Now most of us are aware that Google’s
motto of do
not be evil is at most a slogan these days as Google is openly
engaging in censorship and posts filtering these days. In fact, a
dedicated Blog titled Websites,
Blogs and News Censorship by Google and India is
in
existence to register all such activities of Google and Indian
government.
It is a single place platform where all
sorts of
past, present and future censorship activities of Google and Indian
government have been registered and would be updated from time to
time.
I would not try to reinvent the wheel
here but would
like to share my own observations in this regard. I am part of a
citizen journalist platform that is also a part of Google news
category. It is known as Cjnews
India. For a considerable period of time, I was
not
bothered to comment upon the censorship activities of Google.
However, the censorship by Google has crossed all the limits and I am
forced to comment upon the same.
I have summarized the details of the
latest
censorship act of Google in the article titled Vodafone
taxation dispute in India and censorship by Google
and I
am not going to repeat the entire history here. Rather, I would like
to point towards a particular aspect that has skipped the attention
of all my colleagues of Cjnews India.
Whenever a news appears at Google, its
pointer is
also placed in the search engine results page (SERPs). Of course,
this occurs for only the news that gains a top spot as per the
significance and value of the news determined automatically by
Google’s algorithm.
Of late our news fail to get top slot
and this has
nothing to do with quality of posts or any other technical reason or
search engine optimisation (SEO) issue. This is fine with us but what
is surprising is that even if by miracle and for a very short time
span a news item appears at the top slot, its pointer at the SERPs
never appears. This is happening for the past one year.
Further, if this is not enough and if
still the news
post is influential, significant and persistent enough to remain on
top slot, Google engages in manual
action and either removes the same from Google
news
altogether or removes its pointer for a temporary period.
Of course, if a post is removed for few
hours as
well, other news would overshadow it even if it reappears
subsequently and it would remain on much lower pedestal. We were
never bothered by this behaviour of Google as we are more interested
in sharing our news and views rather than gaining top spot. But this
has put a question mark upon Google’s own commitments, fairness,
motto and claims.
If Google gives more importance to
commercial
interests and governmental pressures and ignores civil liberties in
cyberspace, it would cease to be Google. After all, Google is not
just a name but a symbol of trust and assurance that our civil
liberties would be safeguarded.
But that trust and confidence has long
eroded and so
is Google motto of not being evil. I hope someone at Google, apart
from those who are anxious to censor this post as well, am reading
this post and would take notice of the deteriorating standards of
Google’s civil liberty protection initiatives and efforts.
