Editorial: Google's Threat to Democracy Hits AlterNet Hard

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: September 29, 2017 at 4:57:32 PM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Editorial: Google's Threat to Democracy Hits AlterNet Hard
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> Editorial: Google's Threat to Democracy Hits AlterNet Hard
> We all need to stand up and push back against Google's monopoly on steroids.
> By Don Hazen /  AlterNet
> Sep 28 2017
> <https://www.alternet.org/media/editorial-googles-threat-democracy-hits-alternet-hard>
>
> The story we are sharing with you is very disconcerting for independent media and America’s future, and frankly 
> unprecedented in AlterNet’s history.
>
> It may be hard to imagine anything scarier than Donald Trump’s presidency. But this problem is actually bigger than 
> Trump, and it is a situation that certainly helps him. This story affects you too, in ways you may not fully be aware 
> of—in fact, it affects our whole media system and the future of democracy.
>
> The New Media Monopoly Is Hurting Progressive and Independent News
>
> The story is about monopoly on steroids. It is about the extreme and unconstrained power of Google and Facebook, and 
> how they are affecting what you read, hear and see. It is about how these two companies are undermining progressive 
> news sources, including AlterNet.
>
> In June, Google announced major changes in its algorithm designed to combat fake news. Ben Gomes, the company’s vice 
> president for engineering, stated in April that Google’s update of its search engine would block access to 
> “offensive" sites, while working to surface more “authoritative content.”
>
> This seemed like a good idea. Fighting fake news, which Trump often uses to advance his interests and rally his 
> supporters, is an important goal that AlterNet shares.
>
> But little did we know that Google had decided, perhaps with bad advice or wrong-headed thinking, that media like 
> AlterNet—dedicated to fighting white supremacy, misogyny, racism, Donald Trump, and fake news—would be clobbered by 
> Google in its clumsy attempt to address hate speech and fake news.
>
> The Numbers Are Striking
>
> We have had consistent search traffic averaging 2.7 million unique visitors a month, over the past two and a half 
> years. (Search traffic makes up 30-40 percent of AlterNet's overall traffic.) But since the June Google announcement, 
> AlterNet’s search traffic has plummeted by 40 percent—a loss of an average of 1.2 million people every month who are 
> no longer reading AlterNet stories.
>
> AlterNet is not alone. Dozens of progressive and radical websites have reported marked declines in their traffic. But 
> AlterNet ranks at the top in terms of audience loss because we have a deep archive from 20 years of producing 
> thousands of news articles. And we get substantial traffic overall—typically among the top five indy sites.
>
> So the reality we face is that two companies, Google and Facebook—which are not media companies, do not have editors 
> or fact-checkers, and do no investigative reporting—are deciding what people should read, based on a failure to 
> understand how media and journalism function. 
>
> The Harvey and Irma of Journalism
>
> Britain’s famed journalist Sir Harold Evans described Facebook and Google as “the Harvey and Irma of journalism and 
> democracy”:
>
> “Whatever else they do, the electronic duopoly deprive millions of information and argument as surely as the series 
> of super storms deprive millions of light, power, home and hearth.
>
> “The climate change deniers will go on calling the link between hurricanes and greenhouse gases a ‘hoax’… but no one 
> can deny the devastating effect of Facebook and Google on the viability of news organizations to investigate 
> complexity and resist suppression.”
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp



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