Friday, December 7, 2018

European Union Censors EPJ

I just received the below notice from Google Search:
Notice of European data protection removal from Google Search

To: Webmaster of http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/,

Due to a request under data protection law in Europe, Google can no longer show one or more pages from your site in Google Search results. This only affects responses to some search queries for names or other personal identifiers that might appear on your pages. Only results on European versions of Google are affected. No action is required from you.

What we’d like you to know:

These pages haven’t been blocked entirely from our search results

They’ve only been blocked on certain searches for names on European versions of Google Search. These pages will continue to appear for other searches.

We aren’t disclosing which queries have been affected.

In many cases, affected queries don’t relate to the name of any person mentioned prominently on the page.

For example, the name might only appear in a comment section.

You can notify us of concerns

If you have additional information regarding the content of a page that you believe warrants a reversal, you can notify Google. Please note that while we read all requests, we do not always respond. Only the registered siteowner can access this form. 
Here are the affected URL(s): 
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Note this is not a Google censorship. It is the result of an enforcement action at the request of an (unidentified to me) individual in Europe via the EU's new data enforcement laws.

It is only one page that is blocked but the page contains many names. I don't want to identify it so that the innocent are linked with whomever the guilty one is. I can tell you this though, the reporting on the page was factual and accurate.

This is about whitewashing truth and I don't even get to know who made the request.

-RW 

7 comments:

  1. But don't worry, Napster, Google's private.
    BTW, I agree with you on almost everything, so just a little gentle ribbing here.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thankfully google is a private company so this is perfectly reasonable, right? You can just use a competitor, right?

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    Replies
    1. First, Google is not doing this -- it's the EU government.

      Second, I actually do believe the time is becoming ripe for competitors to make major inroads in facebook and google realms. As they become more bloated with bureaucratic rules and SJW values, a competitor could create a new non-sjw market.

      Delete
    2. The EU is doing it? They work at Google and physically blocked it? No, google complied with censorship. They could easily say FU and not comply, threaten to shutdown service in the area and create massive outrage against the stupid censorship... But they won't because these corporations are just arms of the state pretending to be private companies to evade constitutional requirements.

      Delete
  3. The people that RW would worry about losing bookmarked him long ago

    ReplyDelete
  4. They can't win against your arguements so they stifle your speech

    ReplyDelete