Daniel Kovalik: They have been doing this with other media sources from North America. These tend to be left-wing alternative sources. I know at least a dozen of these publications that Google has de-ranked.
When the folks look for a news item, this will essentially lead them to other sources before RT, for example, or Sputnik.
Sputnik: Google is essentially cutting off their lifeblood?
Daniel Kovalik: Oh absolutely, they are gonna lose. And most of these sources depend on donations by readers to survive.
That is a form of censorship. Google is a monopoly, a virtual monopoly! No one uses any other search engine anymore beside Google.
Sputnik: Is there going to be a single person sitting there going "this is a weaponized info-into the bin" or how is this going to work out?
READ MORE: Moscow Slams Google's Bid to Derank RT, Sputnik: Violation of Freedom of Speech
Daniel Kovalik: First of all I question the very idea that there is such a thing as weaponized information.
They do not want an alternative view of the world. An alternative narrative.
They do not want folks in the US to think differently about what is happening in Ukraine or that the US has been supporting terrorists in places like Syria.
What they want to filter out in many cases is the truth, that's what they do not want the folks to know.
Sputnik: Alphabet's chief executive said that he "does not favor censorship," but doesn't the ranking system do exactly that?
Eric Schmidt, head honcho of Google announces that the company will de-rank RT and Sputnik in news searches. The mega-monopoly will now "engineer" algorithms to suppress articles in search rankings from these websites.
— brian becker (@BrianBeckerDC) 21 ноября 2017 г.
Daniel Kovalik: Absolutely, this is just a matter of semantics.
People believe that Google is somehow neutral — this neutral search tool. They are not going to be led astray in that regard more and more, because you are going to see Google doing that more and more.
We are going to have less and less choice; public discourse will suffer.
Daniel Kovalik: They are a part of it. I think that they have felt some pressure from the government.
The truth is that the American public has largely bought the "Russia-gate" narrative. And again, not surprisingly, because the mainstream media has really pushed it, as if it is just the truth, the tenet of faith that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections.
READ MORE: 'Because Russia': RT Editor-in-Chief Slams Google Over Its 'De-rank' Algorithms
Evidence is not necessary to prove it. I think that Google has bought that line.
But I also think that all of these [companies, such as] Google, Facebook, Twitter — have gotten a lot of pressure from the Congress, from others in the US government to come up with something and to do something, and I think that this is Google bowing to that pressure to some extent.
