Google monitors and censors Gmail and Googlegroup emails for political content it dislikes
Reason 2,458,210,539 to stop using Google: We now have solid evidence that Google monitors and censors emails sent out using either Gmail or to Googlegroup listservs, because it censored emails discussing Robert F. Kennedy’s independent candidacy for the presidency.
The story at the link describes how the author, Lori Wentz of the Brownstone Institute, on June 27, 2024 emailed to a Googlegroups listserv a link to an X livestream where Kennedy would give his own answers to the questions in the live debate between Trump and Biden on June 28, 2024. In doing so the author also included some of her own thoughts, which resulted in an exchange on the political listserv about the subject. She subsequently got the following notice from Googlegroups:
“We’re letting you know that we’ve permanently removed [your] content…An external report flagged the content for illegal or policy violations. As a result, our legal content and policy standards team removed the content for the following reason: unwanted content.”
Wentz had no way of finding out what that “unwanted content” was, as Googlegroups did not provide this essential information, instead informing her that she would simply have “to pursue your claims in court.”
Click for original image.
Further research found that Google was routinely labeling gmail emails that mentioned Kennedy’s live stream during the debate as “dangerous” and warning anyone receiving them not to click on the link to the livestream. The screen capture to the right is an example. The original complete email is to the left, with the red warning banner attached to it by Google on the right. Apparently, listening to Kennedy’s responses on X triggered Google censors. Having freedom of speech in America is verboten, and must be banned!
What this story tells us is that if you have a gmail account, or send any emails to a Googlegroups listserv, your email is being read and monitored by Google, which has decided it has the right to read your private emails and then block and censor what you write.
Are you outraged? If you still use Google as your default search engine your outrage is worthless and you are lying to yourself. It takes ten seconds to make another search engine your default, and if you still don’t do it it is clear you have no problem with this unwarranted and immoral invasion by Google of your privacy and free speech rights.
As for using gmail, I understand it is more work to find another web-based email provider and to inform your contacts of the change, but it is also not that hard. For the sake of your privacy and first amendment rights, that extra work is really quite trivial, especially when compared with the number of people who were gladly willing to sacrifice their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for those rights and that freedom.
Have fun putting on those chains when these thugs come next to arrest you for something you wrote.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Reason 2,458,210,539 to stop using Google: We now have solid evidence that Google monitors and censors emails sent out using either Gmail or to Googlegroup listservs, because it censored emails discussing Robert F. Kennedy’s independent candidacy for the presidency.
The story at the link describes how the author, Lori Wentz of the Brownstone Institute, on June 27, 2024 emailed to a Googlegroups listserv a link to an X livestream where Kennedy would give his own answers to the questions in the live debate between Trump and Biden on June 28, 2024. In doing so the author also included some of her own thoughts, which resulted in an exchange on the political listserv about the subject. She subsequently got the following notice from Googlegroups:
“We’re letting you know that we’ve permanently removed [your] content…An external report flagged the content for illegal or policy violations. As a result, our legal content and policy standards team removed the content for the following reason: unwanted content.”
Wentz had no way of finding out what that “unwanted content” was, as Googlegroups did not provide this essential information, instead informing her that she would simply have “to pursue your claims in court.”
Click for original image.
Further research found that Google was routinely labeling gmail emails that mentioned Kennedy’s live stream during the debate as “dangerous” and warning anyone receiving them not to click on the link to the livestream. The screen capture to the right is an example. The original complete email is to the left, with the red warning banner attached to it by Google on the right. Apparently, listening to Kennedy’s responses on X triggered Google censors. Having freedom of speech in America is verboten, and must be banned!
What this story tells us is that if you have a gmail account, or send any emails to a Googlegroups listserv, your email is being read and monitored by Google, which has decided it has the right to read your private emails and then block and censor what you write.
Are you outraged? If you still use Google as your default search engine your outrage is worthless and you are lying to yourself. It takes ten seconds to make another search engine your default, and if you still don’t do it it is clear you have no problem with this unwarranted and immoral invasion by Google of your privacy and free speech rights.
As for using gmail, I understand it is more work to find another web-based email provider and to inform your contacts of the change, but it is also not that hard. For the sake of your privacy and first amendment rights, that extra work is really quite trivial, especially when compared with the number of people who were gladly willing to sacrifice their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for those rights and that freedom.
Have fun putting on those chains when these thugs come next to arrest you for something you wrote.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Typo Alert:
“Havig” freedom of speech..
wayne: Thank you. Fixed.
Google is trying to become the Alpha and Omega of computer traffic. It is answering more questions by AI without linking to websites for that information.
“the more questions Google answers without a click, the less traffic those “answering” news sites will get. Less traffic means fewer ad impressions, which means lower revenue.”
“Google is working hard to reduce the number of times searchers need to leave google.com to get answers to their questions. For all the times that Google has said it’s not in the content business, it’s not hard to imagine a future where its mission to “organize the world’s information” goes way beyond spidering and linking and into algorithmically processing for answers instead of PageRank.”
https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/02/google-now-wants-to-answer-your-questions-without-links-and-with-ai-where-does-that-leave-publishers/
(Old link but I couldn’t find the new information on the latest steps they’re taking that was in the news lately)
A list of 23 alternatives to google, most I never heard of, and they missed others like “qwant” for example.
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/alternative-search-engines/271409/
Remember the motto “don’t be evil?”
The propaganda has gotten to the point where they believe they’re the only truth available, and if they’re AI does not know it it will come up with a make-believe story that sounds convincing and call that the truth.
It’s funny to hear Kim commando ask AI if that’s her real name… it made up a story, giving her a new real name complete with background that was generated from thin air. Never trust AI answers, how many people have died following roads on Google maps that didn’t go were they said they did?
Ironically the “Hush Rush” bill might have kept MSNBC and NPR more balanced.
Talk Radio could use some pro Labor folks not too far off the deep end and vice versa.
Problem is the Internet acts like the recent assassination attempt didn’t happen.
Jeff, if you want a pro labor radio program, go start one.
Find some talent and make the pitch for the format.
But remember you cannot make people listen. And if they do not listen, it will go the way of Air America.
It must be able to compete in the Market Place of ideas, as Rush would say.