Google Shuts Down Anti-Obama Sites on its Blogger Platform

Publius' Forum ^ | 6/29/08 | Warner Todd Huston

[Mobile Vulgus]

It looks like Google has officially joined the Barack Obama campaign and decided that its contribution would be to shut down any blog on the Google owned Blogspot.com blogging system that has an anti-Obama message. Yes, it sure seems that Google has begun to go through its many thousands of blogs to lock out the owners of anti-Obama blogs so that the noObama message is effectively squelched. Thus far, Google has terminated the access by blog owners to 7 such sites and the list may be growing. Boy, it must be nice for Barack Obama to have an ally powerful enough to silence his opponents like that!

It isn't just conservative sites that Google's Blogger platform is eliminating. For instance, www.comealongway.blogspot.com has been frozen and this one is a Hillary supporting site. The operator of Come a Long Way has a mirror site off the Blogspot platform and has today posted this notice:

I used to have a happy internet home on Blogger: www.comealongway.blogspot.com. Then on Wednesday night, June 25, I received the following e-mail:

Dear Blogger user,

This is a message from the Blogger team.

Your blog, at http://comealongway.blogspot.com/, has been identified as a potential spam blog. You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

It turns out that there is an interesting pattern where it concerns the blogs that Google's Blogspot team have summarily locked down on their service. They all belong to the Just Say No Deal coalition, a group of blogs that are standing against the Obama campaign. It seems the largest portion of these blogs are Hillary supporting blogs, too.

All I can say is, WOW! If Google is willing to abuse its power like this even against fellow leftists, what does it plan against conservatives, the folks Google hates even more!?

Here is a list of the Blogspot blogs that have been frozen by Google thus far:

...Read the rest at Publius' Forum.com

[Mobile Vulgus]

The left's answer to "dialog" is censorship!

[library user]

Step 3 in that photo. LOLOLOL.

[Mr. Jazzy]

Don’t read them, but are there any “anti John McCain” blogs?

Hahaha! Just joking!

[Tanniker Smith]

If that's their choice, they're welcome to it.

Censorship is one of those things that drive folks to the competitors. Someone else will fill the void.

[Coffee200am]

[SandRat]

Sounds like valid complaint against Google to the FEC to me.

[Keith in Iowa]

Looks like someone needs to do what’s being done to nuke jihad videos on YouTube - an organized “hit the abuse button’ type campaign... that’s probably what some Obamabots are doing to the blogger sites.

[trumandogz]

I am not all that sure that the Framers had The Google in mind when they wrote the wrote the First Amendment.

[livius]

I’d say it’s not just the left, but the Obama campaign. It’s interesting that they’re even willing to target Hillary supporters. It’s not permitted for anyone to “just say no to Obama.”

This is similar to the Washington Post article, where two Freepers who posted anti-Barry posts were hunted down and publicly identified and accused of “spamming” with a chain letter saying that Barry was a Muslim. Neither one of them was actually involved with the letter. But the Obama “researcher” identified them as being opposed to Obama and was able to find enough clues in their posting history to identify them and publish their identities. Somebody tell me how that’s not intimidation?

It’s pretty scary to see that even other leftists - the Hillary fans in this article - aren’t permitted to criticize Obama.

[knarf]

Following the example of another, respected FreepeR .. I uninstalled Google.

Phuque 'em !

[Carl LaFong]

This site uses google’s search engine but they don’t get the advertising hits that feeds them.

http://www.scroogle.org/

[magellan]

The Democrat-Media-Soros complex continues.

[antiRepublicrat]

Supposedly open, equal-access sites will do this according to ideological lines. MySpace (owned by Rupert Murdoch) shut down the world’s largest atheist group, supposedly because a few overly-sensitive Christians found it offensive. OTOH, they’ve taken great care to restore hacked Christian sites, so we see where the bias is.

[WildcatClan]

I doubt any Conservatives are still using Google or have even used it in the last few years. I have always used AltaVista, even before I realized Google had such love for Communists and Maoists.

[patriot08]

This is REALLY getting scary, people!

[Foolsgold]

The GOOGLEness Doctrine isn't FAIR

[rawhide]

Hmmm, are they doing the same with anti-McCain sites? Does anyone know? (like I really do not know the answer myself)

[Chickensoup]

Fascism is coming and more rapidly than predicted and of course out of the Left. Hold on to your hats kids, it is going to be a ride through hell.

[mojito]

Google has no problem “outing” Chinese dissidents to the Chinese gestapo so that they can be tortured and imprisoned.

Why would they have any problem with squelching free speech in this country?

[craig_eddy]

Algore is deeply involved with Google and this is not surprising to me now that Barack Hussein Obama has his endorsement

[Mobile Vulgus]

I am not all that sure that the Framers had The Google in mind when they wrote the wrote the First Amendment.

And the article linked didn't say anything about the First Amendment, either.

[SERKIT]

Does this mean Google qualifies as a 527?

[Prole]

Google is not the only organization terminating accounts on behalf of Barack Obama.

Youtube has the same fascist policy toward anyone who disagrees with Obama.

Just try launching a video that is against Obama, and see how quickly it is pulled from the site.

[SERKIT]

Early start to the “Fairness Doctrine”.

[ThreePuttinDude]

I thought Google bought Youtube...might be mistaken tho

[Tatze]

Just a quick search found this:

http://mccain-mccant.blogspot.com/

[A Strict Constructionist]

The left’s version of no room at the lunch counter. Can this be made into a Civil Rights Issue?

[abb]

What you do is use an alternative blog platform like these people did. They moved to Wordpress. If you drag the courts into the middle of it, by extension you invite court/government control over the internet. Not what needs to happen.

[Osage Orange]

Use Dogpile.com

[Zman]

Even though I uninstalled Google, it hijacks my browser and “warns me” when I try to load spectator.org. Looks like they’ve taken a page from the Chinese in net censorship.

[ReleaseTheHounds]

No Fee Speech Here! Just move along!

First Amendment? What First Amendment?

[the anti-liberal]

I just deleted my blogspot (which I had only set up for a class at university). If I set up a new one, It’ll be a ‘Wordpress’ blog - thanks for the info!

[Vigilanteman]

[the anti-liberal]

I’ve been using alltheweb for the past several years - works great. There are a lot of good alternatives to Google, but Google owns a lot of products and it’s difficult sometimes to know and avoid them.

[bimbo]

Easily resolved ... If Google is shutting down blogs that contain anti-Obama messages, post the anti-Obama messages on Pro-Obama blogs.

[newzjunkey]

They send out those message with some frequency. It’s no conspiracy. The moron just needs to follow the steps at Blogspot and contact them. It’ll be resolved in about a day.

[Earthdweller]

Good one.

[bruinbirdman]

"The left's answer to "dialog" is censorship! "

The left believes only in MONOlogue.

yitbos

[CharlesWayneCT]

I don’t really see it as a blogger issue, but it might be. Maybe it was an Obama supporter issue, hitting the spam abuse button (how does a blog get to be a “spam blog” anyway?

Most of the blogspot blogs on their list seem to be operating fine, so maybe after the review they unlocked them.

My blog has had a lot of anti-Obama stuff on it, although I am setting up a different blog for that because I don’t like to litter my blog with political posts. But I haven’t had any trouble.

[Cacique]

Google is a private business, it’s not a public entity. Therefore they are under no obligation to provide anyone with free access to free speech any more than Freerepublic does. They are under no obligation to provide free space to people who don’t agree with them. Better that conservatives now know they are not welcomed there. Better now than later. Time for conservatives to start their own “Google”.

[Blood of Tyrants]

The only freedom you have is what the left says you have.

[Andy from Beaverton]

Are there any anti-Google blogs hosted by Google?

[itsahoot]

MySpace (owned by Rupert Murdoch) shut down the world’s largest atheist group,

My God, don't these people know that Atheists founded this country?

[imintrouble]

You guys are having way too much fun at Google’s expense hahaha...

Don’t stop now - there must be hundreds of great one-liners floating out there..

[ExTexasRedhead]

Obama/Soros will be using their “Brown Shirts” to turn us in. History is repeating itself, big time!!!

[RepublitarianRoger2]

I still use Google's stuff. Hey, they make great tools.

They're not getting a dime from me anyway. 97% of their income is from ads. I use all their free stuff and never click on any Adsense ads. I'm just a leech as far as they're concerned. They can keep making great utilities and I'll keep right on using them while letting them take other people's money.

[maine-iac7]

Does someone have a list of comparable search sites?

[RepublitarianRoger2]

Use Dogpile.com

Dogpile is a metasearch that uses Google.

[RonDog]

Indexing RELATED threads:

Google Shuts Down Anti-Obama Sites on its Blogger Platform
	06/29/2008 1:53:36 PM PDT · by Mobile Vulgus · 45 replies · 1,596+ views Publius' Forum ^ | 6/29/08 | Warner Todd Huston
Nobama blogs kerfuffle (Google shuts down Nobama blogs)
	06/29/2008 3:49:28 AM PDT · by abb · 53 replies · 1,301+ views Buzz Machine ^ | June 28, 2008 | Jeff Jarvis