Yes, Google Uses Its Power to Quash Ideas It Doesnt LikeI Know Because It Happened to Me UpdatedThe story in the New York Times this week was unsettling The New America Foundation, a major think tank, was getting rid of one of its teams of scholars, the Open Markets group. New America had warned its leader Barry Lynn that he was imperiling the institution, the Times reported, after he and his group had repeatedly criticized Google, a major funder of the think tank, for its market dominance. The criticism of Google had culminated in Lynn posting a statement to the think tanks website applauding the European Commissions decision to slap the company with a record breaking 2. That post was briefly taken down, then republished. Soon afterward, Anne Marie Slaughter, the head of New America, told Lynn that his group had to leave the foundation for failing to abide by institutional norms of transparency and collegiality. Google denied any role in Lynns firing, and Slaughter tweeted that the facts are largely right, but quotes are taken way out of context and interpretation is wrong. Despite the conflicting story lines, the underlying premise felt familiar to me Six years ago, I was pressured to unpublish a critical piece about Googles monopolistic practices after the company got upset about it. In my case, the post stayed unpublished. I was working for Forbes at the time, and was new to my job. In addition to writing and reporting, I helped run social media there, so I got pulled into a meeting with Google salespeople about Googles then new social network, Plus. The Google salespeople were encouraging Forbes to add Pluss 1 social buttons to articles on the site, alongside the Facebook Like button and the Reddit share button. They said it was important to do because the Plus recommendations would be a factor in search resultsa crucial source of traffic to publishers. This sounded like a news story to me. Watch Accepted Online Hollywoodtake. Googles dominance in search and news give it tremendous power over publishers. By tying search results to the use of Plus, Google was using that muscle to force people to promote its social network. I asked the Google people if I understood correctly If a publisher didnt put a 1 button on the page, its search results would sufferThe answer was yes. After the meeting, I approached Googles public relations team as a reporter, told them Id been in the meeting, and asked if I understood correctly. The press office confirmed it, though they preferred to say the Plus button influences the ranking. They didnt deny what their sales people told me If you dont feature the 1 button, your stories will be harder to find with Google. With that, I published a story headlined, Stick Google Plus Buttons On Your Pages, Or Your Search Traffic Suffers, that included bits of conversation from the meeting. The Google guys explained how the new recommendation system will be a factor in search. Universally, or just among Google Plus friends I asked. Universal was the answer. So if Forbes doesnt put 1 buttons on its pages, it will suffer in search rankings I asked. Google guy says he wouldnt phrase it that way, but basically yes. An internet marketing group scraped the story after it was published and a version can still be found here. Google promptly flipped out. This was in 2. 01. Google never challenged the accuracy of the reporting. Instead, a Google spokesperson told me that I needed to unpublish the story because the meeting had been confidential, and the information discussed there had been subject to a non disclosure agreement between Google and Forbes. I had signed no such agreement, hadnt been told the meeting was confidential, and had identified myself as a journalist. It escalated quickly from there. I was told by my higher ups at Forbes that Google representatives called them saying that the article was problematic and had to come down. The implication was that it might have consequences for Forbes, a troubling possibility given how much traffic came through Google searches and Google News. I thought it was an important story, but I didnt want to cause problems for my employer. And if the other participants in the meeting had in fact been covered by an NDA, I could understand why Google would object to the story. Given that Id gone to the Google PR team before publishing, and it was already out in the world, I felt it made more sense to keep the story up. Ultimately, though, after continued pressure from my bosses, I took the piece downa decision I will always regret. Forbes declined comment about this. But the most disturbing part of the experience was what came next Somehow, very quickly, search results stopped showing the original story at all. As I recall itand although it has been six years, this episode was seared into my memorya cached version remained shortly after the post was unpublished, but it was soon scrubbed from Google search results. Watch The Cook The Thief His Wife &Amp; Her Lover Online Forbes' title='Watch The Cook The Thief His Wife &Amp; Her Lover Online Forbes' />That was unusual websites captured by Googles crawler did not tend to vanish that quickly. And unpublished stories still tend to show up in search results as a headline. Scraped versions could still be found, but the traces of my original story vanished. Its possible that Forbes, and not Google, was responsible for scrubbing the cache, but I frankly doubt that anyone at Forbes had the technical know how to do it, as other articles deleted from the site tend to remain available through Google. Headlines from the network and other sources, as well as downloads of trailers and clips. Steve Jobs was legendary for knowing what he wanted and leaning on his designers until he got it. But according to a new book on the history of the iPhone, he. Texarkana, Texas and Arkansas newspaper. Includes news, sports, opinion, and local information. Deliberately manipulating search results to eliminate references to a story that Google doesnt like would be an extraordinary, almost dystopian abuse of the companys power over information on the internet. I dont have any hard evidence to prove that thats what Google did in this instance, but its part of why this episode has haunted me for years The story Google didnt want people to read swiftly became impossible to find through Google. Google wouldnt address whether it deliberately deep sixed search results related to the story. The Chicago White Sox are the worst team in the American League, and so the best part of September is going to be Dog Day. At the GarField tonight, fans got to see a. Get breaking news and the latest headlines on business, entertainment, politics, world news, tech, sports, videos and much more from AOL. Debbie Lane told WFAATV that one of the victims was her daughter, Meredith, an Atlanta native and cook who loved hosting friends and family. Watch the Latest News. Avatar The Last Airbender Season 1 Episode 10 Vimeo more. Videos including Featured News Videos and Sports Videos and News Highlights. View more News. com. Videos and Breaking News and Featured. The story in the New York Times this week was unsettling The New America Foundation, a major think tank, was getting rid of one of its teams of scholars, the Open. If you were to take the collective nuclear anxiety of the world during the height of the Cold War and somehow transfigure that into cold, hard engineering, youd. Asked to comment, a Google spokesperson sent a statement saying that Forbes removed the story because it was not reported responsibly, an apparent reference to the claim that the meeting was covered by a non disclosure agreement. Again, I identified myself as a journalist and signed no such agreement before attending. People who paid close attention to the search industry noticed the pieces disappearance and wroteaboutit, wondering why it disappeared. Those pieces, at least, are still findable today. As for how effective the strategy was, Googles dominance in other industries didnt really pan out for Plus. Six years later, the social network is a ghost town and Google has basically given up on it. But back when Google still thought it could compete with Facebook on social, it was willing to play hardball to promote the network. Google started out as a company dedicated to ensuring the best access to information possible, but as its grown into one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world, its priorities have changed. Even as it fights against ordinary people who want their personal histories removed from the web, the company has an incentive to suppress information about itself. Google said it never urged New America to fire Lynn and his team. But an entity as powerful as Google doesnt have to issue ultimatums. It can just nudge organizations and get them to act as it wants, given the influence it wields. Lynn and the rest of the team that left New America Foundation plan to establish a new nonprofit to continue their work. For now, theyve launched a website called Citizens Against Monopoly that tells their story. It says that Googles attempts to shut down think tanks, journalists, and public interest advocates researching and writing about the dangers of concentrated private power must end. Watch The Occupants Online (2017). Its safe to say they wont be receiving funding from Google. Update, September 1, 1 5. Yesterday, we asked Googles communications team for a response to this story. Watch Dogs 2 Modders Hate The Games Final Patch. Watch Dogs 2 got its final patch today, which makes impossible to use mods while online if youre playing on PC. The games publisher, Ubisoft, says that this is to ensure fair online play, but the games small modding community is very frustrated. The 1. 1. 7 patch wasnt announced as a modding blocker. The features rolled out in it include tweaks to the recently added four player party mode, as well as bug fixes for co op. Shortly after it was released, some modders noticed and began to complain. If Watch Dogs 2 had been the blockbuster Ubisoft hoped it to be, that complaint might be loud, but instead it manifests as less noticeable venting on places like the increasingly barren Watch Dogs 2 subreddit. There, loyalists who stuck with the game expressed their anger. As of this morning, I found out that the latest update on PC killed modding, Deebz, an active and vocal Watch Dogs 2 modder, posted on the subreddit this morning. Any positivity from my original message has been rescinded. Instead, Ill just leave you with the list of a few issues in this utter mess of a game that you have failed to fix. He listed a half dozen issues, including players on the opposite team being unmarked or marked as friendly during multiplayer modes and the game outright crashing when you shoot people. The Watch Dogs 2 modding community is small. The modding community of WD2 in particular consists of like 1. Kotaku over reddit. According to Steam Spy, the game currently reaches a maximum of about 1,0. Modders use the game to to fix graphical issues as well as a few bugs. Deebzs favorite mod allows players to use the camera mode while in the helicopter. Deebz says he helped pave the way for modding Watch Dogs 2 and remembers multiplayer for the original Watch Dogs as being a lawless wasteland, with most players using mods to cheat. He says that he and his fellow modders use their mods ethically. Only a few of us know how to mod the game properly, and weve all agreed to use our knowledge ethically, he told Kotaku over reddit direct messages. We only play online with mods that do not give us an advantage, and we never released anything that could be used to cheat. According to those players, modding was a means to having a smoother gaming experience. Ubisoft, however, says modding has also at times hurt online play. Though we appreciate that many in our community are very careful about not using mods while being online, this isnt true of all players, Kris Young, producer on Watch Dogs 2, told Kotaku over email. In order to create a healthy and fair environment for all our players, we had to fix this problem. You can now still enjoy your favorite mods while playing offline and disabling the Easy Anti Cheat system though we cant offer official support for this or enjoy a more fair online experience when playing online with your friends. Even knowing they can still use mods, this isnt an acceptable solution for members of the modding community. The online modes are too much of a part of the game, Deebz said. Watch Dogs 2, like its predecessor, has passive online modes where other players can invade your game, as well as Pv. P multiplayer, all set in the games shared open world. Considering how few of us there are who actually do mod the game, and the fact that we do not release or even use any mods that give unfair advantages online, there really was no reason for this change in my opinion. Deebz was an obvious person to talk to for coverage of Ubisofts mod blocking patch, because Deebz has been visible in discussions about this game. He is the kind of outspoken gamer who uses the tools available to him to tell developers how they can improve their game. When he noticed a problem with the escape key being bound to too many functions in the game, he didnt just complain about it on reddit, he typed out changes to the games code that he said would solve the issue and posted them for Ubi reps who monitor the games subreddit to see. A Ubisoft representative told me that they would not fix this issue because it would allow players to skip scenes in the story that they were not supposed to skip, breaking the game in some cases, he told Kotaku. He insists that his solution was totally fine. I can say this with absolute certainty, because I actually played through the entire story a second time after using this fix, and skipped just about everything I could in the process. Deebzs problem now may be that Ubisoft says they cant distinguish between mods that help players cheat and mods that dont. This solution was a compromise they had to make, Young told Kotaku. Its a topic that has been on our minds since it was raised by community members who visited the studio well before the game launched, Young said. Weve come back to it several times since, but with the nature of our seamless technology, its a tradeoff we had to make to maintain healthy and fair online play.