The mRNA spike protein does not prevent infection at all, in fact it damages the immune system and makes infection easier.
Highly recommended roundtable:
https://rumble.com/v1ze4d0-covid-19-vaccines-what-they-are-how-they-work-and-possible-causes-of-injuri.html?mref=nmtun&mrefc=2
(You won’t find this on Goober/utube)
And contrary to what Fauci, the CDC director, and Biden said, the shots do not stop transmission.
In fact, just the opposite—by damaging the immune system with the toxic spike protein, it makes infection easier.
The numbers are starting to bear that out and in fact it is looking like the more shots, the more likely one is to get the COVID again.
And there are the cases of Sweden and Africa where mortality from COVID is low despite low vaccination rates, no isolation/lockdowns, no mandatory masking, etc.
Oh and BTW, it is quite likely we will be seeing more NFL players kneeling in prayer for other downed players and staff. About 95% of the players and 100% of the all the teams staff members have gotten the shots.
The NFL took money from the government to promote the shots and then made them mandatory. But later dropped the mandate. I wonder why?
Canada made getting the shots mandatory for those entering the country, and then a few months ago dropped that mandate. I wonder why?
This despite the governments insisting on keeping the emergency status and continuing to proclaim that there is still a COVID pandemic.
And, contrary to the government line, more data coming out showing that natural immunity is by far the very best protection. I belong to that group and I would fight to the death to prevent taking any mRNA injection.
My point is that Google search engines seem to be hardwired not to provide a transparent, easy to understand metric by which all Americans could determine their own suitability for getting the shots. The raw data I’ve called for might contradict the CDC narrative on vaccine efficacy – but it should be available. If this is biassing the search results like it appears, it parallels the restrictions on unvarnished global warming information as Mr. Hamlin illustrates above.
I am not an antivaxer – I’ve had both Pfizer shots and received a booster one year ago — but since this seems to be an ongoing cash cow for pharmacies, insurance companies and hospitals, I’m also interested in deciding for myself what is right and what is wrong for me and my family. More generally, I’d think Americans need to know how vulnerable we are to massive manipulation by a medical-industrial complex which can virtually shut down the entire country, including its government, businesses, transportation, schools, leisure, restaurants, etc.
Covid-Net tracks the number of laboratory confirmed COVID-19-associated hospitalizations and it updates this graph weekly. Since vaccine histories are taken upon admission, it would seem like a really good idea for hospitals to provide this information to state health authorities and for that to be relayed to the general public along with the graphs showing how many fully vaccinated patients are being hospitalized with breakout cases.
If, as Colorado data suggest, I have a 50/50 chance of being hospitalized with Covid despite my shots, I’d like to know it.
https://rumble.com/v1ze4d0-covid-19-vaccines-what-they-are-how-they-work-and-possible-causes-of-injuri.html?mref=nmtun&mrefc=2
You are remarkable ill-informed, or are intentionally spreading the official Brandon/WHO/CDC party lies.
Explain how the “vaccines” were developed prior to the release of the WuFlu?
Anyone recommending “booster shots” after the plethora of evidence that those that have received two or more injections are more likely to be injured by the “vaccination” is either very uninformed or malicious in their intent.
NSW Respiratory Surveillance Report – week ending 31 December 2022
CDC Finally Releases VAERS Safety Monitoring Analyses For COVID Vaccines | ZeroHedge
Sky News acts clueless but we know, and they know we know, and we know they know.
https://youtu.be/mO9qtrmQY9M
I have plenty more from other countries and sources.
All vaccines have always had severe consequences for a tiny tiny number of people. But hundreds of thousands of other lives saved, remember the death toll before the vaccines arrived . Perhaps you forget that when the only measures were lockdowns
The first flu vaccine in the 1970s was badly tested and caused a big stir when released and the consequences for some were bad.
These days flu vaccines arent a problem – in the same way
Dozens of other
“All vaccines have always had severe consequences for a tiny tiny number of people. But hundreds of thousands of other lives saved, remember the death toll before the vaccines arrived . Perhaps you forget that when the only measures were lockdowns”
We’re not talking about “all vaccines”. We’re talking about this one.
The death toll? How many were caused by things like NY putting Covid cases in nursing homes? Flu deaths and others being reported as “Covid”? Some places didn’t do the “lockdown” routine and did better than others that did.
I’m not an anti-vax guy. But there’s too much politics involved here to get a clear picture.
(Didn’t Fauci say HE was the science? Wasn’t he involved with the gain of function research stuff at Wuhu?)
21,002 deaths per year is Dukers definition of a tiny tiny number of people. Obviously didn’t read the CDC report I posted a link to.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FmHpb3nXEAIPIl5?format=jpg&name=small
Rud, a while back I tooled around doing Google and DuckDuckGo searches using my VPN to situate myself in different countries.
The results I was getting from the same search text were quite varied.
In some places the results that people said were not appearing were top listed in other countries.
So I totally get what you wrote about results are mostly just an indirect result of their algorithms rather than intentional human censorship.”
Not all together true – companies can pay to raise their website rankings. We recently wanted to renew a driver’s licens online, and searched for California DMV license renewal. You’d think that the California DMV site would come to the top of the list. No, the web site of a private company (whose name shall remain anonymous here) came first, and it looked an awful ot like it could be the California DMV, until it asked for a subscription fee (after inputting all your data).
“Do Google Search Options Conceal Climate Data that is Contrary to Government Alarmists Propaganda?”
Yes.
I think they rank WUWT lowly as a ‘ trusted source’ as a policy matter but do you have examples outside that
HTH does Goober know how to rate “trusted sources” of technical information?
How does aeroplanes fly ?
Its way over your and mine heads to know the techical details.
But Google only ranks , the unreliable sources are still there.
How does a supermarket know what to put on its shelves ? Can you find the brand you want always ?
Over your head, perhaps. Not so for most of us.
Airplanes fly by lift resulting from the shape of the wing which causes high pressure below and lower pressure above the airfoil as it moves through the air. Basic stuff man.
I admit this was a few years ago, but, I did a search for WUWT and had to go to the the second page before I found it. (The first hit was “HotWhopper”!)
Sorry, but I can’t resist showing Brits’ relative priorities for Google Search in 2022:
That’s actually quite worrying. People should be much more concerned about net zero. Perhaps when it finally affects their other viewing habits?
Seems they have their priorities in the correct order. Although, we can probably quibble over whether Net Zero is more important than Climate Crisis. 🙂
Use Duck Duck Go.
Search on: “year 2022 us north atlantic hurricane results”
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=year+2022+us+north+atlantic+hurricane+season+results&atb=v339-1&ia=web
The first three hits are NOAA websites that don’t say much, but the fourth is:
https://www.cnsnews.com › blog › craig-bannister › final-2022-hurricane-season-results-disappoint-no
While the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) held firm to its prediction of an above-normal hurricane season – despite zero hurricanes at the halfway mark – the 2022 season proved to be nothing out of the ordinary.
Hurricane season, which runs from June through November annually, turned out to be pretty average this year, NOAA’s end-of-season report reveals.
There were just two “major” hurricanes (categories 3-5), below the annual average of three and less than NOAA’s prediction that there would be 3-6. The eight total hurricanes (categories 1-5) this year falls dead-center in NOAA’s forecasted range. And, the total count of named storms (which had hurricane-potential) barely hit the lowest number in NOAA’s forecasted range:
Google owns Duck.com which is why people should make sure they are typing in duckduckgo.com to avoid google search.
I’ve switched from DDG to Brave.
I dropped DDG when the CEO stated they would censor information about Russia/Ukraine. That strikes me as antithetical to their supposed purpose.
I don’t need someone else to filter my search results.
Good tip.
Some companies buy the addresses that similar to theirs to prevent sites from impersonating the real site.
Not a stretch that some would buy a site name to hinder the competition.
I remember seeing a a product on a store site labeled “Pannasonic”! The box looked exactly like the real Panasonic product I was looking for. Same idea. Be careful what you type and especially what you click on! (Glad I have Norton Safe Search to flag me for my typos!)
And yet the ACE was below the average even for the Atlantic hurricane season.
“How strange”
Actually, not so strange……..
Ask Biden. He has paid the news services (all of them) millions of American dollars to control what they print and say – he wants to be America’s next Quadaffi – what he says is all you need to know and you MUST do what he says – sounds like a good deal to me – don’t need to strain your repective brains “thinking” – Biden has done that for all of you – his little toy robots.
Who? Joe Brezhnev? I doubt he could even compose coherent phrases equal in length to those in your post (without assistance) by now, never mind act coherently enough to do all of this.
Google has not been a reliable search engine for many years, probably going on a decade now.
There are others that may be more reliable, DuckDuckGo was good for a while, but has discredited itself by choosing to censor search results (relating to COVID) that don’t conform to “The Science”. Others search engines may or may not give you results that are more to your liking: Bing, Brave, Yandex, Qwant, etc. Though, the dark arts of internet search algorithms, and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) used by various web sites to get their pages ranked higher than others can mean that the most difficult issue is formulating the question you ask in a way to get the desired results. Too general, and you will be flooded with SEO answers, too specific and you might not get many results at all. Having said that, the issue of search engines putting a finger on the scale for some topics is very real. Using a variety of search engines can help in trying to keep out of information silos, designed to point you in the direction of a conclusion desired by someone else.
The COVID era has seen these issues increase by many orders of magnitude, now with government funded Behavioral Insight Teams (otherwise known as Nudge Units) effectively conducting a military grade psychological warfare operation on their own citizens, the populous is bifurcating into two groups. Those who are taken in by the psychological operations, and those who see the psychological operations occurring and are not taken in (once you see the man behind the curtain, the illusion is broken).
I guess the most important thing to remember when searching for information online is to always remain skeptical. Always ask yourself, is this information biased, is there some particular angle being presented. To do this without becoming paranoid can be a challenge, especially if the subject you are looking at is one that is actually being manipulated to mold public opinion.
Another, possibly more disturbing thing is when information just disappears, sometimes from all search engines. Perhaps it has been taken down from the sources? There really isn’t any way to tell.
As an anecdote… try finding a brief clip from the movie 12 Monkeys, in which Bruce Willis’ character James Cole says: “So now it’s not about the virus at all. It’s about following orders, doing what you’re told.”
Prior to COVID (and for some time after it’s emergence), this clip could be easily found with various versions on YouTube and other video sharing platforms. Now, it is very hard to find a copy of it. I know the line is in the movie, I’ve watched it. But it is being scrubbed from the internet. Something that some people think is not possible. While it may not be possible to entirely scrub something from the internet, it can be sufficiently cleaned and subsequent copies excluded from search engine results to make it effectively invisible. The Ministry of Truth is hard at work, working day and night, sleeping in between the cubicles, in a mad rush to ensure that those who have been “unpersonned” are scrubbed from history. “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”
Thank You.
Years ago, I gave up on google providing balanced (non-biased) search results on global warming or any related topic when I saw the results of their automatic weekly updates on climate change in my email box. All the articles in that update were on one extreme side of the spectrum. I leave it up to your imagination which side of the spectrum that is.
If journals are rejecting skeptical articles, as claimed, then one would reasonably expect that the results would be skewed for journal articles.
I live in a county that recently had 2…no, 3 tornadoes.People are actually sent out in the field to inspect….obviously they do not want to miss one….a picture of one showed some limbs scattered about and a few boards….obviously, all tornadoes are not the same…..and what if one does not touch down……..does that make it an inferior tornado?
I can’t find a good answer. It seems it is the damage on the ground that counts. The winds can be on the ground while the visible condensation funnel may not be. Then it is called a funnel cloud.
The EF-Scale takes into account more variables than the original Fujita Scale (F-Scale) when assigning a wind speed rating to a tornado, incorporating 28 damage indicators such as building type, structures and trees. For each damage indicator, there are 8 degrees of damage ranging from the beginning of visible damage to complete destruction of the damage indicator.
https://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/tornadoes/
EF scale and indicators are here. https://www.spc.noaa.gov/efscale/ef-scale.html
Our local weather forecasters introduced a new term this week. New to me, anyway.
We had two EF-Unknown tornadoes go through the area. The reason they were listed as unknow, was because both of them formed over lakes in the area, so there was no way to access any damage and apparently they were not doing damage over land.
Introducing “damage” caused by a tornado or a hurricane or another weather event is not a weather measurement. Period.
“net zero”
I can’t think of anyone I know that would search for “net zero”.
I can’t imagine most of the people I know even being familiar with this.
Try the following instead:
why are my heating bills so high ; or some version of this.
To be clear: Many people do think Earth is warming, or climate is changing.
For most, believing this is about as far as they go. One might take the percentage of EVs sold as an indication of concern. This seems to be under 6% in the USA.
However, buyers also think an EV is going to save them fuel cost.
Paul Homewood has a good post:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/01/09/back-to-the-horse-cart/
Searc… Steering engines.
Does the Pope crap in the woods?
Only when he is bare.
Why should climate data be handled differently than COVID data or vaccine data?
Google is a company that monopolizes advertising and information along with Microsoft and the social tech giants. They provide what they are paid to provide. Their algorithms are set up to return the results their revenue stream wants. In prior years the PC magazines always rated Microsoft products the highest because they were the largest advertisers. In today’s world government and corporate giants allow anyone to stay in business so when money talks everything else walks.
So is it a monopoly or does it care deeply about every crumb of its revenue? The latter usually happens due to very thin margins driven down by strong competition, doesn’t it?
Did they run ads for Church of Xenulogy because this was the most profitable offer, too?
And discussed preventing OrangeManBad situation the next time purely out of fiduciary instincts?
And thought-policed their own employees for up-to-date theology for the same reason?
Haven’t used Goober in years–vote with your feet.
Do Google Search Options Conceal Climate Data that is Contrary to Government Alarmists Propaganda?
Do bears poop in the woods?
No I think they are using public toilets in San Francisco
That must be why the people are not.
Why would climate be different than every other subject that is censored by Google? If you use Google, at least skip the first page of results and start with page two.
Why do you give them clicks?
This is just an example of the Golden Rule – he who has the gold, sets the rules.
The whole article could be summed up in one word “yes”
Is it deliberate?
I’m not so sure. As Rudd states, Google results are a popularity contest designed to make Google richer
Switch to Neeva.com for better results and less tracking
Thankfully there are options outside of Google. There is no doubt that there is a social/political bias throughout most of the tech world. It’s not a hidden bias. It is quite evident in their various blogs. Rush used to talk about it all the time and cite examples.
But unlike Twitter, there is no direct evidence that Google search priorities have been directly influenced by the government or any of its agencies.
That being said, based on the evidence coming out about government influence on Twitter content and shadow banning, and out right banning of posters due to their views on a range of subjects that were counter to the government line, where there is smoke, there is a very good chance one will find fire. And so I would not be surprised at all to see such direct evidence of collusion with the government agencies by Google come to light.
Yes. One thing I’ve noticed that it is impossible to find the variation in global temperature over the year. It varies by up to 3°c from Jan/Feb to July/Aug, due to most of the land area being in the northern hemisphere.
The first two results from Duckduckgo.com for the search phrase< US 2022 tornado season results> highlight the below-average level of activity.
I would also point out that Google in particular has been caught showing different “ephemeral” options to different people. Ephemeral suggestions are the auto-suggest possibilities that Google search shows when even a single letter is typed into a search bar. Dr. Robert Epstein has created a Nielsen type network of internet surveyors and has documented this over many years (since at least 2016).
Epstein’s research shows that these different ephemeral suggestions both skew traffic and can skew people’s views – particularly those who are yet undecided.
And this isn’t the only evidence. Zach Vorhies hosts a large collection of information leaked out of Google – I suggest looking these over to understand just how much power and demonstrated capability Google has in manipulating results: https://www.zachvorhies.com/google_leaks/
This sums it up nicely.
well it is obvious that “1984” is here just in a different way. The government was responsible in the ‘book’ but now we have private enterprise covering up for the government. Hopefully truth will win out but I am beginning to have my doubts!
Google should change its name to Goggle, as in the goggles that let you see only what socialists, wealthy autocrats, communists and radical environmentalists want you to see. Alternatively they can just come out an agree to be called Big Brother.
Does the Ministry of Truth conceal information that does not fit into the $CURRENT_YEAR theology? Also, do the polar bears leave their droppings in tundra?
Come on. Of course it does. It’s their main job, at least after data mining was automated slightly less than completely.