Google ‘Responsible’ for Dissemination of Holocaust Denial
In two scathing Guardian articles, this week and last, Carole Cadwalladr outlines how right wing extremists have gamed the Google algorithm in order to present Holocaust denial and vitriolic anti-Semitism as “authoritative” internet responses to “Did the Holocaust happen?” and “Are Jews evil?”
In her December 11 “Google is not just a platform” she tells how her, and everyone’s, internet searching is shaped by the internet and how the internet goliath profits from every ad served on racist right-wing entries.
In “Google, democracy and the truth about internet search” from last week she talks about the threat posed by the search engine’s abrogation of responsibility. It’s not just a threat to civility but to history and democracy.
This isn’t a secret Nazi cell lurking in the shadows. It’s hiding in plain sight.
Never mind “fake news” this is fake history colonizing the top ten of your Jewish searches with hate speech. Cadwalladr calls Google to task as “Responsible.”
Google writes the code that drives the algorithm that returns the results. How they write this code, what they use to assess authority and credibility, how that enables Stormfront to spread its lies and spew its poison is entirely its responsibility.
Dan Friedman is the managing editor of the Forward. Follow him on Twitter at @danfriedmanme
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO