California News:
Three little words: Don’t Be Evil.
But just as “I Love You” can curdle into undying antipathy, Google’s very former motto has become the perfect oppositional descriptor for pretty much everything it now does.
From black Nazis to spying on its users to an internal culture that can only be described as the intersection of hate and human resources to its extremely willing participation in the federal government’s on-going shredding of the First Amendment, Google is what evil is to, well, evil.
No simile, no analogy, no comparison of any kind needed. And definitely not a “results are changing quickly” situation at all.
Just to make absolutely sure everyone knows that Google is to freedom of expression what Dracula is to blood banks, the company just announced (publicly – really) that there is a bill winding its way through the California legislature that they do not like and will therefore limit access to links to California-produced news for, well, a while.
The bill – which does have certain faults, unquestionably – would essentially make Google and other social media companies pay a “link tax” or a “journalism usage fee” to media outlet owners each time local news articles are used by the companies that also sell advertising along with it.
The proposed law – Assembly Bill 886 by Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) – is about making social media companies actually pay for what they fill their news feeds with – you know, news generated and paid for by someone else.
Sounds like a good idea, but the law would add certain complexities and create other issues that could squeeze out smaller, more local news outlets meaning that even media types in the state are split on the bill.
But Google does not want to take any chances it could actually start having to pay for what makes it so much money from and has decided to bring a howitzer to a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.
“Google announced Friday that they would be removing links to California news websites to measure the impact of the potential legislation within a small number of Californian users for a short period of time.”
In other words, we’ll show you NOW what we’ll make sure will happen if this bill passes.
The company went on to say that they are really a good thing for the news outlets they have built their company on the backs of, claiming that “(B)y helping people find news stories, we help publishers of all sizes grow their audiences at no cost to them.”
Maybe – but using other people’s stuff for free has definitely helped Google “grow their audience at no cost to themselves” as well – times a trillion.
Google frames their intentional “What are you going to do? Use Bing?” silverback gorilla show of dominance thusly:
“To prepare for possible CJPA implications, we are beginning a short-term test for a small percentage of California users. The testing process involves removing links to California news websites, potentially covered by CJPA, to measure the impact of the legislation on our product experience.”
Right now, the United States Supreme Court is mulling over Murthy V. Missouri, the most important free speech-related in decades. The case is about the federal government demanding in that classic goon “Got a nice website there – would hate to see anyone hit delete” kind of way that social media sites edit/cut/throttle/delete/crush/scrub/make go away anything the government does not like.
The Twitter Files revealed this to be unquestionably true and it seems Google has – almost by accident – just confirmed the allegation.
While this California bill involves corporate issues, Google is showing the world exactly how it can enforce – if it wants to or if it feels pressured by a regulator to do so – the “we can turn you off whenever we want to” power they have.
For Google not to realize they were proving one of the most salient points of the Murthy case while the Supremes are in mid-discussion of that very case proves – again – that the corporate hierarchy is simply not that bright.
To quote Dean Wormer, fat, evil, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
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Author: Thomas Buckley
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