Search engines allowed to block political websites in the name of 'freedom of speech'

31 Mar 2014 • engadget.com

The plaintiffs were pro-democracy activists who accused Baidu of de-listing their articles and videos for political reasons. They argued that this censorship breached their civil and equal protection rights, because American users of Baidu were unfairly blocked from accessing their work. After three years of wrangling, a US District Court judge has now dismissed the case on the basis that no owner of a search engine should be forced to list specific websites, because this would breach the owner's right to freedom of speech.

In the judge's own words:

"The First Amendment protects Baidu's right to advocate for systems of government other than democracy (in China or elsewhere) just as surely as it protects plaintiffs' rights to advocate for democracy."

I'm not sure whether to be pleased or horrified by this decision.  I completely understand it and at first I'm inclined to agree - but then we live in a world where far, far too many people think Google *is* the internet and that everything is only found by typing it into a the Google box. You could easily make the argument that search engines should be just an unbiased pipe for content - just like ISPs.  Net neutrality, all that jazz.

Even among the tech-mindful who realize that Google is not the Internet I think this same mentality applies, but it's much more subconscious.  I use Google constantly and if something is out there I trust Google to find it, period.  I would wager many of us think of Google as a "tool"... like find, or gunzip, or grep... not a news channel.

When I gunzip a file I expect it to be decompressed, regardless of content.  When I Google a phase I expect it to be found, regardless of content (well, perhaps with exceptions for illegal content, etc)... I don't expect the tools belief system to get in the way.  Sometimes you do have to wonder about Google's financial motivations, but we've all gotten used to that.

I'd hate when sifting thru results (or lack there-of) to have to start considering my search engines political, religious, and philosophical motivations and how they might be adversely affecting my results.