Is Google the Official Internet Censor?

Google's official blog entry calls it "Finding more high quality sites in search." It sounds like a noble quest, but how do they back up that premise? If it were a college thesis, they would have to show numerous facts and figures, details or even anecdotal stories to support the assertion. As a freelance writer, I share my work on several writing sites. I call Google's algorithm what it is: high tech censorship. It's a newfangled way of controlling what the public sees and that controls who makes the money.

Tried and convicted in the Court of Google

I have a 20 year history of teaching jewelry making skills and a 20 year insurance liability claims career. I have a lifetime of experiences and knowledge. That's what I share on writing sites. How could Google possibly know enough to censor my thoughts and ideas, as well as the thoughts and ideas of many others like me. There is no way for them to evaluate all of the content on the sites they have recently disenfranchised. They have simply designated them "low quality" and gone about destroying them.

Being from a minority group, you learn early on the significance of degrading and relabeling things as prelude to an attack. When you are painted as something negative, something less than those around you, it's easy to diminish you or wipe you out. Women and minorities are still fighting those battles.

That's what Google is doing when they label sites "low-quality." They are diminishing the sites in the public eye as though they can't decide for themselves. They are trying websites in the Court of Google, convicting them, then exiling them to a low page rank.

Content Farms?

A few journalists call article writing sites "content farms," as though a few shady old guys in dirty coveralls are out there planting articles, raising them up and distributing them across the web. There are a few shady sites like that. They plagiarize. They rewrite other writer's work, and perhaps something should be done to stop them. Most major writing sites are not like that. Sites like Yahoo! Contributor Network (Associated Content), Helium, Seed and others are great forums for independent writers to share their knowledge and opinions.

Writing sites do not employ paid establishment journalists of the sort who have been controlling the media for decades. They are about individuals having a right to speak. These individuals are not gangs or subversive organizations. They are not proponents of bad grammar. They are simply every day people from all walks of life and all professions. They share expertise, thoughts and opinions in forums that support their right to do so. Along the way, these writers earn a little money, as well. It's a small piece of the American dream.

Follow the money

Money... could that be what it's all about: Adchoices vs Adsense ads on writing sites; newspapers and magazines vs independent writers. Google vs Yahoo!?

Shouldn't we at least ask: If Google's true mission is to clean up "low-quality sites," why on earth do they not begin by getting their own house in order. Most writers would agree if there is such a thing as a "content farm," Google owns the video counterpart.

Source:
Google Blog
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high-quality-sites-in.html