Freedom of speech and thought is incompatible with corporate control of the Internet. The fight against corporate-state censorship of the Internet is central to the defense of democratic rights. ~Andre Damon & David North

Internet censorship in the United States is the suppression of information published or viewed on the Internet in the United States. The U.S. possesses protection of freedom of speech and expression against federal, state, and local government censorship, a right protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. These protections extend to the Internet; however, the U.S. government has censored sites in the past, and they are increasing in number to this day.

Quotes

  • New data compiled by the World Socialist Web Site, with the assistance of other Internet-based news outlets and search technology experts, proves that a massive loss of readership observed by socialist, anti-war and progressive web sites over the past three months has been caused by a cumulative 45 percent decrease in traffic from Google searches...[due to] changes in Google’s search evaluation protocols. In a statement... the company’s vice president for engineering, stated that Google’s update of its search engine would block access to “offensive” sites, while working to surface more “authoritative content.”
    Statistical data [obtained] from SEMrush estimating the decline of traffic generated by Google searches for 13 sites with substantial readerships. The results...:
    wsws.org fell by 67 percent
    alternet.org fell by 63 percent
    globalresearch.ca fell by 62 percent
    consortiumnews.com fell by 47 percent
    socialistworker.org fell by 47 percent
    mediamatters.org... 42 percent
    commondreams.org... 37 percent
    internationalviewpoint.org... 36 percent
    democracynow.org.36 percent
    wikileaks.org... 30 percent
    truth-out.org... 25 percent
    counterpunch.org... 21 percent
    theintercept.com ...19 percent
    The central and sinister role of Google in this process demonstrates that freedom of speech and thought is incompatible with corporate control of the Internet. The fight against corporate-state censorship of the Internet is central to the defense of democratic rights, and there must be a broad-based collaboration among socialist, left and progressive websites to alert the public and the widest sections of the working class.

See also

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