This seems a step beyond simply organising the world’s information. Even if it's with the best intentions, the fact is that they will have a significantly influence on the discourse itself.
This is no doubt the outcry they are hoping for, with the intent being to open it up fully to everyone qualified to be a Twitter user. The exclusivity is just to build hype and cachet for PR purposes.
Google's bottom line is dependant on capturing all the data.
But not on displaying all the data.
In fact, their whole business is to only show the data they believe you need right now.
EDIT: Which makes it even easier to just "drop" controversial views that might challenge your opinion – the Filter Bubble effect is very real, and with every change that makes search more "relevant", it gets worse.
EDIT2: If, additionally, a malicious entity – say, a government agency – would force Google to censor a topic, it would become a lot more problematic.
On the contrary I'd say that in this field the more players there are, the better.
I also don't buy the argument that Google having huge powers of, effectively, no-platforming is any less terrifying because TV channels have had it for a long time. This is just as bad!
The average American household has access to just 150-200 TV channels, total. Most of those would never carry anything related to the election. The vast majority of those are specific content carriers: movies, music, on-demand, sports. You're down to having a few dozens channels (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CNBC, MSNBC, local affiliates etc) that a candidate can push through.
There are 2,200x tv stations in the US. Most of those are small, local stations with zero national or regional reach.
There are thousands of online sites and platforms that at least have as large of an audience as those stations. All of those sites can be reached by almost anyone in the US, which is not true of the local TV stations.
Further, there is nothing even remotely like: Reddit, Twitter, Wordpress, Tumblr, Facebook, et al. in the television realm, where just about anyone can reach a national audience if their message resonates (and do so for free). There is also nothing like the app options that are available online, whether Snapchat, Instagram, or voter reach apps like NationBuilder.
The web is vastly more open and representative.
Not everywhere else.
Why do we have to make most of the western world worse, just because the result is better than what currently exists in the US?
First, there are lots of tv networks.
Second, yes, regarding that matter, we SHOULD fear the power of tv networks.
I don't even understand the reasoning here: "why do you call Google having curation/censorship power fearsome, since tv networks already have curation/censorship power?".
Obviously because curation/censorship power of a level and above (e.g. not your local high school paper) is troubling.
Instead of seeing Google as rising as a new kind of ruler, enforcing a new kind of authority, I think it's more appropriate to see it as grafting itself onto an already existing authority.
So to me it's not clear cut whether the centralizing power Google brings with its resources overweights the decentralizing power from dividing such authority into more parts.
And as an aside it also seems foolish to worry about this when said political system itself guarantees that the majority of the population can't be properly represented unless they agree with each other, which is precisely the problem media control solves.
I don't expect them to promote any old blogger with an opinion (though I'd even prefer that to this), but giving a platform to marginal/dissident figures or organizations, from any part of the political spectrum, would at least serve some kind of interesting or useful purpose.
Sounds like a possible startup if there's a way to generate revenue from such a platform.
So just as we thought we'd escape from the brainwashing of corporate media from TV thanks to the Internet, I think Google, Facebook and Twitter even will play a big role on keeping the masses brainwashed by serving corporate media content to the majority of people, keeping them as brainwashed as ever.
It is just the contrary since very few can post there. Then, if they prioritize these people/services on their search above others it turns the navigation path to a place owned by Google.