Posted on 05/31/2025 12:55:10 PM PDT by Openurmind
[Note: What follows is a blog-post formatted version of the 34 page letter I submitted to the FTC on May 21, 2025 in response to the agency’s RFI entitled: “Request for Public Comment Regarding Technology Platform Censorship.” I have also added a section at the end on what you can do to save the open web from Google’s AI takeover.]
In this letter I will explain how Google censored my travel website – and thousands of small and independent web publishers like me – all so that it can use AI to control the flow of information online.
In late 2023 and early 2024, Google released an unprecedented series of algorithm updates that utterly decimated thousands of independent websites.
Travel Lemming lost more than 95% of our Google organic search referral traffic in these updates.
The shadowban algorithm that hit us was supposedly based on the content on our websites. But we later realized the shadowban really was about the type of website we are (i.e., small and independent).
While Google gives large publishers an appeal and recovery process, small and independent publishers have no path to appeal our shadowbans.
This is true even though Google admitted our shadowbans are its fault and not ours.
In fact, last October, Google even flew me and 19 other publishers out to its headquarters for a tour, an admission of wrongdoing, and an apology.
Though Google apologized, it also said that search has permanently changed with AI and thus our traffic may never return.
In this letter I will describe how I believe Google has been laying the groundwork for a grand plan to rethink search from the ground-up so as to profit from AI.
Google isn’t satisfied with its monopoly on the questions we search.
Google wants to use AI to monopolize the very answers themselves.
As one Google executive recently explained: “Organizing information is clearly a trillion-dollar opportunity, but a trillion dollars is not cool anymore. What’s cool is a quadrillion dollars.”
Google plans to use AI to consume and replace the open web.
I believe demolishing independent sites like mine was Google’s first step in clearing ground so it has space to rebuild search from the ground up for an “AI-first” future.
Google envisions a future where “Google does the Googling for you,” its AI and ads do the answering – and users never need to leave Google.
Google will just source information from a handful of sources and partner websites that it controls and selects – effectively creating an information cartel.
If Google can use AI to censor a travel website from the web arbitrarily and without opportunity for appeal – it can do the same to any source of information it wants.
And American citizens and Internet users everywhere will be worse off for it.
So while you may not really care about the plight of some random travel website getting censored, everyone should care about the way Google is deploying AI to build a censorship cartel that lets it control the flow of information online.
What follows is a lengthy summary of my experiences and my opinions as an independent publisher trying to survive in a monopolist’s information economy.
Much more great exposure...
“Yandex is good for forbidden topics like human dosage for Ivermectin horse paste, etc. But they often add some completely unrelated porn. Very odd...”
It is Russian... That might be why... lol
“Google is a private business…I guess they can get away with it.”
Google had (and probably still has) very close ties to NSA.
It also has many large government contracts and subcontracts.
They think they are so clever by being “private”—but they have been used as an arm of de facto government censorship.
The current administration could end the censorship immediately with one big nasty anti-trust lawsuit—and an end to all government contracts and affiliation.
—
Old article based on the Snowden revelations:
Google Fiber is designed to initiate The Ministry of Truth.
Run from it as fast as your legs will allow.
“Google is not as social agency. They are not here to help the common good. The are a publicly traded company with a primary goal of increasing shareholder value.”
With all respect, if you actually believe this you live under a rock and have absolutely no clue what the real world is about. Alphabet is the biggest social engineering tool on the planet... They were owned by government intelligence and are STILL controlled by government intelligence.
See #22.
Though Google apologized, it also said that search has permanently changed with AI and thus our traffic may never return. "
This part is interesting, but he certainly missed an opportunity to provide details. Who at Google apologized? What was said?
Then again, whoever told him the old search paradigm is about to implode was absolutely right. You won't be 'searching', you will be 'agenting'.
"Opera has launched Neon, the first agentic AI browser designed to operate autonomously and change how users interact with the internet. It codes, writes, and continues working — even if users go offline."Chat
Opera Neon’s Chat is a built-in AI that helps users search the web, summarize content, and generate text without leaving the browser. It understands page context to deliver relevant answers and supports voice and text input in over 50 languages. This feature also creates images and various files, assisting with both simple and complex writing tasks. Its integration means users get real-time, on-page help without switching apps or tabs.
Do
The Do feature lets users delegate web tasks like filling forms, booking hotels, or shopping directly to the browser’s AI. It processes entire web pages using layout data locally, ensuring privacy by keeping sensitive information on the user’s device.
Unlike cloud-only tools, this local execution allows fast, secure task completion with clear updates. Users can pause or adjust the AI’s actions anytime during the process.
Make
Make enables users to create complex outputs — games, websites, reports — by breaking requests into manageable tasks handled by cloud-based AI agents. These agents work in a virtual machine, continuing projects even offline.
So in the instance of travel, you will ask an 'AIgent': find me a dozen of the best last-minute beach deals for a quick family reunion, but I want this specific location, and if the deal satisfies my needs, pricing and dates, send me the deets on my iPhone. And then you move on and do whatever you were doing while the 'AIgent' goes to work.
Then when you get the travel info, you simply tell the 'AIgent': sign us up, send Zelle due bills for the family 5-way split; and send the deets to my iPhone. Oh and send me a map with the best route and the cheapest gas.
“Google Fiber is designed to initiate The Ministry of Truth.
Run from it as fast as your legs will allow.”
Yep...
This has been going on for years.
As I posted on 10/29/2024, my basic test for SE bias is to search "Negative effects of homosexual relations (also heterosexual fornication)" - which is because the issue is well-substantiated, and one in which is very likely to see bioas. Even in quotes Google only return one result (now 3), a FR page with that text (to my page named that). Without quotes, it did much better today than before, but which is likely due to my being tracked.
In a past test, Google provided a mixed results, with snippets referring to effects such as depression and suicide due to treatment by others, thus designed to elicit symphony. Of course, Goggle now only allows 10 results per page, but more of same followed.
In this test of Negative+effects+of+homosexual+relations& , Google only provided one result in the first 30 (which is when I stopped looking) which says anything about STD's.
Another example was asking "where does the bible condemn homosexual relations" in quotes which resulted in, "Your search - "where does the bible condemn homosexual relations" - did not match any documents." It is simply hard to believe Google cannot find any document with that question. But if I ask the same question without quotes then what results as the top hits?
The top result, as expected with a biased SE, is one that outright denies that the bible condemn homosexual relations (which it plainly does). Then after a single, sound but brief Billy Graham org page stating the Biblical position, a series of six more liberal sites follow, wikipedia being one, which at best is promoting ambiguity.
Two two contra homosexual sites follow, one with misleading intro, followed by another one promoting ambiguity, and followed by three more liberal sources, one being more egregiously so. Thus only 4 out of 10 top search results actually uphold the Biblical position. 11/28/2024: Google will not even provide more then 16 results (and only 2 pages) for Negative Physical, Psychological, Financial and Spiritual effects of fornication - mainly homosexual but also and heterosexual , and completely ignore my blog page by that title, even though blogger.com is hosted by Google!
And there are no blocks etc. in the robots.txt file or elsewhere. Putting the header of the page, "Negative Physical, Psychological, Financial and Spiritual effects of fornication" in quotes, results in "It looks like there aren't many great matches for your search Try using words that might appear on the page you’re looking for. For example, "cake recipes" instead of "how to make a cake." And (surprise ) to 2 FR pages where that title appears, and one to a AI thread, all by me, by the grace of God.
I use this issue as a test since it is a issue that is not debatable and reveals bias.
Bing is better, but still only provides 10 search results per page, as if that usually suffices, thereby also fostering to superficial understanding at best. DuckDuckGo also provides poor search results, but at least it allows for infinite scrolling.
Google AI says in part regarding this issue:
Reasons why your content might not be indexed, even after being crawled, and how to address them: Low-Quality or Thin Content: Google's algorithms analyze the content and quality of your pages. If your content is deemed thin, duplicate, or doesn't provide enough value to users, Google may choose not to index it.
Yep... but it’s worthwhile to sometime use a site outside the reach of our censors.
It’s all searching the web in one way or another. Google is simple corrupt and a US Government censor.
There should be laws against shadow banning without a complete ban.
If they banned me they would not get my subscription money.
I have reason to keep my account and the bastards know it.
Perhaps Google and youtube should be banned from carrying any political content at all if they cannot allow opinions the deep state does not like.
It’s like when people wanted to be on facebook for other reasons other than mind control.
Time for the Trump administration to address this again as election interference.
Break them.
In the mean time I am cancelling.
It's funny you should mention this, because one of the best uses of AI to date has been to compile databases on neomarxists.
I have been playing with underground protocols that are not part of the TLD indexed HTTP/WWW internet that Google controls.
Are you publishing videos? Move them all over to Rumble.... Rumble is for the most part a Conservative platform and growing like crazy... More the better.
Yup—videos banned on Youtube have found a home on Rumble.
Youtube bans have gotten ridiculous—if one guest on one video says anything that Youtube does not like the episode or the entire video series can be banned—and the creator may never even know why it happened.
Another reason not to use them.
You all sound like someone is tying you to a table and force feeding you Google.
I don’t smoke cigarettes because they could kill you. I don’t rely on google because i don’t trust what they tell me. That said, what are people “searching” for using google. I think the last time I used it was to search for a buttercream frosting recipes—not exactly mind control territory.
Foolish people get their brain controlled by a search engine. There is no shortage of foolish people around. There never has been.
I don’t even go there anymore because of the spy/tracking scripts. I search them through DDG and watch them there on DDG. It filters the scripts out. Or I watch them embedded elsewhere because the scripts are extremely minimal or also filtered out. But I refuse to land on their domain directly.
OK, let me wake you up to reality. First, just about every search engine out there piggybacks on Google. Basically they are an extension of Google. Even Duck Duck Go does this.
Second, just about every website and domain out there is utilizing Google third party spy/tracking services. It is almost impossible to not end up using Google and have Google in your machine period.
You would have to stop using the internet altogether to actually not be in Google’s network. Do you even know the history of Google’s control over the internet as we know it? They are the reason we have to use Registrars and addresses and buy domain names. They have owned and controlled the indexed top level internet since the very beginning.
No,I don’t make videos.
Good advice though.
The Media is becoming less and less relevant as both the left and right do not believe them. The uncensored flow of information on the internet is the most relevant source today.
It is raw, uncensored and full of truth and lies. That is okay as that is what our dying media is today. The most important thing is censorship of the internet which is ongoing today by the left.
When the free flow of ideas, politics, opinion, philosophy, religion, etc. is not compromised we have freedom. If not we have tyranny.
You had me up until the registration stuff. I had to register domains before google was founded.
So, I am not sure what point you are trying to make. If you think you EVER had privacy on the internet you are naive. You “fight back” by lying about everything you enter on the web. Fake names. Fake information. Fake and throwaway identification verification.
Lie to them as much as they want.
It seems like you want them to “play fair.” That’s delusional. The best thing is “don’t play” and at least don’t play by their rules.
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