The growing political censorship on the internet is a huge story that too few conservatives and conservative sites are paying attention to.
And that's unfortunate.
I have been sounding the alarm about this for years. And it's only getting worse. But hardly anyone is tracking these developments.
Here's the latest Google announcement.
Additionally, Google said its search answers will now favor more authoritative outlets for news related queries. So will YouTube, which has been scorched lately for surfacing conspiracy theories. Google is teaming with Harvard University to launch a “Disinformation Lab” to spot fake articles ahead of the mid-term elections.
"Authoritative news outlets" is likely to mean that the mainstream media will be increasingly favored in search results. (It already is.)
And then there's this "Disinformation Lab". There's not much information on it. The Lab will operate out of Harvard's Kennedy School through First Draft.
The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy is a research center at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. The Center analyzes the power and impact of media, in all its forms, on public policy and politics.
First Draft is a new project at the Shorenstein Center. It is a research and learning project, designed to help newsrooms, scholars, fact-checkers and technology companies collaborate and encourage real-time verification of information on the social web. We will bring together a team of researchers who will track and test different ways of responding to misleading, manipulated and fabricated information, using the 2018 U.S. midterm elections as a test case.
First Draft's scope is international, but its domestic political orientation is very clear.
There are the usual fake news claims about the '16 election. Its Disinformation Ecosystem collection largely targets the right. One paper describes the Daily Caller as an "alt-right" outfit. (By two "experts" from Microsoft Research. Yes the censorship push has plenty of corporate bad actors behind it).
As I've been saying from Day 1, the "fake news" push was about restoring a mainstream media monopoly on the news through a forced partnership between the media, its non-profit lefty allies and dot coms, willing or unwilling. The growing monopolies on search and social by Facebook and Google have made them the choke points.
If we don't wake up to what's going on, the internet will become a safe space for the left.