The Google "G" favicon. (Photo: Public Domain)
Don’t Be Evil: Really, Google, This Time Don’t
Google is to freedom of expression what Dracula is to blood banks
By Thomas Buckley, April 14, 2024 2:30 am
Three little words: Don’t Be Evil.
But just as “I Love You” can curdle into undying antipathy, Google’s very former motto has become the perfect oppositional descriptor for pretty much everything it now does.
From black Nazis to spying on its users to an internal culture that can only be described as the intersection of hate and human resources to its extremely willing participation in the federal government’s on-going shredding of the First Amendment, Google is what evil is to, well, evil.
No simile, no analogy, no comparison of any kind needed. And definitely not a “results are changing quickly” situation at all.
Just to make absolutely sure everyone knows that Google is to freedom of expression what Dracula is to blood banks, the company just announced (publicly – really) that there is a bill winding its way through the California legislature that they do not like and will therefore limit access to links to California-produced news for, well, a while.
The bill – which does have certain faults, unquestionably – would essentially make Google and other social media companies pay a “link tax” or a “journalism usage fee” to media outlet owners each time local news articles are used by the companies that also sell advertising along with it.
The proposed law – Assembly Bill 886 by Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) – is about making social media companies actually pay for what they fill their news feeds with – you know, news generated and paid for by someone else.
Sounds like a good idea, but the law would add certain complexities and create other issues that could squeeze out smaller, more local news outlets meaning that even media types in the state are split on the bill.
But Google does not want to take any chances it could actually start having to pay for what makes it so much money from and has decided to bring a howitzer to a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.
“Google announced Friday that they would be removing links to California news websites to measure the impact of the potential legislation within a small number of Californian users for a short period of time.”
In other words, we’ll show you NOW what we’ll make sure will happen if this bill passes.
The company went on to say that they are really a good thing for the news outlets they have built their company on the backs of, claiming that “(B)y helping people find news stories, we help publishers of all sizes grow their audiences at no cost to them.”
Maybe – but using other people’s stuff for free has definitely helped Google “grow their audience at no cost to themselves” as well – times a trillion.
Google frames their intentional “What are you going to do? Use Bing?” silverback gorilla show of dominance thusly:
“To prepare for possible CJPA implications, we are beginning a short-term test for a small percentage of California users. The testing process involves removing links to California news websites, potentially covered by CJPA, to measure the impact of the legislation on our product experience.”
Right now, the United States Supreme Court is mulling over Murthy V. Missouri, the most important free speech-related in decades. The case is about the federal government demanding in that classic goon “Got a nice website there – would hate to see anyone hit delete” kind of way that social media sites edit/cut/throttle/delete/crush/scrub/make go away anything the government does not like.
The Twitter Files revealed this to be unquestionably true and it seems Google has – almost by accident – just confirmed the allegation.
While this California bill involves corporate issues, Google is showing the world exactly how it can enforce – if it wants to or if it feels pressured by a regulator to do so – the “we can turn you off whenever we want to” power they have.
For Google not to realize they were proving one of the most salient points of the Murthy case while the Supremes are in mid-discussion of that very case proves – again – that the corporate hierarchy is simply not that bright.
To quote Dean Wormer, fat, evil, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
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August 18, 2021 -
There is actually a difference between using someone elses stuff on your own website or just linking to the content on someones elses website. For example, I always am amazed at how viewers will quote Drudge as saying something when if fact he never says anything. He only “links” users to another website. Often times there is a paywall so you can’t even read the content unless you subscribe. If you are a small news site and Drudge links to your site, you just hit pay dirt.
Nofearmfd is absolutely right. Google, Facebook, et al’s news feeds are essentially news aggregators. They publish links to stories. The same as Drudge, Citizen Free Press, Flash Report, Rough & Tumble, and the (great but now gone – still missing it) Press California. Google, Facebook, et al are huge and appear to be biased-left, just as other, smaller, news aggregators are biased-right-or-left. But to have an aggregator link to a story on your news site is a WIN-WIN. Right? Even if the outlet doesn’t have a paywall but has advertising. Putting it on the map is good for the news outlet and allows them to grow and even capture subscribers for that paywall. From the news consumer’s point of view the win is finding a new, good site that you might want to return to that has stories you wouldn’t have seen elsewhere. The smaller outlets aren’t going to get rich but disappearing them by way of a wacky scheme as proposed in AB 886 is definitely NOT the answer.
What’s more, the CA legislature’s likely and apparent goal with AB 886 is to kill, if possible, all news outlets but the big ones who have a big presence, the ones that (as you know) mostly deal in propaganda nowadays. But whether by accident or design, their death would be the eventual result. Similar laws to AB 886 in other COUNTRIES caused Google, Meta, et al to pull out rather than pay. Same thing here in California.
To the extent that most people depend on such news feeds to get their news, the apparent goal of AB 886 is to create an “out of sight, out of mind” situation for smaller outlets and alternative news. If you don’t see it, it doesn’t exist. This would result in a “news desert,” which essentially amounts to censorship. Maybe we can even speculate that Google et al are “cooperating” with the CA legislature; meaning that a proposed law such as AB 886, where Google et al would have to pay, provides them an “excuse” to achieve their goal of censoring certain news, alongside the Dem/Marxist CA legislature’s desire to do so.
Please excuse the length of this. I swear this AB 886 proposal and its parts and apparent goal are so twisty, tangly, and insidious it’s very difficult to explain. Hope it is understandable. If it isn’t or if I missed something, please reply.
Showandtell, thanks for the detailed analysis! I had not thought of the insidious ulterior motive you describe. Much appreciated!
Thanks Fed Up! Glad it was understandable.
You did somehow realize the end game, though, because you so astutely made the Brazil connection. 🙂
No, Showandtell. You caught that before I did.
A much simpler approach: If Buffy Wicks is for it, I’m against it. This works for Scott Wiener and several others as well. You’re welcome!
Ha ha, I agree, JFB, and that’s what I did too and knew AB 886 smelled because Buffy when it was first introduced last year. But in thinking about it since then I realized it was even darker (and bigger) than it first appeared.
The Globe has written about it several times but I still think Buffy and the Gang were confident that it came off as so benign (and/or confusing) it would slip under the radar and pass without a problem. Now that the bill is still alive this year we need to keep a very close eye on it.
Hey everyone, Thomas Buckley here.
Great comments from all!
This is a weird one – it is great for a small website to get “noticed” like that. My Substack – https://thomas699.substack.com/ – gets a big jump when a story is picked up by a site like RealClear…
But the timing is odd – if the Supremes are paying attention – and is a very bully move, also not helpful to their current reputation.
As for the bill itself, it is intentionally confusing so that people can read the same thing and come up with diametrically opposed opinions of its impact. Said before, say again: grey areas and wonderful places to do bad things in.
Thanks for reading and chiming in!!