Americans are just beginning to wake up to Google's unlawful practice of applying its own political and religious biases to the most powerful search engine in the world.
Everyone knows Google is an ultra-left tech giant that showers the Democratic Party in cash, promotes the fake-news anti-Trump hysterics of the alt-left Huffington Post and Daily Beast to the exclusion of real independent news and robs all of its "customers" of their privacy rights in ways that would make the National Security Agency blush.
But what most people, including President Trump and Congress, haven't quite figured out is that these practices are illegal for Google, just as they are for Facebook, because of the special status and corporate exemptions to the laws of the land they have been granted by the U.S. government.
What most people don't understand is that Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter don't have the right you and I and most corporations have to take sides in the political debate – at least not in the work they do online. They gave that right away when they accepted immunization from legal liability, under the Communications Decency Act, from activities conducted on their platforms. For instance, they can't be sued or prosecuted for defamation, libel, or indeed for any criminal activity that takes place in their online domains. They got those privileges by agreeing to serve as mere "carriers" of data – in other words, as utilities, like the old phone company. Therefore they can't be held responsible for conversations, postings, or other online materials that involve illegal or otherwise dubious actors.
However, they also accepted another responsibility in order to qualify for that special protected status. They implicitly agreed to be neutral – not to provide favor to one political viewpoint or another, not to favor left-wing media over right-wing media, not to inhibit the freedom of speech of those with whom they might disagree – even disagree strongly.
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But Google and Facebook do those things all day long, every day – in fact, every micro-second – by means of the algorithms they have established, based on their careful programming that boosts the Huffington Post and Daily Beast at the expense of WND and Breitbart.
What this clearly demonstrates is that the Internet Cartel is already in violation of the Communications Decency Act. By using its special "utility" status to promote partisan politics, adopt a consistent left-wing lens in its presentation of the news, banning content objectionable to the anti-Christian bigots at the Southern Poverty Law Center and using algorithms in search and display that punish conservatives, Republicans and other non-leftists, the cartel members abuse their special status as a mere "carriers" of data.
Since Congress created this monster, it's time for Congress to fix it.
It's not so easy for a would-be competitor to Google having a chance at success when Google is immune to lawsuits to which mere mortals and corporate upstarts are not.
This may help you better understand why WND and the rest of the independent media, especially those that do not hate President Trump, are under siege, faced with dwindling traffic and revenues – both controlled to a large extent by the ever-changing algorithmic whims of Google and Facebook.
It's not so much that the independent media cannot be found on Google and Facebook. It's just that we are buried, while the left-wing media are puffed.
There's a new media joke that goes: "If you want to hide a dead body, have it show up on the second page of a Google search."
Personally, I'd be thrilled with the second page, where Internet searchers rarely have the time and patience to go. But, for the independent media, you'll more likely find us on the 14th, 22nd or 27th page – if we're lucky.
The algorithms used by these government-made monopolies are top secret. They need to be subpoenaed by Congress and analyzed by top-notch programming experts to see just what kind of ideological purity standards and political correctness biases they employ.
It would be that easy for Congress to correct what it should have realized all along would be a problem, considering the political nature of Google and Facebook. But nothing is easy when it comes to an act of Congress, as you know.
So, at the very moment WND and the rest of the independent media are struggling for survival in this hostile new world created by the Internet Cartel, it's up to us to push this political boulder uphill.
That's why we need your support, prayers and lobbying help in Washington.
If you cherish freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion like we do, we're counting on you.
In the meantime, let me remind you that sites like WND are operating on borrowed time. Google and Facebook and the rest of the cartel are having their way with us. They're killing us – softly but not slowly. Without direct financial support from people who recognize the unique service we provide in the ALT-NEWS category, we would be goners. We appreciate your rescue efforts as always. Here are two ways you can help: