Google News, Censorship or Responsible Journalism?

MSTCrow5429 writes to mention an article published by WorldNetDaily attacking the policies and actions of Google News. The author takes issue with the practice of removing sites that offer very frank discussions about radical Islam and terrorism as "hate speech." Several sites have complained about removal including The Jawa Report, MichNews, and most recently The New Media Journal. In the termination email to The New Media Journal Google cited several stories as objectionable in order to further explain the action.

Good on you google!

The new media journal [newmediajournal.us] is pushing the Mohamed is a paedophile meme:

He did not spare anyone; even 9 year old girls were not immune to his sexual wrath. Worshiping a sex-maniac and a child molester? I think NOT.

and has this charming tidbit that really reveals alot about the author's way of thinking

Is it really tacky of me to smile at the nightly scenes on TV showing Arab, Afghani and Pakistani Muslims bombing mosques and killing their Muslim brothers, sisters and children at a brisk pace because that's all they know how to do?

The Java report rehashes the incorrect (and two year old) rumour that Iran was introducing Nazi style clothing for non-moslems.

Mich News has appalling layout & a rather distasteful red, white, blue color scheme (why is he so obsessed with the french flag?) [google.com]

In short, the blogs were not news sources, they were at best aggregators of chauvinistic news, at worst (like the first link), poorly written anti-moslem blogs, that just happen to tie in current events.

Frankly, I new google news was going to hit this sort of trouble as soon as they started indexing this blog [google.com].

Anyway, good on you google for not linking to hate as 'news' - the reaction of the moslem haters is as predictable as allways, crying about censorship, but frankly, everyone just thinks you're a bunch of whiners.

Re:Good on you google!

Perhaps the editors might actually look at both sides of an issue before they post propaganda from hate groups?

I think the slashdot editors are to some extent forced to post issues to the front page when they get big enough on the internet. I mean, there's been plenty of slashdot readers, like this dimwit [slashdot.org] who are talking about this (his sig is "Liberal Slashdot Bias. [slashdot.org]")

Anyway, I don't hold slashdot to the same standards as other organisations - after all, you can just read the comments - they'll certainly let you know if the story's wrong! (Something none of the linked blogs have the courage to do)

Re:Good on you google!

Please note this uses the European definition of liberal. Which is totally different than the American version- Margaret Thatcher once called Reagan "The greatest liberal of our time".

Re:Good on you google!

If you don't think the majority of slashdot readers are liberal, you are the dimwitted one.

And if you don't see that liberal is an extremely subjective term, then you're the dimwitted one.

For instance, from where I'm sitting in the Netherlands, most posters on slashdot seem conservative, but I imagine that someone reading slashdot from Saudi Arabia would see most posters as Liberal.

I presume that from where your sitting, you would see most posters as Liberal, but I hope you can also see that Liberalism/Conservatism are comparative terms.

Re:Good on you google!

So in your world, all liberals have the goal of total domination, and are simply communists in disguise? What an immature and self centered point of view. Are you just trying to be inflamatory, or do you really believe that?

Re:Simple formula

Majority of Liberals = smart and educated
Majority of Slashdot users = smart and educated

When is this stupid myth going to die. The actual "curve" is U shaped. The majority of high-school dropouts are liberal, the majority of phds are liberal. High school graduates have a slight liberal edge, and masters degrees have a slight republican edge, and 4-year degree holders have a slight republican edge. I don't have to time to dig up the numbers and provide a source, but it's reasonably easy to find, if I remember.

Furthermore, the average slashdot reader is definitely not smart (ha ha). More seriously, he doesn't have a phd. It has nothing to do with education. If you want to find a correlation between slashdot audience and political spectrum, you should try age. I realize you want to believe the reason you are liberal is because you are smart and educated, however the real correlation to be found has to do with youth.

liberal group think.

Educated and/or well-paid people tend to be more liberal than conservative.

I know this is a talking point, but it's absolutely false. In fact, the more educated and well-paid people are, the tendency is that they become more conservative.

Liberals have a long history of espousing that they'll help the poor, but in reality they either don't help at all or worse, give them no way out of being poor. Worse, the really radical liberals think that people in countries that support oppressive dictators aren't worth trying to help. I mean, how weird is that? They call conservatives in this country facists, yet they turn around and support facist dictatorships. Doesn't sound too "educated" to me.

Don't give me any lines about "what about universities, they're really educated, and they're liberal". The liberals there have a base camp from which they can't be extracted because they can't be fired. They grant this same status only to people who buy into the same "group think" they do; rarely do conservatives slip past this gauntlet. Look at that kook in Colorado who's been posing as a Native American and has been proven a plagurist. The guy is a complete wack job they STILL can't get rid of him.

Yeah, real "educated".

Re:liberal group think.

The political compass is full of loaded questions. Everyone comes out a leftist because of how the questions are worded.

Here is a fun one

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

and this one

Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races

It basically dresses up humanist, leftist positions and makes any positions to the right look like dictatorship.

But do you look at both sides of the story

What if a muslim gay basher is beaten up in jail by skinheads? Would you cry for him?

Lots of left-wing people seem unable to fathom the idea that some muslims might just be right wingers who just happen to be muslim rather then protestant and have a slightly darker tan.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend is an old saying and is the way a lot of the world seems to think. Sadly it is also 100% wrong.

It led to a lot america's foreign problems. India was the friend of the soviet union, wich was america's enemy, pakistan was the enemy of india therefore america now finds itself the friend of a military dictatorship and on shaky terms with the world largest democracy.

It led to america being friends with Saddam because he was the enemy of Iran. That all worked out wonderfull didn't it?

Same with the support to Al Queda in their fight against the hated soviets. Another wonderfull case of the enemy of my enemy is my enemy as well.

If you are leftwing you are probably for gay rights. So how do you defend being pro-muslim then a religion that is very anti-gay rights? How come so many leftwingers defend right wing muslims when they would never ever defend a right wing christian?

It is not that all muslims are right wing offcourse. Far from it. In fact a lot of the real refugeee muslims came here precisly because they were left wing. but they tend to keep quiet. Just as in the west it is the right wingers that make the most noise.

But just because they are muslim doesn't mean they are not right wingers and oppose every politcial ideal of left wingers.

Hatred because of someone's religion is very bad, but so is loving someone because of his religion. Judge a person on his political believes. If they are not yours then act like it and don't led the fear of being called a racist stop you from calling them out on their ideas.

Re:But do you look at both sides of the story

The enemy of my enemy is my friend is an old saying and is the way a lot of the world seems to think. Sadly it is also 100% wrong.

Here's another saying, "There is no black or white, only shades of gray."

You build a false dichotomy of "right-wing" and "left-wing" assigning motivations and beliefs with broad, inaccurate strokes. You try to make it sound as if freedom of religion and freedom to make individual life choices are mutually exclusive. It is possible, you know, to support everyone's right to choose any religion they want and at the same time support the right for people to choose to screw people of the same sex if the feel like it. Both are wholly consistent with the view that individuals should make choices about their own life, for themselves.

...some muslims might just be right wingers...

There is no such thing as a "right-winger." I imagine most devout muslims hold beliefs I disagree with. I take issue with several fundamental themes advocated by the religion, while I appreciate and agree with yet others. So what? If someone has beliefs I disagree with, should I fight with them over it? Why should I care what they believe so long as they don't try to force that belief upon me, and if they do is it the fault of the religion? No, it is the fault of the individual.

Hatred because of someone's religion is very bad, but so is loving someone because of his religion.

Who here ever proposed that muslims are all blameless and perfect because they are muslims? I've never seen it.

Judge a person on his political believes[sic].

Judge a person based upon their actions.

You need to stop buying into all these imaginary classifications and start looking at what individuals think and do. I know it is a lot harder to judge people as individuals, but anything else is called, "prejudice."

Re:Good on you google!

I can't find it in my heart to feel sorry for a Nazi skinhead who's beaten up in jail

Depends on why he's in jail...

and I can't find it in my heart to feel sorry for a racist jackass whose blog has been "censored" from Google News.

Sigh... once again... the first amendment does not protect your right to hear what you want, but other people's right to say what you don't want to hear.

Censorship in any form is really touchy. Not hearing each side of an argument is rediculous, especially when labeling one side "racist" by default.

Like this, for instance (warning - inflaming material ahead.) There is evidence [americanthinker.com] in the Holy Quran that (among other sexism) slavery of women is allowed, and sex outside of the marriage with any woman who is deemed a slave is acceptable.

By today's standards this is attrocious - slavery alone, aside from deeming someone sexual property - and even mentioning that this exists in the Quran is considered by many a racist tirade the effort of which is simply to put down a race of people or Islam as a whole.

But the fact is, by censoring me, you're closing your eyes to simple fact, and branding me a racist for believing that Islam could support such acts in an effort to discredit Islam.

Of course, the Quran doesn't say anything about forcing one's self on slave women and the article I've linked to proports that the Quran supports rape in an attempt to show how Christianity is better. It does show some support or understanding of the times that slavery exists... The debate is unsolvable, but by censoring one side, you're closing the argument or debate all together.

And that, my friends, is unacceptable in a free society. The exchange of ideas cannot be the exchange of "acceptable" ideas, or free society is no longer free.

And so I can be modded down, but hearing what you don't want to hear is no reason to censor anyone.

Re:Good on you google!

This all maybe inflammtory and hateful, but it is truthful about the reality of the situation. both sides have there slants represented on the web. It serves no purpose to censor one and not the other. Sadly most news reporting in the media today is biased in one way or the other.

For example, my newspaper kept referring to the may 1 protests as immigrant rights protests, when they really should have said illegal immigrant. rights protests. Little changes like that can make a big difference when read. I don't think many writers realize this though.

Re:Good on you google!

> I'm sorry, but masquerading hate speech as news does not make it news. Calling 'Mein Kampf' a semi-factual
> analysis of the growing inequities in post WW1 Germany does not make it news.

I'm sorry to see yet another product of public education. Mein Kampf sits on the shelves of every public library in the country, right beside Das Kapital, The Communist Manifesto and Chainman Mao's Little Red Book. I'd also bet you can find the text of all three on Google if you try just a little. And yes serious historians DO study Mein Kampf in their studies of Pre War Germany. Hitler's arguments have the annoying reality that they were successful (remember, he WAS popularly elected... once.) so a study of his writings are pretty much required to gain a full understanding of his times.

You can't have an open debate and free inquiry while slapping a 'hate speech' label on all opposing views and banning from the public square. Protecting the right of Free Speech is at it's most important when it is something you don't like. I think Daily Kos is an almost perfect example of 'hate speech' but I would never move to bad it, would oppose Google dropping it from their index and in fact pass by and check up on 'the disloyal opposition' every couple of days. An echo chamber reflecting only your own positions isn't useful for learning new things.

Re:Good on you google!

I'm sorry, but masquerading hate speech as news does not make it news. Calling 'Mein Kampf' a semi-factual analysis of the growing inequities in post WW1 Germany does not make it news.

Mein Kampf isn't current so it isn't 'news'. It is history however, and making it illegal is stupid. It's a link to how one of the worst regimes ever in history came to power, and ignoring it, censoring it, and making it unavailable as they do in many european countries is downright stupid.

Free speech is important, especially when dealing with radical opinions. I'd rather have the racist yelling in my town square so people can argue against him, rather than having private meetings where his garbage goes unchallenged.
The internet is the same way, I'd rather have access to both the far left and far right news websites via google, then just the mainstream media. The beauty of the net is that you get to hear different opinions, and if they are nutty you have the forum to say so.

The difference between calling illegal immigrants "illegal immigrants" and just plain old "immigrants" is negligible,

Bullshit. The whole debate is about illegal immigration, not immigration. Many want to streamline the process of legal immigration. Very few people want to end immigration in the US, but the majority of people want to end illegal immigration. Thus, calling illegal immigrants just immigrants makes a huge difference. Especially to the uninformed shmuck who turns on the evening news once a week and hears 'immigrants come out to protest!'. It frames the debate in a dishonest way.

especially because there were more than just illegals in the protests, and it was more than just the rights of the illegals that were at stake.

Really? Who else had their 'rights' at stake. Please inform us.

Same as Hirshi Ali said ...

Here in the Netherlands there was a big uproar when Hirshi Ali basically said the same thing: Mohammed was a pedophile because he took a 9 year old for a wife. Yet she gets elected Woman of the Year by Times magazine.

What's the difference?

Anyway, I thought Americans were so big on freedom of speech. I'd said get ready for some real rucus, because Hirshi Ali (or Magan actually) is coming your way!

Ah, the old double standard

2) Criticism from within a culture is different to criticism from without - can you imagine if it'd been an arab who made piss christ?

They do a lot worse all the time. I'd like you to list one reaction even remotely similar to the staged protests over the Mohammed photos in the Jyllandsposten. Just one.

What you imply is that if a culture suppresses criticism from itself, it should be immune from all criticism. That is a double standard. Further, you imply that the validity of a critique depends not on what it says but on who says it. That's ad-hominem. It's standard leftist ideology, and it's amazing that any person can espouse it and claim to be educated; the cognitive dissonance required to hold it should break any functioning mind.

Re:Ah, the old double standard

What you imply is that if a culture suppresses criticism from itself, it should be immune from all criticism. That is a double standard. Further, you imply that the validity of a critique depends not on what it says but on who says it. That's ad-hominem. It's standard leftist ideology, and it's amazing that any person can espouse it and claim to be educated; the cognitive dissonance required to hold it should break any functioning mind.

Actually, in my experience, it's only "educated" people that espouse it. As the saying goes, you'd have to hold several advanced degrees to be that stupid.

Most reasonably intelligent people with a high-school education can figure out that something can be true or false, good advice or bad, independent of where it's coming from; it seems to be universities (and particular departments of universities) that convince people that the source of a particular viewpoint is more important than its content, and that some viewpoints are more valid than others.

At any rate, bull on that. While I'm not saying that some people don't have more background or authority on which to speak from than others, to blindly write off "external" criticism amounts to sticking one's head in the sand (especially in cases where most if not all "internal" criticism is suppressed or self-censored). That sort of litmus testing is totally contrary to the pursuit of knowledge, truth, and greater understanding; unfortunately, it's almost endemic in some places.

Yeah, I am dutch and ashamed

We got one dead politican, a death filmmaker/columnist, a columnist from the same newspaper beaten up and one politican fleeing the country.

Dutch policy seems to be to cover everything up and hope it goes away.

We hoped WW2 would pass us by too. That worked well.

now freedom of politically correct speech.

we are rapidly turning into a nation of "freedom of politically correct speech" which is a sad state of affairs.

I discount most arguments used any side to any argument when they toss out the terms "hate speech" or "racist". Its the old "boy who cried wolf" syndrom. After awhile the people using the terms so compromise them that they no longer have any real effectiveness.

I think the issue with google news is that it is bending to pressure from outside groups to modify its content. Just as they caved into the Chinese they cave into groups who claim that any non-compliance is the same as supporting hate-speech or racism. It is no different than the blackmail some groups use against corporate interest. Either pay us or we will sully your name.

Discussion is only permitted if you agree with the PC stance. Any deviation from the PC stance and you will be villified. If you fight back you will have the extreme examples tossed at you as if they were the majority and not the minority they are. Favorite phrases will include "you don't like Nazis do you" while comparing the target you are defending to them. Along the lines of "its for the children" to thereby attempt to dissuade any potential objection.

If Google News is going to be unbiased then they need to list all views, even those the staff at Google does not agree with. Anything else reduces the value of their service.

blog != news

At first I was shocked to read the /. blurb, but then I realised that all of these were mere blogs and thus had no place in a news aggregation site to begin with.

Can't wait till /. starts filtering entires tagged "blog".

No, you're wrong.

One person's hate speech is another persons free speech.

No. It's all "speech". Whether it is "Free" or not depends upon the government you are under.

In the USofA, the "Free Speech" is about saying the government is wrong and not being arrested for saying that.

There is still "libel" and other other categories where "speech" is not "Free".

If Google is going to eliminate blogs as new sources when receiving complaints about their content they need to remove all of them.

You seem to have problems with this "category" concept.

A "blog" may contain actual news items. In which case, it is news.

Or a "blog" may contain nothing more than someone's bigotted rantings. In which case it is not news.

So claiming that all "blogs" should be removed from a news site simply because one sub-category was is ignorant.

Its always easy to find extreme examples to justify a position. Its just that too often those extreme examples overshadow all else in the discussion.

The "discussion" is about the "blogs" and how they do not contain any news. Just some bigot's rantings.

Google is a company, not a government.

You can still find those site via Google's web index. They just aren't listed as news sites on Google's news index. And, again, that is because they don't have any news, just some bigot's rantings.

And if you don't agree that those are the rantings of bigots, then go back and read the article that says Islam is a "cult" and a "false" religion. Then look at the stats for followers of each religion.

Re:blog != news

Er, no. Power Line, Wonkette, Polipundit, Infoshop, and antiwar.com are indexed on Google news. The "blog" argument does not fly, and has never even been an excuse offered by Google over this controversy. Geez, even Democratic Underground is listed on Google News.

The "opinion" vs. "news" argument is incorrect, too. It is easily the popular opinion around here that any site that happens to be critical and frank about the Islamic religion is a "hate" site (but of course, that does not apply to the Christian religion in this case, does it?). We can all hide our heads in the sand here as the good Google fanboys we are here and say Google is being "responsible", but since when did I commission Google to tell me what I should hear and what I shouldn't hear? There is plenty of opinion indexed on Google News -- it is downright dishonest to claim otherwise. So why will Google index Islamofascist propaganda sites al-Manar (owned by Hezbollah) and Khilafah.com, but decide that I don't need to see some other site that happens to point out terrorist bombings in Indonesia and the West Bank all the time? What do you define as "unbiased" or "news" here?

Let's not even begin to talk about cases where Google has been discovered to editorialize news headlines, such as removing the word "alleged" from a headline describing Guantanamo Bay as a "torture camp".

Lord help my karma for pointing out the unpopular opinion.

Drudge Report?

I don't think I've ever seen the Drudge Report in Google News, and he actually does get scoops now and then. True he's a bit out there, but he's way down the nutso scale compared to some of the other sites that Google News gives presence to.

Answer: Responsible Journalism

Having taken time to read the "The New Media Journal" objectionable stories linked in the summary, I have to say the answer is clear, Google are being responsible. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and of course some will complain that Google have't drawn it in exactly the right place, but IMHO it's perfectly reasonable to take the position that those stories are out-and-out anti-Islamic hate material, with not a shred of responsible journalism.

I fail to see how these blogs are news...

They are opinion pieces at it's best, and certainly contains heavy bashing, trolling and hate speach. I am against censorship as next liberal guy, but these guys don't deserve any kind of additional promotion, in my humble opinion.

Uh, how is this news?

Leave it to World Net Daily to assign a political agenda to the actions of Google. Reality really does seem to have a liberal bias.

The content of the articles aside, one has to wonder why an site that is unabashedly slanted towards political commentary can really be considered news in the first place. There is a big difference between political analysis of world events (i.e. what one party is doing, what is going on with legislation, etc.) and political commentary (diatribes about various organized groups, short fictions about the way the world works, etc.). WND comes down in the later camp, it always has, and the fact they were ever included in a 'News' aggregator is troublesome.

I mean, isn't there a line somewhere, where information stops being news and starts being propaganda? I always thought it had something to do with whether or not a story is a recitation of facts or someone's personal opinion. There seems to be some confusion between objectivity and fairness these days, where a plurality of viewpoints (slanted in one direction or the other) is considered a substitute for faithfulness to events in themselves.

M

The Law of Hyperbole Language Change

I'd like to take a moment to coin a new "law" that I have observed in recent years. Maybe I'm just seeing something "new" where there is nothing. Maybe I'm just wrong. But let me propose that hyperbole has a profound effect on language. As actual occurences of some objectionable activity becomes less and less prevailent in society, the tempation to use hyperbole to imply that some lesser action is equivilent to that objectional activity becomes more common. The above "story" has two examples of it. First, there's Google who have used hyperbole to justify their self interested actions of rejecting some stories. They've claimed something is "hate speech" to make a point that it is not the content they want on their web site. In response, the sites being chucked have used hyperbole to suggest that Google is "censoring" them. Nevermind the fact that no actual hate speech has occured. Nevermind the fact that Google has not stopped these sites from delivering their content directly to interested parties. How does this affect language? If more people are refering to behaviour as "hate speech" when in fact a better description would be a "bitch session", doesn't that change the definition of the word? What if censorship were completely eliminated (as it is in most western societies, with the obvious exceptions to matters of national security) and the word were used to refer to other behaviour, like telling someone to shut the hell up because you're sick of hearing them blabber. "Can you two go argue in the lunch room, you're giving me a headache." "Hey man, you can't censor us!" What's annoying is that these are really important words. You can't talk about keeping the world safe from censorship with a straight face when every idiot is claiming they are being censored.

Re:lets try this from another angle

I'm curious to see how these same people would react if Google started indexing sites lambasting Christianity and calling Christ a false prophet and pedophile and whatnot. I'm willing to bet that they'd launch a "Boycott Google" campaign if those sites weren't immediately removed.

What uninformed rubbish. Google does index a lot of sites that denegrate Christianity and "these people" are yet to launch a single "Boycott Google" campaign. Christians are by and large extraordinarily tolerant of disparaging comments.

In fact, lets use one that didn't just get reported on Google but on Slashdot as an example. Richard Dawkin's response to The Edge's annual question, in which he responded "An especially warped and disgusting application of the flawed concept of retribution is Christian crucifixion as 'atonement' for 'sin'.". Any sign of that "Boycott Google" or "Boycott Slashdot" campaign? No. Christians let it drift by with a shrug of "Dawkins is off on a rant again".

Now try labelling anything about Islamic belief as "warped and disgusting", and see how many milliseconds elapse before you are accused of a hate crime.

Get a dictionary

This isn't censorship. This is a media outlet choosing not to publish opinion pieces which it thinks would be irresponsible, and possibly contrary to its editorial viewpoint. Should the Times (either of them) publish every editorial sent their way? If not, then why should Google?

I'm not paying for a filter

There would seem to be an implicit contract between myself and Goggle that they do their best to find the information I am looking for and not that they are trying to manipulate me. I use Goggle and other search engines to find information not to be protected from it. When Google starts seeing itself in the business of deciding what sites I should or should not see based on their evaluation of the sites content, they become useless to me.

Re:I'm not paying for a filter

Of course you are, to the extent that you're paying them at all by using Google and viewing ads. The entire point behind Google is that it uses "intelligent searching algorithms" to filter out the nonsense and only show actual relevant results.

When Google starts seeing itself in the business of deciding what sites I should or should not see based on their evaluation of the sites content, they become useless to me.

I find that statement really amusing, because that's exactly what Google sells themself as doing. They evaluate the site based on their PageRank algorithm, and decide what you should or should not see based on that. The entire point behind Google is that it filters content. A search is a filter, and then the order is determined based on other filters. Google is a filter - that's why you use it, to filter out things that aren't relevant to what you're looking for.

What Google is doing here is declaring that some blogs aren't worth appearing on Google News, and is removing them as a source from Google News (although not the Google Search index). You'll still be able to find them using Google, just not Google News, since Google News is supposed to be a filter returning only valid news sites. (Why it still returns results from Slashdot in that case is anyone's guess. :))

Google IS a filter

What do you think Google does? Both the search engine and the news service do nothing but FILTER results to be relevant to you. Notice how you say "find the information I am looking for" which means they must NOT find information you are NOT looking for.

Seeing as they are running a news service, one would expect the users of the service to be searching for NEWS. A few blogs that are slightly more read than the average bitchfest apparently do not count as news sites for google anymore.

I understand some people might agree with the drivel posted on those sites, but that doesn't make those sites news. The Google News service is nothing but a FILTER that only shows you sites on the internet that are news.

And This Is News, How?

Here are samples, from all three of the cited articles, of what Google didn't want appearing in news search results:

"Honestly, I cannot open a paper or turn on the television without seeing mobs of Muslim savages celebrating in front of burning embassies..."

"Is it really tacky of me to smile at the nightly scenes on TV showing Arab, Afghani and Pakistani Muslims bombing mosques and killing their Muslim brothers, sisters and children at a brisk pace because that's all they know how to do?"

"Islam is moving across the world like a dark, evil cloud."

"Worshiping a sex-maniac and a child molester? [...] Muslims are true victims of Islam. However, they fail to realize that Islam is a cult, and the prophet was a demon ..."

The funnier thing is watching WorldNetDaily stick up for The Jawa Report. Apparently nobody there has seen Star Wars or watched South Park. "Jawas?""You know, sand people."

These aren't news stories critical of Islam. They're "editorials" with as much credibility as content from Stormfront.org.

Re:And This Is News, How?

1) How many times is this old bit about Prophet Muhammed marrying a 9 year old girl going to be passed around? He wasn't married to her, he was *betrothed*. The early marriage tradition is based on a unverified hadith by an author with little credibility. Other traditions says she was 14 to 19. Who knows when consumation was, but its worth pointing out that he wasn't doing anything strange by marrying a young girl, thats just the way was in Middle East at that time. Betrothal and consumation were typically seperated by several years until the girl reached puberty at least.

For a good read on this and other Islamic issues please read "No God But God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam" [amazon.com] by Reza Aslan

2) Expressing opinions and criticizing Islam is one thing, hysterical bigoted ranting is another - it has no place in Google news.

And yet, Google considers THIS news...

Khilafah.com [google.com] Seems like a double standard to me. If a blog or opinion site is unsuitable, why are Islamist sites allowed to spue and call it "news"?

Grow up!

Every editurd cuts material. Especially /.s moderators :) Why they cut is their choice. There really isn't room for everything, or at least not on prime eyeball real-estate.

I wish people would quit misusing termsfor inflammatory purposes: piracy for unauthorized copying is one example. Censorship for editorial selection is another. _True_ censorship is not failing to publish whole works, but publishing them with the naughty bits cut out. Usually fairly small cuts to preserve a greater part of the authors work, but to twist it's meaning. It _is_ reprehensible, because it's simply theft of ideas.

Pretty Poor "News" site

From the first link to The New Media Journal, "Come to think of it, before 9/11, we never heard of words like Al Qaeda, Taliban, Jihad, Homeland Security..." With the exception of Homeland Security (which didn't actually exist at the time, except as a fictional deptartment in various fiction stories about dystopian, totalitarian futures) all these other things were in the news or elsewhere long before 9/11. Perhaps most glaring is Al Qaeda. It would have been hard to miss when they bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, or when they bombed the USS Cole in 2000, unless, of course, you paid no attention to the news. I even remember thinking after the bombing on the Cole how Al Qaeda kept coming up in the news. So, yeah, I wouldn't exactly trust this guy to report the news. Taking this site out of Google news was almost certainly the right decision.

Double Standard maybe, but not Censorship...

This is not cencorship. Google, as a private corporation, has the right to edit the information it presents. It has no obligation, whatsoever, to be balanced or fair. It can link to whatever it wants. Part of freedom of speech is exercising editorial control. Freedom of speech isn't just being able to say whatever you want, but to also not say what you don't want to say.

On the other hand, if it is true (I am not saying that it is true... I am not that familiar with Google News) that left wing bigotry and racism are tolerated while right wing bigotry and racism isn't, that would clearly be a double standard. While Google has the legal right to present any information they want, in any way they want, they do have an ethical obligation not to slant the news presented to be of any one viewpoint.

At the least, Google should publish an objective set of criteria that is used to evaluate if a news source is "acceptable" or "not", and keep the whole process transparent.

Two problems

I've got two problems with Google's censorship here. The first is that people don't just use Google for "news", but for research of various kinds. That means that they need to find whatever is out there. If you want to understand political attitudes, for example, you certainly need to know the positions and arguments of those with whom you may disagree violently. As a left-wing secular Jew I have not the slightest sympathy for Nazism, but I have read Mein Kampf and think that it should be widely available, precisely so that people can understand the evil of Nazism and how the Nazis rose to power. Similarly, anyone trying to understand such topics as the relationship between the West and the Muslim world or American views on foreign policy needs to look at web sites offering the full range of views, even if some of them are considered by most people to be vile.

The second problem is that Google evidently has an overly broad notion of hate speech, as do many /-ers. True hate speech falsely vilifies a group of people and urges violence or discrimination against them. Criticism of a movement or ideology is not hate speech. Islam is an ideology with both religious and political elements, and it is also a movement (or if you like collection of movements), and it is legitimately subject to criticism just like any other religion or political movement. If it is legitimate to condemn Communism, Neo-Conservatism, Nazism, or right-wing Christian fundamentalism, why is not legitimate to condemn Islam?

One can argue about the accuracy of some of the material in the allegedly objectionable posts - I, for example, wonder about the accuracy of the claims that Mohammed slept with nine=year old girls and had 20 wives - but much of what they say is quite true. In its mainstream forms, Islam is an expansionist movement, it is intolerant of other religions and atheism, it is exclusive, it does advocate theocracy, it does consider the use of force to conquer territory for Islam justifiable, it is oppressive of women, etc. It is by no means the only religion with such properties (Christianity in the forms dominant in the 15th century, for example, had very similar faults), but it is not false and defamatory to raise these issues. We need to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Islam and other ideologies and movements, and deliberate or reckless demonization of particular ethnic groups or followers of an ideology and advocacy of violence against them.

Re:This is Slashdot

You will be guilty of the crime of posting while conservative. Enjoy your downmods. Have a nice day.

Conservatism [wikipedia.org] and Islamophobia [wikipedia.org] have nothing in common.

The new media journal is not a conservative rag, it is an Islam-fear-spreading propaganda machine.

Sorry!

Re:This is Slashdot

Let us all remember that Freedom of Speech is a two way street. Just because you don't agree with someone, doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to say it publicly.

Not a Freedom of Speech issue.

1) They're still saying it.
2) Google search engine is still linking to them.
3) They've been kicked from a news site because they're not news sites, but hate sites.

And that was mod'ed "Interesting"?

That is a perfect example of the kind of "thought" that also went into those "articles" that the story is about.

The "facts" are wrong and just strung together to "support" a heavily biased opinion.

One of the reasons why the USA is hated not only by others of the World especially in the Islamic countries but also the Liberal/Left Wing faction is because the ordinary, common person has a lot of leeway to make decisions about their life without elitist interference.

Really? Then which political party in the US supports a woman's right to her own body?

In Europe, there are still some old social rules that you cannot patronize certain restaurants if a member of the lower class even if you can afford to go there.

And where, specifically, would that be?

On the surface, they say they care so much for the common person but yet, look at people like John F. Kerry and similar people. They send their kids to elite private schools. Live in gated communities. Control neighborhood HOA's where pickup trucks are not allowed or must be parked inside a garage.

And Bush went to a community college? No?

Yet someone mod'ed your post "Insightful".

Many corporate executives are liberals and the same type of disdain is shown towards rank and file workers. A person I know had a manager that was a proud Liberal Democrat and he was a jerk when it came to taking vacation.

You might want to look up the word "stereotype".

Someone I know met someone (political/race/gender/age/religion) who was (mean/stupid/arrogant/dirty/immoral).

Yes, the proud tradition of bigotry remains strong. And even gets mod'ed up at times as "Interesting".

Re:Political Correctness & Elitism

In Europe, there are still some old social rules that you cannot patronize certain restaurants if a member of the lower class even if you can afford to go there.

Doesn't the U.S. also have private clubs which can more or less deny you access for whatever reason they like?

In the Middle East, the imans or Islamic Religious rulers dictate how you live your life even to the type of clothes you wear such as jeans not being acceptable.

The U.S. has no shortage of conservative church leaders who would be glad to tell you what type of clothes to wear, what activities you may engage in, who to associate with, and who to vote for. We even have some factions which would like to enforce their religious rules on all citizens.

In this country, it is the liberals that have disdain towards common people.

There is no shortage of conservatives who do all of the things you mention. Does that mean that conservatives have disdain toward the common people too? Elitism crosses political, religious, and economic lines. Egos are a part of human nature, and few/none are immune. Elites in the U.S. push policies from all sides. They do not show disdain towards the common people because they are "liberal" or "conservative", but because they view themselves as above the common people. Some of them simply have no understanding of what life as a common person is like. What you may perceive as "disdain" may simply be them looking out for their own interests.

Personally, I think one of the many unfortunate things about the current U.S. political scene is the demonization and redefinition of the word "liberal". In the U.S., we should all be liberals of one type or another. The set of beliefs we supposedly agree on (like the Constitution) are liberal. Conservatives should be opposed to radicals. All of us liberals should be opposed to authoritarians. If I were cynical, I might believe that the demonization of liberalism was done intentionally to widen the door for authoritarianism, which seems to cross political and economic boundaries as well.

If either the "liberals" or the "conservatives" not elitist, why are they discussing getting rid of the "death tax" (which only hits the elite) and not the self-employment tax?

Re:Political Correctness & Elitism

In Europe, there are still some old social rules that you cannot patronize certain restaurants if a member of the lower class even if you can afford to go there.

You have obviously never visited Europe let alone lived there. The reasons why Europeans and most people in the world hate America (i.e. the US administation and its military/industrial complex) is because of its attempt to unilaterally control the entire world. This has involved over the past century the US killing millions of innocent civilians putting, it on a par with Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia.

Europeans don't hate americans, in fact they even quite like individual americans. However europeans have a contempt and pity for a lot of americans as the widespread hypocrisy and double standards applied by the US administration is reflected in the views of a lot of americans. These americans are stupid enough to blame their own problems on "liberalism" rather than on US capitalism and imperialism.

Out in the rest of the world (the real world) a lot of people are out fighting the real evil "liberalism" that is the neoliberalism which is the ideology behind the global economic policies promoted by US capitalism.

So to sum up we don't really hate you we just pity you.