POL Google Shuts Down Anti-Obama Sites

Wardogs

Wardogs

Deceased
Simply amazing...
Google will not shut down terrorist websites, but bows to Obama supporters...
wardogs

Google Shuts Down Anti-Obama Sites on its Blogger Platform
By Warner Todd Huston | June 29, 2008 - 15:22 ET
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner...ts-down-anti-obama-sites-its-blogger-platform

**UPDATE** BELOW FOLD

It looks like Google has officially joined the Barack Obama campaign and decided that its contribution would be to shut down any blog on the Google owned Blogspot.com blogging system that has an anti-Obama message. Yes, it sure seems that Google has begun to go through its many thousands of blogs to lock out the owners of anti-Obama blogs so that the noObama message is effectively squelched. Thus far, Google has terminated the access by blog owners to 7 such sites and the list may be growing. Boy, it must be nice for Barack Obama to have an ally powerful enough to silence his opponents like that!

It isn't just conservative sites that Google's Blogger platform is eliminating. For instance, www.comealongway.blogspot.com has been frozen and this one is a Hillary supporting site. The operator of Come a Long Way has a mirror site off the Blogspot platform and has today posted this notice:
Story Continues Below Ad ↓

I used to have a happy internet home on Blogger: www.comealongway.blogspot.com. Then on Wednesday night, June 25, I received the following e-mail:

Dear Blogger user,

This is a message from the Blogger team.

Your blog, at http://comealongway.blogspot.com/, has been identified as a potential spam blog. You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

It turns out that there is an interesting pattern where it concerns the blogs that Google's Blogspot team have summarily locked down on their service. They all belong to the Just Say No Deal coalition, a group of blogs that are standing against the Obama campaign. It seems the largest portion of these blogs are Hillary supporting blogs, too.

All I can say is, WOW! If Google is willing to abuse its power like this even against fellow leftists, what does it plan against conservatives, the folks Google hates even more!?

Here is a list of the Blogspot blogs that have been frozen by Google thus far:

* Blue Lyon @ http://bluelyon.blogspot.com
* Come A Long Way @ http://comealongway.blogspot.com
* Hillary or Bust @ http://hillaryorbust.blogspot.com
* McCain Democrats @ http://mccaindemocrats.blogspot.com
* NObama Blog @ http://nobamablog.blogspot.com
* politicallizard.blogspot.com @ http://thelizardannex.blogspot.com
* Reflections in Tyme @ http://reflections-in-tyme.blogspot.com

**UPDATE**

I have been hesitant to post this update because I cannot find a link to prove the claim, but it is starting to look like this Blogspot shut down of anti-Obama sites occurred because of a concerted effort by Obama supporters.

What they did was go to the Blogspot addresses found on the site of the NoObama coalition called Just Say No Deal and constantly hit the "mark as spam" link so that Google's Blogger would be flooded with spam warnings. This caused Google/Blogger to freeze the sites marked.

Apparently, this campaign merely took advantage of Google/Blogger's flawed system of finding spam blogs. So, it looks like what we have here is an Obama dirty trick to shut down political opposition. Looks like Obmatons aren't much for that whole democracy thing, eh?

Once I find a link to an Obama site talking about this attack, I will post it.
 
fairbanksb

fairbanksb

Freedom Isn't Free
I have a self imposed boycott of Google. They did something like this a few months ago and I have tried to stay away from them. I use ask.com or yahoo search engines if I want to find something.
 
Worrier King

Worrier King

Deceased
Despite my loathing for both candidates and our corrupt election/political/economic system, shutting down these sites is totally wrong.
 
Surprise

Surprise

Inactive
Well the Obama supporters little ploy will keep them busy.
I just Googled Say No to Obama and it pulled up a truck load of sites.
 
Dennis Olson

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
This kind of thing is a perfect example of why we keep the servers hosted by Jon, rather than find someplace for a hundred bux less. If Jon gets emails complaining about TB content, we'll tell the person to basically f'off. He knows me, he knows the site, and he knows the haters. And we don't have to worry about the kind of crap in the OP of this thread. That, to me, is priceless peace-of-mind.
 
Surprise

Surprise

Inactive
Google Images brings up allot of hits too for Say No to Obama.

There's just too much out there for the Obamakins to flag them all as spam.
 
BassMan

BassMan

Veteran Member
I think this is the last straw for Google, for me.

"In the beginning", they were good, growing out of "Infoseek", arguably one of the best and oldest search-engines. They've become too, ahem, "controlled", though. If I want "controlled", I'll cancel my internet access, and just read the Washington Post.

I'm going to give dogpile a "whirl" as my home-page.
 
Moggy

Moggy

Veteran Member
It's getting to echo MSN, eh? I'm a long-term Yahoo user, never did like google...just a feeling.

Moggy
 
The Freeholder

The Freeholder

Inactive
My blog got tagged as a spam blog too. If you do a lot of linking, their automated system will tag you. I sent them a message, they reviewed it and I was back in around 48 hours.

This stems from historical abuse of Blogger before Google bought it. There were some blogs out there that only existed to funnel users to link farms ad such.

I'd want more proof of actual misdoing before I passed a death sentence.
 
CelticRose

CelticRose

Membership Revoked
So ........ By their actions, it would seem that Google doesn't support the US Constitution ..... Unless of course their concept of 'freedom of speech' includes the right for them to ban / purge / block or otherwise control and censor those sites where thoughts and opinions differ from what they want others to view ..........

This ones' for you, Google :fgr:
 
RCSAR

RCSAR

Veteran Member
If you use www.dogpile.com then be sure and set what you like in the Preferences area.

I do not use the dogpile toolbar just because I use no addon toolbars of any kind. But they do have a toolbar to add if you like that kinf of thing. At one time they used 9 different search engines. Looks like that cut that number down.
 
Penguin Zen

Penguin Zen

Veteran Member
CelticRose said:
So ........ By their actions, it would seem that Google doesn't support the US Constitution ..... Unless of course their concept of 'freedom of speech' includes the right for them to ban / purge / block or otherwise control and censor those sites where thoughts and opinions differ from what they want others to view ..........

This ones' for you, Google :fgr:
Click to expand...

Amen Sister
 
R

Richard

TB Fanatic
what about Bush is chimp, I thought it hilarious but Obama is chimp would be racist though true


why is it that you have such shite as presidents

Reagan (Bush)
Daddy Bush
Bill
Bill
Shrub
Shrub
?

and US elections are not rigged?
 
Topusaret

Topusaret

Deceased
Richard said:
what about Bush is chimp, I thought it hilarious but Obama is chimp would be racist though true


why is it that you have such shite as presidents

Reagan (Bush)
Daddy Bush
Bill
Bill
Shrub
Shrub
?

and US elections are not rigged?
Click to expand...

Now where's that Bible quote about the mote in the eye thing when ya need it. Meanwhile, we love you guys like the bad-toothed cousins living out in the bayou, but don't be throwing stones from your glass house.

Smooches.
 
Monty

Monty

Veteran Member
Sounds like Google will probably have these site back up in no time.

Just checked and the first four are back (didn't look any further) and found this on the 4th

Hi there,

On behalf of the Blogger Team, I want to apologize for the recent trouble
you've had with your locked blog. Automated spam detection is not yet a
perfect science, and although we are constantly working to improve our
tools, it appears that our filters have caused some Blogger accounts to
mistakenly be blocked from creating new posts.

While we are still investigating, we believe this may have been caused by
mass spam e-mails mentioning the "Just Say No Deal" network of blogs,
which in turn caused our system to classify the blog addresses mentioned
in the e-mails as spam. Regardless, we have restored posting rights to
your blog, and it is very important to us that Blogger remain a tool for
political debate and free expression.

So once again, we apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for your
patience as we looked into the problem.

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team
Click to expand...

Looks like most the people are moving their blogs, mostly to Wordpress (compared the two recently and didn't think Wordpress stacked up). Hopefully they will take steps to keep this from happening in the future. I think Google is super and will continue to use them for my mail, blog, and several other tools, hopefully they won't do anything to make me regret that decision.

Monty
 
S

sherbar92

Generally warm and fuzzy
A few weeks ago, there was a news blurb about Obama setting up an Internet "war room" to fight false rumors about him.

How much do y'all want to wager that this is one of the first waves of that initiative?? The Obama supporters reporting these blogs to Google as spam are probably part of his war room initiative.

Welcome to 1984, friends.

Here's the link to that thread for FYI...hope this works

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=290890&highlight=Obama+internet+room+rumours
 
Last edited:
Wardogs

Wardogs

Deceased
Monty,
Thanks for the update. In the OP it was mentioned that the cause may be just what you described.
However you would think that they would have checked that BEFORE shutting down blogsites.
We work with mypetjawa.mu.nu in the quest to shut down terrorist sites that show beheadings, our troops being killed, recruitment for al Qaeda etc.
It will take months sometimes to get a response.
Google has consistently fought efforts to remove them, citing 1st Ammendment issues.
I would have hoped the same care would have been taken for sites that disagree with their political views.
That being said, kudos to them for reinstating the sites being targeted by the Obamatons.
Perhaps we could learn a thing or two from their efforts...
wardogs
 
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