Facebook is evil, and so is Google. I say that not as hyperbole, but because of the empirical evidence. It’s no big news (well, it actually has been big news lately, but it’s “no big news” to astute consumers) that online giants like Google, Facebook, Twitter and others have lots of issues relating to members’ privacy and their increasing predilection for censoring material, particularly if it doesn’t conform to the orthodoxy of the far left.
For several years now, Facebook in particular has been recognized as one of the worst offenders, routinely restricting the content of conservative members, while permitting all manner of left-wing social engineering and propaganda. Last week, YouTube (owned by Google) abruptly banned all videos that promote or link to websites selling firearms and accessories, as well as instructional and safety videos pertaining to firearms.
Regarding Facebook’s privacy issues, many will have seen articles last week wherein Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg took to press venues to apologize for the recent revelation of third parties having gotten access to Facebook users’ personal information.
So now we’re supposed to trust Zuckerberg – the guy who had a lip lock on Barack Obama’s buttocks throughout the entirety of his presidency. For those who remember, this no doubt sheds new light on those secret powwows held by former President Obama and attended by power players of many of these companies. Following Zuckerberg’s public claim that Facebook had never sold member information to third parties, thousands in the comment sections of online news platforms responded with counter assertions that Facebook had willingly given the information away to its leftist compatriots.
But back to Google. Several weeks ago, I began receiving these rather annoying emails from Google informing me that my website, erikrush[dot]com, was out of compliance with regard to its AdSense policies, and that Google-sponsored advertisements on the site had been suspended. AdSense is a service whereby one places Google ads on their own website and they’re compensated by Google based on the volume of traffic on the site.
Alas, no matter what I did in my attempts to comply with these policies, Google refused to re-approve the site, despite its ads having run there for many years. So, I pulled all the Google ad code from my website. No big loss; Google doesn’t pay that well anyway, and there are other companies that offer similar services.
Then last week, I received an email from Google stating that there had been – get this – “Social engineering content detected” on the same website.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. For the record, the majority of the content on this site consists of reprints of my WND commentary. Now, Google doesn’t have any power to force me to alter the content on the site, but it does have the option of designating it as a “Deceptive Site” on its Chrome browser – which it did.
The idea is to make users think that their computers will be inundated with viruses or malware if they visit my site. As scummy as this is, of course it is Google’s prerogative to operate as it pleases, but the “Deceptive Site” ruse is tantamount to subtly slandering a private party. Needless to say, if my website offered pro-homosexual or pro-Islamic fare, it wouldn’t have bothered with any of this.
Many of us patronize businesses we might rather not, reasoning that the benefit we derive outweighs any detrimental effect to the business from our withholding our patronage – but one must draw the line somewhere. I wouldn’t patronize a pizzeria if I knew the owner was a neo-Nazi or a child molester, for example.
So, I’ve stopped using the Chrome browser in favor of another one, I’ve joined a pretty cool social media site that promises to not to engage in the sorts of things for which Facebook has become notorious, and I’m looking at a few alternatives to YouTube. Soon, like an increasing number of users have done, I will completely phase out my patronage of all these enterprises.
Finally, I will never again use the phrase “Googled” when referencing a web search.
What I’d do with such folks wouldn’t get past my editor, so we won’t go there (Hint: The boardroom scene from the movie “Dogma”), but I become more convinced every day that a great many liberals should be politically and perhaps personally disenfranchised. I know that I’ll run afoul of many people with this viewpoint due to their erroneous beliefs concerning the First Amendment, but my reasoning is sound: They seek to eliminate all worldviews contrary to their own, whereas constitutional conservatives and libertarians generally do not.
The mistake these online giants are making is characteristic of many leftists: In their arrogance, they believe that the majority of Americans think like they do. Obviously, this is a fallacy; in an unprecedented move in 2016, voters cast aside the entire two-party machine (at least in principle) to elect a president who was outside that increasingly corrupt system.
The markets’ current response to the demand for alternatives to online propaganda and social engineering purveyors should speak for itself. Sooner or later, like the alphabet news networks and left-leaning newspapers, these interests will lose market share in favor of more objective formats. While it’s doubtful that we’ll ever have the pleasure of seeing Zuckerberg and his peers featured as impoverished, drug-addicted has-beens on TMZ, I’d happily settle for their descent into obscurity.
