I wrote recently about the online bookmarking app called Pocket, which is owned by Mozilla, now a left-leaning organization. They're hardly the only one.The big elephant in the room is Google. Neo, a blogger you should visit often, offers a comparison of Google search versus Duck Duck Go, a search engine created by Gabriel Weinberg. Here's what Neo discovered:
Grosskreutz was the man who survived being shot by Kyle Rittenhouse, and who testified for the prosecution in the trial. During that testimony it was brought out that Grosskreutz had been carrying a concealed weapon without a permit.
This is a violation for which he could and probably should have been charged. But we all know why he wasn’t charged. It would have taken away some of his credibility that the state so desperately needed to make its case, and perhaps would have even bolstered Rittenhouse’s self-defense claim.
Can’t have that, can we?
So, what happens when you do a Google search for “why wasn’t grosskreutz charged with weapons violation,” as I did? You get a load of articles, but none of the high-on-the-list ones appear to address that question. Here’s the very first one on the list if you want to take a look at what you typically get from that Google search.
It isn’t until the fourteenth article on the Google list that we come to something marginally relevant to my search: this Quora question-and-answer. But it doesn’t really deal with the question I really wanted answered, either. That Quora piece asks why Grosskreutz wasn’t charged with pointing the gun at Rittenhouse, not why he wasn’t charged for concealed carry without a permit. It’s only at article number sixteen that someone asks (tentatively, without much information on it) about that type of weapons charge for Grosskreutz. But even after that, although I looked for a short while longer, I found no more articles addressing the subject.
Go to DuckDuckGo, however, and the story is very different. The first five articles that come up are directly on point, as is number eight (at least, in my list). That’s pretty impressive. Apparently there aren’t so many places where it’s been discussed, but DuckDuckGo does a good job of locating and prioritizing them. Google does not, and of course that’s not by accident.
It’s one of the biggest ways in which Google shapes public opinion rather than merely providing information, and the only thing to do about it is to stop using Google and advise others not to use it either. But Google is an immensely popular search engine and I’m pretty sure that the vast vast majority of people who use it have no idea about its biases or how they operate to keep information from the searcher.
This is a violation for which he could and probably should have been charged. But we all know why he wasn’t charged. It would have taken away some of his credibility that the state so desperately needed to make its case, and perhaps would have even bolstered Rittenhouse’s self-defense claim.
Can’t have that, can we?
So, what happens when you do a Google search for “why wasn’t grosskreutz charged with weapons violation,” as I did? You get a load of articles, but none of the high-on-the-list ones appear to address that question. Here’s the very first one on the list if you want to take a look at what you typically get from that Google search.
It isn’t until the fourteenth article on the Google list that we come to something marginally relevant to my search: this Quora question-and-answer. But it doesn’t really deal with the question I really wanted answered, either. That Quora piece asks why Grosskreutz wasn’t charged with pointing the gun at Rittenhouse, not why he wasn’t charged for concealed carry without a permit. It’s only at article number sixteen that someone asks (tentatively, without much information on it) about that type of weapons charge for Grosskreutz. But even after that, although I looked for a short while longer, I found no more articles addressing the subject.
Go to DuckDuckGo, however, and the story is very different. The first five articles that come up are directly on point, as is number eight (at least, in my list). That’s pretty impressive. Apparently there aren’t so many places where it’s been discussed, but DuckDuckGo does a good job of locating and prioritizing them. Google does not, and of course that’s not by accident.
It’s one of the biggest ways in which Google shapes public opinion rather than merely providing information, and the only thing to do about it is to stop using Google and advise others not to use it either. But Google is an immensely popular search engine and I’m pretty sure that the vast vast majority of people who use it have no idea about its biases or how they operate to keep information from the searcher.
Here's the takeaway (duh). If you don't use Duck Duck Go, start. If you use Pocket, switch to something else, like Raindrop.