Is Google News Keeping You In the Dark?
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Written By Reprise Media | May 24, 2006 | Share This
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While front page news stories about Britney Spears may offend the senses, they’re nowhere near as offensive as hate speech, which is defined by Wikipedia as:
“Speech intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a group of people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. The term covers written as well as oral communication.”
One news outlet currently grappling with the issue of hate speech is Google News, which is being criticized by some for manually removing select news items from its feeds due to their (as determined by Google) offensive content.
The barred sites vary in content from a radical anti-Islamic site to an online destination for right-wing conservatives. Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters has the complete story and Google Blogoscoped has some more excellent coverage.
This one quote is particularly apt:
“Google News is moderated and as such, I think, Google doesn’t have the moral obligation to include every available source, which in turn means they do have the moral right to exclude certain sources. Now it’s a very different issue whether or not we agree with this specific set of exclusions.”
On a related note, sometimes censorship can a good thing (like when it keeps you from seeing a stinker of a movie).
Topics: Media Convergence |