Comment by Gareth321 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Gareth321 | Hacker News Reader

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Of course. [Google provides a dashboard for exactly this.](https://transparencyreport.google.com/government-removals/go...) 275,597 named items for removal since 2011. You can download the report yourself. Content ordered for removal cover topics such as health all the way to copyright.

One major battle ground has been sci-hub. This is best described as a collective whose stated goal is to make science free for everyone rather than having it stuck behind a journal paywall. The entire journal industry is one giant scam, but I digress. U.S. laws have repeatedly been passed and tested, and Google has been repeatedly ordered to remove domains such as sci-hub.tw and sci-hub.cc, among many more.

This is far more expansive than scientific papers, of course, and extends to countless copyright adjacent websites. Sites which have been repeatedly targeted include YTS, FMovies, and AniWave (and their associated domains).

I should also expand my previous comment. Google doesn't just censor results which the U.S. government has requested. It very frequently censors results of its own volition. Whether for ideological or fiscal reasons. One litmus test I often use is to search for the Proud Boys. Their website(s) have long been censored for a variety of reasons, including "disinformation" and public safety. I can find their website on Kagi. I cannot find it on Google.

Whether by the government, or for ideological or fiscal reasons, when I search for information I expect to be given that information. Google is an unreliable source. They all are.

> One litmus test I often use is to search for the Proud Boys. Their website(s) have long been censored for a variety of reasons, including "disinformation" and public safety. I can find their website on Kagi. I cannot find it on Google.

Do you apply this same litmus test to far-left things which Google might have also removed, or do you consider the lack of Google listing the Proud Boys to be some sort of special and unique infringement on freedom of speech? I'm always quite suspicious when somebody cites something that is barely more rational than the ideology of Timothy McVeigh as something that deserves to be read by a wider audience. Do you also complain that your local Barnes and Noble doesn't stock a copy of the Turner Diaries?

> Do you apply this same litmus test to far-left things which Google might have also removed, or do you consider the lack of Google listing the Proud Boys to be some sort of special and unique infringement on freedom of speech?

I consider all censorship wrong. The reason I use the Proud Boys is because it was a well publicised incident and has been a reliable indicator of censorship since then. If you have left wing domains I could include in my litmus test I would be grateful. I'm sure that Yandex censors some of them, which is why I say above: the best way to circumvent censorship is oppositional use.

> I'm always quite suspicious when somebody cites something that is barely more rational than the ideology of Timothy McVeigh as something that deserves to be read by a wider audience. Do you also complain that your local Barnes and Noble doesn't stock a copy of the Turner Diaries?

What a remarkably fast progression from, "what is being censored?" to "here's why it's a good thing." I didn't claim Google has a responsibility to provide uncensored results. I and others are explaining that Google doesn't provide reliably uncensored results, and that that is why providers like Yandex are required to access an uncensored internet.

> Yandex are required to access an uncensored internet.

And if you can read Russian I'm sure you'd find that Yandex is suspiciously missing information about strongly anti-Putin Russians such as the recent writings of Garry Kasparov. Don't pretend it is some bastion of free speech. I still think it's extremely suspicious and very revealing that you immediately jumped to The Proud Boys as your first and best prototypical example of something that's being censored by Google.

> And if you can read Russian I'm sure you'd find that Yandex is suspiciously missing information about strongly anti-Putin Russians such as the recent writings of Garry Kasparov. Don't pretend it is some bastion of free speech.

And if you would do me the courtesy of reading my comments you would see that I am not claiming Yandex to be censorship-free. The exact opposite.

> I still think it's extremely suspicious and very revealing that you immediately jumped to The Proud Boys as your first and best prototypical example of something that's being censored by Google.

You must be easily alarmed. I find it revealing that you haven't provided any censored left wing content which I can add to my test. Instead of engaging with what I am writing, you repeat empty aphorisms and written tics which should best be contained to echo-chambers like Reddit and Bluesky.

Either way it seems you've given up any pretense of caring about the subject of censorship as it applies to search engines.

That's an interesting example.

I detest the Proud Boys for a wide variety of reasons and I really wish that they would just go away.

But if they exist on the web, then I want to have the unfettered liberty to find them on that web and see what they've got to say without having it digested, ruminated and filtered before eventually being regurgitated through someone else's mouthpiece.

Censorship restricts my ability to know my enemy.

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