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What happens when you speak out against Google


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"The Open Markets Team congratulates European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager and the European competition authority for this important decision. Google's market power is one of the most critical challenges for competition policymakers in the world today. By requiring that Google give equal treatment to rival services instead of privileging its own, Vestager is protecting the free flow of information and commerce upon which all democracies depend. We call upon U.S. enforcers, including the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and states attorneys general, to build upon this important precedent, both in respect to Google and to other dominant platform monopolists including Amazon. U.S. enforcers should apply the traditional American approach to network monopoly, which is to cleanly separate ownership of the network from ownership of the products and services sold on that network, as they did in the original Microsoft case of the late 1990s."
—Barry Lynn, the director of the Open Markets Program.

The NY Times reported today in reaction to the above statement, "Google Critic [quoted above] Ousted From Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant" @Mel Hopkins, I tough you might appreciate this article because it addresses my concern about America's ability to reign in these emerging monopolies. As discussed in your post about the EU's fining of Google.

 

Meanwhile Google's dominance continues to grow.

 

google-search-engine-market-share.png

 

This affects ALL Black owned businesses doing anything online. These monopolies cripple existing companies, large and small, and prevent new business from starting.  This is effecting more Black jobs than I can even quantify.  But we are willing to invest all our time and energy into trying to get one wealth ex-football player a job, while countless jobs are being lost or failing to be created in the internet economy.

 

While I, as a bookseller, can see this and have been railing about it for years, we really need Black media to pick up the ball and help people understand why this stuff 'matter to them... oh I forgot monopolies have all but obliterated Black media, and replaced it with social media driven news about one man who can get hired by the NFL.  Even if we "win" that battle for Colin's job we lose the freaking war, a war we don't even know that has been waged against us...

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  • 2 weeks later...

I fail to see how Google and Amazon are waging a war against blacks or anybody else. Everyone in America and around the world that has access to the internet can pick and choose their search engine provider and or where to buy your products...you are not locked into only one provider like when Ford Motors only made cars in the color black. We live in a capitalist society...what you are advocating in socialism...equal results. Everyone has the opportunity to compete...but results will vary. Its like you having the best book store in your state with everybody ordering from you and all of a sudden all the other book stores in your state start advocating that you are becoming a monopoly and you need to be regulated by the government. Is that fair?

 

Did people cry monopoly when Apple iTunes literally took over where to get music from and caused the record stores to go out of business?

 

btw, my search engine is Bing...because I do not for a fact Google surpasses information...especially conservative right leaning information. Google and Amazon were major major contributors to Barack Hussein Obama's agenda. And Obama loved them along with Facebook and Netflix.

 

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/internet-giants-google-facebook-amazon-netflix-fight-to-save-obamas-net-neutrality-regulation/article/2628936

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Hmmm.  There really is a lot to pull apart in what you wrote.  First I need to ask did you watch the video or read any of the accompanying documentation?  It would be helpful if I knew for sure that you have a basic understanding of the environment.

 

Do you understand why the EU took Google to court, and why the court penalized Google with a multi-billion dollar fine? If so, I gather you disagree with the decision.  That is fine; one's perception of right or wrong is a personal decision.  However, in this case, Google violated the law, which is far less subjective.

 

No one said Google or Amazon were waging a war against Black people specifically.  I'm saying their behavior adversely impacts us; perhaps morese than any other group, because we own so little on the web.

 

@The DW_Perspective, are you or have you even been a bookseller?  If so, could share how you come to know so much about the business? That would be helpful.  

 

The music business model was under assault before Itunes came along.  How old are you? Do you remember Napster?  Itunes as a music platform is growing increasingly irrelevant as more people move to simply streaming music or downloading it instead of buying it.

 

I'm glad to read you like and use Bing.  Unfortunately, the reality is that only a small minority of people use Bing.  Bing has little impact in search.  Do you run a website?  If so, what percentage of your traffic comes from BIng?

 

Your mention of Obama and the contributors to his campaign is lost on me.

 

I watched the video. "net neutrality" is a serious issue.  If 45 gets rid if it that would be bad, really bad.

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  • 1 year later...

It is necessary for Google to treat all information fairly. They have adopted new algorithms which haven definitely effected web results. I don' t believe the results are better now. I believe certain websites, especially websites I use have been effected, whereas some of results I once dominated are no longer featured by Google. There has been updates to these platforms which could effect results, but I hardly believe to the extent that Google has seemed to drop from consideration. Some of this leading content has proven supreme, in that when I checked, I saw that tons of sites have copied the content making me need to change it. But the link juice is not being considered at all, otherwise, these sites would still dominate these keywords. So I am definitely led to believe that there is something else, and it's not just software. it could be that much of the content goes against traditional political and personal views, which shouldn't be an issue when it comes to information. People should be able to get conflicting viewpoints and then determine their own.

 

Also, Google controls most of the internet searches. This means they have the power to silence certain platforms or at least make life more difficult for these websites. If you disadvantaged as Black people are when it comes to any type of media, then it becomes quite necessary to make this game more fair. So I agree with changing this behavior because as usual, when there is a monopoly of something, we will always pay the penalty.

 

I also don't think it is a coincidence that at the moment, when you type in buck breaking article, the most accurate account of the history is placed nicely at the bottom of the page below a Snopes Fact Check article that says the information is only partially accurate but repudiates the part about buck breaking. I don't think that's a coincidence.

 

I also look at the fact that the more popular certain content gets, the less Google will feature and send traffic. For the past half year, Google has went from sending the sites in question most of it's traffic to hardly sending any traffic. The site gets more traffic on its own but I still smell a rat!

 

If I had the power to send an unbiased team to investigate the algorithm itself, I'm sure we would easily find that these algorithms are written to protest supremacy.

 

We now know the power of the internet. The content we produce has the power to change and effect people's minds and behavior, just like any other media. We also know that because people carry the internet with them in their pockets, the internet could easily get the title of the most influential media in the universe.

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Here is pretty much the problem in a nutshell: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/04/25/google-overhauls-search-algorithm-bid-fight-fake-news/

 

Google is going to use its influence on the net to control what content people see based on what they consider "fake" or "conspiracy news." The average person might say ,"Well heck! That's good news because I get tired of hearing conspiracy theories." But then I ask, what more is a conspiracy theory other than an unpopular opinion or belief?

 

If you limit one websites freedom of speech, you potentially threaten any website with similar viewpoints. For instance, information Black people consider relevant is different than what white people consider relevant for the most part. According to them, buck breaking is a myth and they didn't feed slaves to alligators based on the logic that they would be losing money. This is what Snopes proclaims. However, we seem to have accurate detail of these events and no one can deny the post cards that Snopes said "was in bad humor." It wasn't in bad humor, it was in bad actions by bad people. And this is our history and there is nothing fake or phony about what we endured. And popular to a new right wing claim that slavery was agreed to by the Africans, this is yet another bogus claim that tries to rewrite our history yet again. So much required information is left out with these pieces of biased information that it just simply becomes untrue. 

 

But nevertheless, the power of information is not a power to take lightly. When you share information with people, you change their minds, effect their behavior and beliefs and change the world. We too easily leave people with this power who care nothing about our beliefs and who we are.  The problem I have with that is also the fact that we rely on this same information that we entrust with people whom we know are not fond of us. How can we not equate this behavior with some type of retardation or sickness in the Black community? Because, it appears to me, that Black people are the only group of people on the planet who allow this behavior.

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@NubianFellow, Google's algorithms are absolutely biased. The are written by young white boys and reflect their sensibilities, which they will never acknowledge. 

 

To make things even worse Google's search engine is biased by their revenue driven business model which results in them putting their own products up front, giving priority to advertisers on the SERP, and copying content from website reducing need for search to visiting the underlying sites;while enhancing the search products.

 

Because Google is an effective monopoly in search their impact has been and can be quite devastating.  If Google search disappeared tomorrow.  I honestly believe the web would be better off.

 

I don't think Google is fundamentally racist, but they are extremely greedy.  Unfortunately the stuff that makes the most money in a white racist culture is the stuff that disparages Black people.

 

I noticed this problem years ago have have written about it pretty extensively.  Check out this article which explains how Google search results highlight popular Black authors problems rather than their accomplishments: https://aalbc.com/blog/index.php/2014/02/06/wrong-goodreads-google-wikipedia/

 

The problem today is that Black people have no alternative platform so they consume the same bullshit and believe it.  In the past, we had our own news sources to counter this nonsense today we simply don't have enough and often the one who remain broker in the same type of nonsense in an effort to remain profitable.

 

Fake news proliferates because the creator of this nonsense have the money and talent to game Google's algorithm

 

Today it is to the point where I have to debate with other Black people why this is a problem... which make this whole thing exceeding difficult to thwart. Even Donald Trump in office and doing squat about climate change is not enough to convince people there is a problem.  It seems the ability to share memes, humble brag, and spy on friends is more important.

 

14 hours ago, NubianFellow said:

it appears to me, that Black people are the only group of people on the planet who allow this behavior.

 

I think it appears that way because we are disproportionately impacted, but the whole world is potentially a risk -- and this is not hyperbolic.

 

 

 

 

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  • 9 months later...
On 11/22/2018 at 7:47 AM, Troy said:

Google's algorithms are absolutely biased. The are written by young white boys and reflect their sensibilities, which they will never acknowledge. 

 

You are absolutely right and I have proof. Google search the term Intersectional White Supremacy with no quotes. Now search any other search engine (Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc.) with the same search term Intersectional White Supremacy with no quotes. All other search engines bring up an article on a very pro-black website as the first result; an article that I posted on here once. Google does not display the article at all in the first four pages (I didn't bother going beyond that).

 

Its the same for terms like Gay Is The New Jew, and Eleventh Amendment Unconstitutional. Try them all. Google buckbreaking and Tariq Nasheed's forthcoming documentary comes up, as it should. But the second is a Reddit post (another white supremacist forum) that says buck breaking did not exist and essentially says black people are lying and "playing the race card."

On 11/22/2018 at 7:47 AM, Troy said:

Check out this article which explains how Google search results highlight popular Black authors problems rather than their accomplishments

 

All those articles with the search terms above are by the same black author. Proof is in the pudding. Search algorithms can be unbiased, like they are on Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc. They can also be manipulated by white supremacists at one of the most powerful companies in the world.

 

Twitter and Facebook kicked me off their platforms on the same day a couple years ago for posting an article, complete with photos of black families (mom, dad, kids), about how in the 1960s, 85%+ of black babies were born to married mom and dad. There were only 150,000 black men in prison then (well over 2 million today), black-owned businesses were thriving and creating jobs in black communities, and there were real, forceful leaders like Malcolm and Huey. The article concluded that black people were better off before so-called integration and today 80% of black babies are born to single moms and black people participate in homosexuality for white acceptance.

 

On 11/22/2018 at 7:47 AM, Troy said:

 

Today it is to the point where I have to debate with other Black people why this is a problem

 

I don't even bother anymore. The state of Black America is so disappointing, so disheartening and exhausting. A majority of black Americans fight so hard for white liberal causes or play shoulder monkey for Donald Trump for acceptance and money. We have to face the fact that we've been defeated. I read somewhere that 75% of Nigerian immigrants have master's degrees. Many of them come from places with no running water or electricity, but come here and make black Americans look like defeated slaves. The black American ("ADOS") mindset was been conditioned over 400 years; conditioned to kill each other, conditioned to fail, and conditioned to yearn white acceptance by any means. Unfortunately I don't believe this can be reversed.

 

Once Minister Farrakhan dies (he's in his 90s I believe), that is the last of black nationalism, black pride and black power. It has been replaced by white homosexual movements like #BlackLivesMatter and all those crying, emasculated CNN and MSNBC Amos and Andy characters. I decided at age 25 not to gave kids because I don't think it's fair to raise black kids in the USA in the 21st century. In fact, I'd classify it as cruel and unusual punishment.

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@Kareem As much as I might agree with what you wrote, I'm saddened by your conclusion not to have children.  I have wondered what life would be like for my grandchildren, should my adult daughters decide to have kids. 

 

Google can (and have) single handedly put a website out of business.

 

You can't give up hope man. Your generation is all we have.

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@Troy  I try not to give up hope. But damn bruh. I grew up in a really white town and was so happy to go to college and date black women for the first time in my life. None of them were wife material as all of them seemed to think it was cute to see black boys in dresses and emasculated. Further, all of them talked about being "bi" and what not. That was a disappointing four year as far as dating goes. Hell, the white girls I dated in junior high and high school seemed to have more soul, be more down for the cause. I'm not having mixed-race kids, and I'll only have kids with a strong, righteous black woman. So right now, I just can't see myself having kids. Haven't got a vasectomy yet, so I guess I can still be swayed.

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