Google Has No Plans To Follow Mark Zuckerberg And Uncensor The Internet | Bobby Burack

Four years ago, free speech was under attack on the internet. Facebook and Twitter had engaged in politically motivated censorship that, according to internal documents from both social media platforms, overwhelmingly benefited Joe Biden and the Democratic Party ahead of and after the 2020 presidential election.

Examples include suppressing the soundly reported Hunter Biden laptop story, suppressing posts critical of the Biden administration's handling of Covid-19, and decreasing the distribution of influential conservative accounts, a practice commonly referred to as "shadow-banning."

Since 2020, Elon Musk purchased Twitter, now known as X, and vowed to make speech diverse and censorship rare. He has.

Last August, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook regrettably censored political content on behalf of the Biden-Harris White House. This week, he announced plans to eliminate professional fact-checking across Meta platforms and to introduce relaxed moderation policies.

"We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms," Zuckerberg said in a video posted Tuesday morning. "More specifically, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S."

So, Americans can finally speak freely on the internet without fears of retribution for sharing the wrong political opinions? Not exactly. 

While that may be true of Facebook and Twitter/X, the most powerful tech company in the world remains steadfast in its efforts to police and control speech. Alphabet Inc.'s Google has shown no interest in joining the push to restore free speech on the internet.

Via OutKick Graphics.

Google Has An Immense Amount Of Influence

Without Google on board, the internet will never be open and free. No entity on the internet wields more power than Google. As of September 2024, Google accounts for 90% of all searches in the United States. There are 8.5 billion searches on the platform each day, 99,000 searches per second. 

The average person searches Google three to four times a day. More than 66% of web traffic referrals come from Google, meaning most websites' page views are dependent upon Google.

Further, Google's YouTube commands a dominating 97.95% of the market share for online video players. To this day, YouTube arbitrarily demonetizes channels for sharing the wrong politics, using the wrong pronouns, and offending the wrong groups. 

It's all a farce, a farce that costs media companies millions of dollars each year.

The Google search engine operates similarly. Last May, the search engine giant confirmed the authenticity of nearly 2,500 leaked internal documents that allegedly belonged to the service. In sum, the documents detailed how Google manipulates its closely guarded algorithm by assigning websites "authority scores." These assigned scores dictate where a link is located after a search, a crucial factor considering that only 1% of Google users scroll past the first page.

Which sites does Google favor, you might ask? A recent AllSides study sought to find out. According to the findings, 63% of articles on Google News are from "left-leaning outlets," compared to just 6% from "right-leaning sources."

Specifically, Google's rigged methods helped spread the infamous "bloodbath" hoax last March, forcing users to scroll to the second and third pages to find a headline featuring the full context of Donald Trump's comments.

Watch below:

Biased search results that resemble the most Orwellian of warnings are not new.

Dr. Robert Epstein, the ostracized research psychologist who testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2019 that "biased search results generated by Google’s search algorithm" shifted "at least 2.6 million votes to Hillary Clinton." In 2020, Epstein concluded that Google shifted "at least 6 million votes in favor" of Joe Biden.

In September, the Media Research Center uncovered data showing how Google search engine results were overwhelmingly "negative" upon the search phrase "Donald Trump presidential race 2024" and "positive" for the phrase "Kamala Harris presidential race 2024."

Responding to the study, Trump called for the criminal prosecution of Google.

"It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris," he wrote on Truth Social.

And a legal case against Google may exist. 

As OutKick explained earlier this week, Facebook and Twitter did not act alone when censoring Americans for the benefit of the Democratic Party. Per Zuckerberg and documents that Musk released to the press, both platforms were heavily influenced by the FBI, the Democratic National Committee, and the Biden administration.

Meaning, Facebook and Twitter enabled the government to skirt the First Amendment by censoring ordinary Americans on its behalf. In doing so, legal analysts from the Wall Street Journal believe Facebook and Twitter acted not as "private companies" but as "state actors," which can be sued as such.

Thus, Trump ought to launch an aggressive investigation into whether similar collusion existed between the government and Google. Surely, it did. And probably still does.

Google's fascination with control and censorship is ugly and authoritarian. It's a threat to Americans' ability to understand what is happening in their own country.

And unlike Mark Zuckerberg, the faceless tyrants behind Google have no plans to stop rigging the internet. They see no incentive to comply. 

As Americans, we cannot stand for that. We and the officials we elected must apply fierce and swift pressure against Google, the chief impediment to the free, honest, and open internet to which America must have access.

Freedom of speech is the fundamental cornerstone of a free society. How can we honestly call ourselves free when the most omnipotent entity in tech and media is actively trying to limit our speech?

We can't.