About a year ago, GoogleNews got in trouble for selecting a neonazi site as “news.” After a small furor, the site was taken down. Now MediaGuardian is reporting that Google is putting up “news” from the far-right British National Party, led by a man often accused of inciting racial hatred, above the news of reputable sources. My problem with this remains one of transparency: Google does not reveal its policies or sources and should. Because Google won’t reveal its sources, blogger Private Radio began compiling a list and it’s now fascinating reading, by the way.
[...] Following up on earlier concerns, Jeff Jarvis reports that GoogleNews is including news articles from the far-right British National Party. [...]
[...] Jeff Jarvis posts on something that has been a pet peeve of mine for some time… and it is getting worse. [...]
Hmm? The British National Party being in Google News is rather, err, old news:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/07/google_bnp_news/
Tide of migrant BNP PR menaces Google News
News picks a bit illiberal?
By John Lettice
Published Sunday 7th November 2004 11:36 GMT
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Google News, which last year accepted that press releases counted as news, now apparently thinks press releases from the far-right British National Party count too.
For the record, I think this has become an issue again because BNP leader Nick Griffin is currently on trial in the UK. Interesting though, since National Vanguard was removed as a source because of hate speech (if I remember correctly) — and that’s effectively what Griffin’s in the dock for.