When can you get away with saying you’re “very strongly not in favor of censorship,” when announcing your company will “engineer” algorithms that will make it harder for articles from Sputnik News and RT to appear on the Google News service? Ah, that’s an easy one. When you’re a deranged meglomaniac billionaire.
Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, announced Saturday that the company will “engineer” algorithms that will make it harder for articles from Sputnik News and RT to appear on the Google News service.
“We are working on detecting and de-ranking those kinds of sites — it’s basically RT and Sputnik,” Schmidt said during a question and answer session at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada. “We are well of aware of it, and we are trying to engineer the systems to prevent [the content being delivered to wide audiences]. But we don’t want to ban the sites — that’s not how we operate.” -via sputniknews.com
Great news! So, instead of getting all forms of news, whether it’s from Latvia, Iran, the UK, Ireland, or that dreaded evil menance, Russia, soon we’ll just be getting “approved news” from Google. Sweet!
At some point in the not to distant future, Google may be deciding when you can go to the potty, when you might be subject to being droned by the Department of Defense that has worked with Google for years or when you can go shop at another multi-billionaire’s grocery store, Jeff Bezos’ Whole Foods. They’re beginning to cover all bases to ensure life, and in particular your mind and pocket book are emptied into their waste bin of nothingness.
This is also great news for the biggest purveyor’s of BS, the main stream media. It will be a steady stream of pro-war, pro-government, and pro-corporation horseshit.
Bend thy knee to the great omnipresent censor. Listen to it, read its drivel, inhale deeply of its guano and be thankful for the free speech, free thought and democracy, corporation-style, these shysters tell you is yours.
“We have to grasp, as Marx and Adam Smith did, that corporations are not concerned with the common good. They exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill, and lie to make money. They throw poor people out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars for profit, poison and pollute the ecosystem, slash social assistance programs, gut public education, trash the global economy, plunder the U.S. Treasury and crush all popular movements that seek justice for working men and women. They worship money and power.” ― Chris Hedges, The Death of the Liberal Class
***
Tonight’s musical offering:
J.S.Bach – Concerto in D Minor BWV 1052 – Polina Osetinskaya, piano – The Mariinsky String Orchestra
Photo credit: http://www.unsplash.com/@timmossholder
Dispatches from the Asylum 