Tell HN: Google removes Russian news from results

[supergirl]

Searching for "Russia Today" or "Sputnik News" doesn't return their URLs, but does return other related links. Seems to be related to a gov request: https://lumendatabase.org/notices/26927483#.

It's not a court order, so Google voluntarily decided to implement this.

Mildly interesting; I don't think anyone is surprised.

[ComradePhil]

I have said it before[1][2] and I will say it again:

The Chinese model of online information management has been extremely successful and there is no reason for other rulers to not try to copy it.

India has it in place[3], Russia is trying to do it [4]... and the west has been doing it too and it is done by making it seem like people have free choice of posting infromation but having tech companies remove, hide, shadow-ban, or otherwise limit the spread of information dangerous to the rulers.

This is inevitable and there are no other options.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30510857

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30492226

[3] https://advox.globalvoices.org/2020/02/10/what-do-we-know-ab...

[4] https://www.economist.com/business/russia-is-trying-to-build...

[iExploder]

and in another news... russia removes european news, because thats propaganda

you see, propaganda is only good when its OUR propaganda, and freedom of speech is only freedom when what you are speaking aligns with our values...

you can have a discussion about anything as long as both sides fundamentally agree with the mainstream narrative

[Tenoke]

>Mildly interesting; I don't think anyone is surprised.

I am surprised. I didn't expect to be Great Firewall'd without fanfare as an European and I haven't seen Google Search be quite that heavy handed before.

I also get a message that I can't access RT's Twitter from Germany nor can I search what they are saying in Russia directly in any of the usual places.

[CRConrad]

> Great Firewall'd

Great Firewalled. If someone builds a wall around you, you're walled in -- not "wall'd in".

[esperent]

> Great Firewall'd

Hyperbole much?

[mmarq]

These outlets have been sanctioned by, at least, the EU. I think it’s safer to block them everywhere.

Said that, they are part of the propaganda machine of a criminal regime, something akin to Der Stürmer. As far as I’m concerned, they shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

[nxm]

There’ll be a day when you’re labeled a member of another criminal regime. That’s how it ends. Is Google the ultimate judge of good and bad now?

[auxfil]

enjoy living in your brave new world

[lozenge]

"I think it’s safer to block them everywhere."

Does that apply to all EU legal and extralegal decisions to block information?

It would be funny if prominent US figures started using GDPR "right to be forgotten" to remove search results...

[markus_zhang]

If other search engines start to do similar things, it's going to be really dangerous for democracy.

[kderbyma]

I want of freedom of speech ... this is how Google makes us dumb....and bugs up all the good deals...

it's COVID all over again. far news from the trusted sources.

[onedognight]

Google doesn’t control speech. You can go to RT’s site directly. It’s not blocked. However Twitter and FaceBook are blocked in Russia. The actual sites. Hmm.

[gotohater]

I understand the point of freedom of speech, but isn't it going a bit too far with the conspiracy theories?

[unraveller]

uBlocklist extension[1] lets you filter out URL hosts who have information supremacy delusions from your google/ddg news feed.

[1]https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublacklist/pncfbmi...

[someonehere]

Trying to pretend there isn’t one world power at work here is kinda making the conspiracy theorists sound reasonable.

[jrwan]

I search “rt” and the first link Google returns is www.rt.com.

[jrwan]

Just checked the the government request, probably this is just US/Europe thing?

[gt565k]

The case for a decentralized Web 3.0 grows by the minute.

[Jxl180]

How does Web 3.0 attempt to solve for this?

[bjourne]

A censorship resistant search engine in sorely needed.

[rvz]

Unsurprising.

I’m just writing down all the nasty things that these private platforms can do when you cross the line somehow whenever they want.

[onedognight]

There are literally millions of web sites Google won’t index and not indexing this one makes them nasty? Bombing civilians and nuclear plants is nasty. Not making a copy of a web page? Not nasty. Google. has employees in Ukraine and Russia. Now one set is running for their lives and the other is hard to pay.

[guidovranken]

Read the books they want to ban. Thanks for the heads up.