Google Censored Blog over AFRICOM Rants?

Posted by: CareTaker on June 24, 2008 Under: Africa, Community Report, Editor's Pick

Crossed Crocodiles (crossedcrocodiles.blogspot.com) is a personal blog of Xcroc, one of the contributing authors on AfricanLoft; Xcroc has been quite vocal on the AFRICOM discussions, here and on his blog.

It is strange and disturbing to read his blog latest entry, titled: “Censored by Google Alerts - Crossed Crocodiles on AFRICOM”.

He states after his blog “got a visit from Google itself, google.com in Mountain View California,” his postings on AFRICOM that used to appear on Google News alerts stopped appearing…

Why?

Find out.

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5 comment(s)

chris | Jun 24, 2008 | Reply

This is serious.
Misi | Jun 24, 2008 | Reply

Bizzarre! Its obvious what side they’re on.
Omotaylor | Jun 24, 2008 | Reply

And I had such respect and admiration for Google, oh there another disillusionment. Well nothing really shocks me nowadays.
Xcroc | Jun 24, 2008 | Reply

Censorship steals the truth!

CareTaker, Thank you very much for posting this. Interestingly, your post did get into the AFRICOM Google Alert today, although my post was not included, as usual. I haven’t contacted Google. My feeling was that if they had taken the trouble to censor, it would probably not be useful

@Chris, I agree, the censorship is quite serious, I’d say it is contrary to American values, but values as written and spoken are often different than values as practiced. It is certainly un-American in light of the First Amendment. It is also an indication to me that I have been on the right track in following the AFRICOM story.

@Misi, Truly bizarre. A friend wrote me that Google has a very right wing corporate counsel who used to be with the Bush DoJ. I assume it was a kind of protection arrangement and they (Google) are going along to get along.

@Omotaylor, Greetings, and I share your disillusionment. I have loved using Google. I know they censored political views in China at the behest of the government. And some people went to jail there because of Google. I had thought they might be bought here at times, to juggle search results a bit for money. But it did not occur to me that they would censor here for political reasons.
Xcroc | Jul 18, 2008 | Reply

Uncensored? Yesterday, June 17, for the first time in months, a Crossed Crocodiles post on AFRICOM was included in the Google Alert on AFRICOM. Since sometime in February or early March 2008 no Crossed Crocodiles post on AFRICOM appeared in the daily Google Alert on AFRICOM. I wrote describing this in more detail here.

On June 16 Crossed Crocodiles at the old blogspot address received a visit from google.com in Mountain View. The following day, June 17, Crossed Crocodiles is back in the alerts on AFRICOM. It is impossible to tell if this is coincidence or if the google visits are linked to the disappearance and reappearance of Crossed Crocodiles in the Google Alerts. It could just have been someone at google curious about the content. But the timing is certainly interesting.

The question is, will Google Alerts on AFRICOM continue to list any posts about AFRICOM published at Crossed Crocodiles. I surely hope so. I am most grateful to the readers at the African Loft. I think your interest has made a big difference.

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