# Trump vs. Google. Can anyone possibly defend this? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 30, 2018, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535 "2018-08-30T19:36:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/41 "2018-08-31T16:59:36Z")
Even monopolies are protected by the first amendment, aren’t they? (Since they’re people and all.) The government could theoretically force them to break into smaller companies if they (somehow) decide that Google is the only search engine provider, but it couldn’t force them to change how they conduct their legal business. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/42 "2018-08-31T17:02:38Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The term “fake news” is new … : > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …“fake news” is specific to Trump . > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Where are you getting that? Trump sure like to use that term, but it’s a common, if new, term used in many different contexts. . Just a note, the term “Fake News” is actually pretty old. See [Wiki article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news), and note the 1894 cartoon using the term. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/43 "2018-08-31T17:28:28Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > The administration is ‘taking a look’ at regulating Google. That’s the whole point of the thread. “‘taking a look’ at regulating Google’s conduct” is a long ways from shutting them down. Agreed? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/44 "2018-08-31T17:29:30Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’m not sure how they’d even go about regulating Google. It’s not a broadcast outlet… That didn’t seem to be an obstacle when they wanted to regulate Comcast with net neutrality laws. You go to Comcast of your own volition, and they provide you a service. If you don’t like their service, go use one of the competitors. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/45 "2018-08-31T17:39:54Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > “‘taking a look’ at regulating Google’s conduct” is a long ways from shutting them down. Agreed? No one said Trump wanted to “shut down” Google. #strawman The thread is about the stated threat of potential regulation. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/46 "2018-08-31T17:46:21Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > “‘taking a look’ at regulating Google’s conduct” is a long ways from shutting them down. Agreed? Do you believe that Trump wants to do nothing to impact or alter Google’s business practice? If you believe he wants to do something, what do you think he wants to do? I’d be happy to discuss whatever scenario you’re willing to concede that we’re discussing. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/47 "2018-08-31T17:47:10Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Even monopolies are protected by the first amendment, aren’t they? (Since they’re people and all.) The government could theoretically force them to break into smaller companies if they (somehow) decide that Google is the only search engine provider, but it couldn’t force them to change how they conduct their legal business. No, the government can’t \*force \*them to change how they operate, but it \*can \*threaten them with ruinous anti-trust actions and/or AT&T-style break up as leverage to get them to change. \*\*I’m not saying the administration is going to do that. \*\*(In all likelihood, Kudlow saying they were “taking a look” at regulating Google was just an offhand remark to mollify his boss’s latest tantrum.) But if I were a petty, vindictive, ignorant manchild with no understanding of what conservatism is supposed to be about, that’s how I’d do it. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/48 "2018-08-31T17:56:05Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > No one said Trump wanted to “shut down” Google. #strawman The thread is about the stated threat of potential regulation. To be fair, you did suggest that a Democrat potentially shutting down Fox News as being analogous to whatever is going on right now. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/49 "2018-08-31T18:17:26Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > To be fair, you did suggest that a Democrat potentially shutting down Fox News as being analogous to whatever is going on right now. I was being facetious, but I’ll own that one. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/50 "2018-08-31T18:28:36Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > That didn’t seem to be an obstacle when they wanted to regulate Comcast with net neutrality laws. > > You go to Comcast of your own volition, and they provide you a service. If you don’t like their service, go use one of the competitors. I guess what I’m trying to say is that they’re in a weird place relative to the existing laws- none seem to really apply. They are not engaging in any sort of business the FCC could realistically regulate- they’re not in the business of doing any sort of broadcasting or telecommunication/data service providing. They’re not producing content with their search engine- they’re just ostensibly indexing as much content as they can, and providing users with a convenient and powerful way to search what’s out there. Presumably this is content-agnostic, and even if it’s not, there’s nothing that says that they can’t have an editorial slant on their search results. And finally, they’re not a monopoly, at least in the anti-trust sense. While they have anywhere between a 93% market share and a 66% market share (according to Microsoft, their largest competitor), they’d also have to be shown to be acting anti-competitively and deliberately trying to shaft their competitors as a business strategy, like say, seriously deprioritizing Apple search results to boost Android. Merely being better/more convenient than the competition doesn’t cut it as far as legal standards go. So far, there’s nothing that I can see that would lend itself to anything but a VERY long and convoluted court case. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/51 "2018-08-31T18:38:42Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > Aren’t they pro-market-forces? > Shouldn’t they make their own search engine that only shows the positive side of Trump? > Won’t that show Google? It hadn’t previously occurred to me, but now I want to see if Trump has a page at Conservapedia. Also, I’d like to see if Conservapedia still exists. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/52 "2018-08-31T19:00:33Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > It hadn’t previously occurred to me, but now I want to see if Trump has a page at Conservapedia. > > Also, I’d like to see if Conservapedia still exists. it does, and [it does](https://www.conservapedia.com/Donald_Trump). ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/53 "2018-08-31T19:31:18Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > IIRC Facebook were outed for similar behaviour, so it is not without precedent. “Similar behaviour”? Google is an automated search engine that ranks results by objective assessments of quality, which for political news tends to give highest weight to reputable mainstream media. Facebook is a social platform for random idiots to post and share information that they heard from a friend or just made up, and has lately become an epicenter for distorted and fabricated information originating mostly from conservative and alt-right sources. The penchant of conservatives for reality distortion has apparently reached its hilarious peak when they consider that Facebook is a reliable source of news but Google’s top-ranked news sources are not. > [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > How so? Once President Trump convinces everyone that CNN tells lies ([which they do](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/business/media/cnn-trump-russia-meeting.html)), what happens next to our democracy? If you can’t distinguish between an occasional mistake and [a constant barrage of intentional lies and propaganda](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=667548) then it’s not possible to have a rational conversation about this. > [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > ETA: let me put it this way - most of the political left is quite convinced that Fox News lies every day. Is this also a “direct threat to our democracy”? Yes. A threat well demonstrated by the level of knowledge of its audience and who they elect to power. Most of them have still not heard of Michael Cohen or Paul Manafort, and if they have, they think it’s some minor side issue being hyped by the “lamestream media”, the enemy of the people. The same ones helping the Chinese perpetrate the climate change hoax. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/54 "2018-08-31T19:37:56Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Google is an automated search engine that ranks results by **objective assessments of quality** , which for political news tends to give highest weight to **reputable mainstream media**. While I agree 100% with your post, the devil’s advocate in me can’t help but point out that the bolded parts are presumptions, which wingnut conservatives might seize upon to back Trump’s latest paranoid tantrum. “Who sez Google is objective?” “Who sez their reputable?” etc. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/55 "2018-08-31T19:57:13Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Do you believe that Trump wants to do nothing to impact or alter Google’s business practice? If you believe he wants to do something, what do you think he wants to do? … Probably not, and I don’t know. One comment from an underling about “taking a look” at it doesn’t really give us a lot of detail to work with. FWIW, I’m generally opposed to the government intervening in private industry to try to repair a perceived political imbalance. However, just being honest here, I’m a bit less-inclined to spend much energy opposing Trump on this (whatever ‘this’ consists of) after Democrats pushed to re-instate the “Fairness Doctrine” to attack conservative talk radio. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/56 "2018-08-31T20:00:11Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > … If you can’t distinguish between an occasional mistake… They’ve collected quite a list of occasional mistakes in the last couple of years. Their mistakes seem to mostly slant things in one particular direction. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/57 "2018-08-31T20:21:55Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > While I agree 100% with your post, the devil’s advocate in me can’t help but point out that the bolded parts are presumptions, which wingnut conservatives might seize upon to back Trump’s latest paranoid tantrum. > > “Who sez Google is objective?” “Who sez their reputable?” etc. That’s true, they’re assumptions, but they’re very plausible assumptions. From what I understand of Google’s many (and mostly proprietary) ranking algorithms, they include many measures of the “reputation” of the site including technical quality, number of cites from other sources and _ **their** _ reputations, and many other measures of traffic and prominence. So the _New York Times_, for instance, is going to be ranked far higher than some wingnut’s blog. The alternative hypothesis is that Larry Page and Sergey Brin sit around conspiring to screw up their own search business’s integrity in order to make Trump look bad! I tested this with my own Google search, though it’s likely to be heavily influenced by my search history, yet nevertheless if I type in the word “Trump” I get a mix of prominent media and lots of pro-Trump stuff: the #1 result is his own Twitter feed, and also on the first page, the Trump Organization website and his Wikipedia page. The rest are reputable news organizations: CNN, the _Guardian_, the _Atlantic_, the _New Yorker_, _Vanity Fair_. The second page has more from his Twitter feed, more from the Trump Organization, stuff from Trump Hotels, a pro-Trump political YouTube video, a relatively complimentary _Washington Post_ article about advancing NAFTA with Mexico, and more mainstream media like CNBC and the _New Yorker_. It seems pretty obvious to me that pro-Trump material is not being artificially downgraded since there it is, and that what Trumpsters object to about Google is that it gives high rankings to reputable news media, and real news doesn’t sit well with Trumpsters. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/58 "2018-08-31T20:29:16Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > They’ve collected quite a list of occasional mistakes in the last couple of years. Their mistakes seem to mostly slant things in one particular direction. Do we have a thread on CNN comparable to the one I linked that itemizes the lies and distortions on Fox News, a thread that (so far) spans 43 pages itemizing the seemingly endless shameless mendacity of Fox “News”? Do you think you could create one like that for CNN? Considering that all you have so far is one highly questionable example of what is, at worst, one honest mistake? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/59 "2018-08-31T20:45:34Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Do we have a thread on CNN comparable to the one I linked that itemizes the lies and distortions on Fox News, a thread that (so far) spans 43 pages itemizing the seemingly endless shameless mendacity of Fox “News”? Do you think you could create one like that for CNN? Considering that all you have so far is one highly questionable example of what is, at worst, one honest mistake? I’m not defending FOX but you got to see what a ridiculous comment this is. The length of a thread here is not an objective measure of anything. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535/60 "2018-08-31T20:46:45Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > The alternative hypothesis is that Larry Page and Sergey Brin sit around conspiring to screw up their own search business’s integrity in order to make Trump look bad! Well, that Brin guy is some kind of furriner, ain’t he? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-vs-google-can-anyone-possibly-defend-this/820535.md?page=4)