There are 98 comments.

1. Member
   Robert McReynolds

   @

   7:09 PM EST ⋅ Jan 1, 2016

   Duck Duck Go.

   https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab

2. Inactive
   Jules PA

   @JulesPA

   Post author

   7:11 PM EST ⋅ Jan 1, 2016

   Robert McReynolds:Duck Duck Go.

   https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab

   Thanks for the tip. Made a switch.

3. Member
   RightAngles

   @RightAngles

   7:43 PM EST ⋅ Jan 1, 2016

   Robert McReynolds:Duck Duck Go.

   https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab

   Thanks

4. Member
   The Reticulator

   @TheReticulator

   8:05 PM EST ⋅ Jan 1, 2016

   Jules PA:

   Robert McReynolds:Duck Duck Go.

   https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab

   Thanks for the tip. Made a switch.

   Metoo. Thank you.

5. Inactive
   Mike LaRoche

   @MikeLaRoche

   8:29 PM EST ⋅ Jan 1, 2016

   Down with Google.

6. Inactive
   Kay of MT

   @KayofMT

   8:32 PM EST ⋅ Jan 1, 2016

   I use Bing.

7. Member
   Susan in Seattle

   @SusaninSeattle

   

   8:59 PM EST ⋅ Jan 1, 2016

   I use Bing, too.

8. Member
   Arahant

   @Arahant

   1:04 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

   ;^D

9. Member
   Arahant

   @Arahant

   1:06 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

   There is also Dogpile.

10. Member
    kylez

    @kylez

    

    1:21 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    “are you born transgender?” is absurd for the simple reason that a “transgender” (transsexual) is a person trying to be the sex they were not born as. i can’t imagine many millions of Americans are confused about that.

11. Member
    Robert McReynolds

    @

    4:26 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    Susan in Seattle:I use Bing, too.

    Bing is powered by Microsoft I believe and still part of the evil empire.

12. Member
    Robert McReynolds

    @

    4:27 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    kylez:“are you born transgender?” is absurd for the simple reason that a “transgender” (transsexual) is a person trying to be the sex they were not born as. i can’t imagine many millions of Americans are confused about that.

    I think this is the Left trying to make the case–much like with homosexuality–that you are born with the “transgender gene,” meaning this isn’t a condition or something that you choose, and thus solidifies the “victim” status of the individual.

13. Member
    I Walton

    @IWalton

    4:49 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    Bing is great and you get an inspiring photo of the day.

    Robert McReynolds:

    kylez:“are you born transgender?” is absurd for the simple reason that a “transgender” (transsexual) is a person trying to be the sex they were not born as. i can’t imagine many millions of Americans are confused about that.

    I think this is the Left trying to make the case–much like with homosexuality–that you are born with the “transgender gene,” meaning this isn’t a condition or something that you choose, and thus solidifies the “victim” status of the individual.

    Why is calling these things  birth defects so important?

14. Member
    I Walton

    @IWalton

    4:51 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    I use Bing.  What do we know about it’s agenda?

15. Member
    Claire Berlinski, Ed.

    @Claire

    5:20 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    When I brought up my concern that Google and Facebook might now have the power to swing elections, many on Ricochet felt I was succumbing to paranoia.

    I don’t think so. And I think this is something we need to think about carefully. We can switch to Bing, but we’d be a tiny minority. Google and Facebook hold what amount to monopolies, and their control over the flow and distribution of information about politics is unprecedented in American history — as is their ability to microtarget that information to users based on an unprecedented amount of detailed knowledge about their concerns and preferences.

    I think it’s a very real concern. I think it should be a source of much more debate than it is.

    Indeed, I think the rise of the tech oligarchs should concern us quite a bit:

    What has made ‘the sovereigns of cyberspace’, to quote author Rebecca MacKinnon, so wealthy is precisely what made John D Rockefeller so rich: control of markets. Google, for example, accounts for over 60 per cent of search, while, alongside Apple, it control almost 90 per cent of the operating systems forsmartphones. Similarly, over half of American and Canadian computer users use Facebook, making it easily the world’s dominant social-media site. …

    These firms are now so rich that they resemble countries. Besides General Electric, a classic conglomerate, Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle and Google often have more dollars on hand than the US government. And their influence can be felt in every office, home and phone through intrusive software that provides a trove of personal data that would make the old KGB turn from red to green with envy. As Google’s Eric Schmidt put it: ‘We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.’ …

    The liberation from the constraints of the tangible economy has inflamed the ambitions of the oligarchs. ‘Politics for me is the most obvious area [to be disrupted by the web]’, suggests former Facebook president Sean Parker. The success with which social media assisted President Obama’s re-election effort offers clear support to Parker’s assertion.

    In allying with Obama, tech is moving in the opposite direction to much of the business community, particularly small business, which Gallup finds a hotbed of anti-Obama sentiment. Other traditional industries like oil and gas have also turned overwhelmingly to the right, as Obama has targeted them for their role in climate change. In 1990, energy firms gave out almost as much to Democrats as Republicans; in 2014 they gave over three times as much to the GOP….

    In contrast, the oligarchs, as they have become ever richer, are clearly moving leftwards. In 2000, the communications and electronics sector was basically even in its donations; by 2012, it was better than two to one Democratic. Microsoft, Apple and Google – not to mention entertainment companies – all overwhelmingly lean to the Democrats with their donations.

    I’m not so worried about the entertainment industry, though that’s far from a trivial problem. But Google and Facebook are, for most Americans, the chief portals to political information. The inner workings of these corporations are anything but transparent. And yes, I do believe they have the power to throw elections — and that it would be hugely naive to assume they would never use such a power for just that purpose. The idea of “separation of powers” comes from a view of human nature that I’ve yet to see disconfirmed.

16. Inactive
    Jules PA

    @JulesPA

    Post author

    5:42 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    Thanks for the upgrade Claire! BTW you aren’t paranoid.

17. Member
    Freesmith

    @

    6:34 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    Re: Claire Berlinski

    Yet another reason to oppose “Mark Zuckerberg’s personal senator,” Marco Rubio.

18. Member
    CB Toder aka Mama Toad

    @CBToderakaMamaToad

    

    6:47 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    You are right to be concerned.

    Google is constantly edging and pushing searches and search results.

    Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, had an opinion piece that ran in the NYTimes in December in which he says:

    The Internet is showing us the raw reality of the lives of oppressed people and their real needs, and it is also allowing some of their worst traits  — in the form of envy, oppression, and hate — to come into full view as well. We need strong leaders worldwide who will fight broadly for human progress…

    … We should build tools to help de-escalate tension on social media — sort of like spell-checkers, but for hate and harassment. We should target social accounts for terrorist groups like the Islamic State, and remove videos before they spread, or help those countering terrorism to find their voice. Without this type of leadership from government, from citizens, from tech companies, the Internet could become a vehicle for the further disaggregation of of poorly built societies, and the empowerment of the wrong people, and the wrong voices. [my emphases]

    This sounds like censorship to me, although he says that censorship would be bad. (“It’s our responsibility to demonstrate that stability and free expression go hand in hand”… by censoring speech that emphasizes the “wrong voices”?)

19. Member
    RightAngles

    @RightAngles

    6:48 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.: But Google and Facebook are, for most Americans, the chief portals to political information. …  And yes, I do believe they have the power to throw elections — and that it would be hugely naive to assume they would never use such a power for just that purpose.

    I’ve felt this way for some time too. I wonder what we can be doing to counteract it. We don’t have the news outlets that these people have, so even publicizing it would be difficult.

20. Member
    Chris B

    @ChrisB

    7:02 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    Susan in Seattle:I use Bing, too.

    My company is a Microsoft partner, and at one time my boss insisted that we should all change our default search engine to Bing.

    I tested with searches for exact headlines of articles, and found that it often failed to give me the article I was looking for in the first page. Google almost never failed to give me what I was looking for in the top ten results

    I then tested by searching errors from a Windows server’s logs. I copied and pasted, trying by the error source and number, and also by the description. You’d really expect Bing to shine on this one since it is a Microsoft product searching Microsoft products, but it often turned up little of relevance. Google always returned a relevant  Microsoft Technet article about the issue within the first 5 hits.

    After showing him the results, my boss now recommends Google.

    Yahoo, DogPile, and DuckDuckGo didn’t fair much better, though all three of them gave more reliable results than Bing in my semi-scientific testing.

21. Inactive
    MLH

    @MLH

    7:04 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    RightAngles:

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.: But Google and Facebook are, for most Americans, the chief portals to political information. … And yes, I do believe they have the power to throw elections — and that it would be hugely naive to assume they would never use such a power for just that purpose.

    I’ve felt this way for some time too. I wonder what we can be doing to counteract it. We don’t have the news outlets that these people have, so even publicizing it would be difficult.

    Boots on the ground: door to door canvassing? There’s a lot to be said for the personal touch.

22. Member
    RightAngles

    @RightAngles

    7:06 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    MLH:

    RightAngles:

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.: But Google and Facebook are, for most Americans, the chief portals to political information. … And yes, I do believe they have the power to throw elections —

    I’ve felt this way for some time too. I wonder what we can be doing to counteract it. We don’t have the news outlets that these people have, so even publicizing it would be difficult.

    Boots on the ground: door to door canvassing? There’s a lot to be said for the personal touch.

    What a shame that Saturday Night Live is in the other camp. Imagine the hilarious sketch they could do with this. Humor and ridicule are such fantastic weapons in the fight for hearts and minds. They could have ridiculed ISIS out of existence by now if they had the courage.

23. Member
    CB Toder aka Mama Toad

    @CBToderakaMamaToad

    

    7:09 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    I used to use goodsearch, but I think it stinks, Bing stinks. Yahoo stinks. Sorry, but google is usually better results. That is one reason I fear them — they are very very good at what they do.

24. Inactive
    Jules PA

    @JulesPA

    Post author

    7:12 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    I agree mama toad, that google gives good search results on most things.

25. Reagan
    Annegeles

    @Annegeles

    

    8:22 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    My Mac tech guy recommends Startpage.

26. Member
    Robert McReynolds

    @

    8:23 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    I Walton:Bing is great and you get an inspiring photo of the day.

    Robert McReynolds:

    kylez:“are you born transgender?” is absurd for the simple reason that a “transgender” (transsexual) is a person trying to be the sex they were not born as. i can’t imagine many millions of Americans are confused about that.

    I think this is the Left trying to make the case–much like with homosexuality–that you are born with the “transgender gene,” meaning this isn’t a condition or something that you choose, and thus solidifies the “victim” status of the individual.

    Why is calling these things birth defects so important?

    It’s important because when they claim victim status, it can’t be said that they chose to put themselves in that position. It is key to making all of these other victim groups to be as close to blacks as possible, meaning that blacks did not choose their race. That’s why it is so important.

27. Member
    MJBubba

    @

    8:43 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    We have been growing increasingly alarmed at the power of Google.   This has been discussed at Ricochet for a while.

    http://ricochet.com/archives/is-google-a-threat-to-civil-liberties/

    http://ricochet.com/archives/has-google-turned-evil/

    Specifically, regarding throwing elections, see:

    http://www.wired.com/2015/08/googles-search-algorithm-steal-presidency/

    We discussed the Wired article at Claire’s post:

    http://ricochet.com/breaking-the-information-monopoly/

    What would be the greatest way to counter this would be for Ricochet to launch its own search engine, on a secure server farm in a red state.

28. Inactive
    Hydrogia

    @Hydrogia

    8:55 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    Facebook has edited several of my political posts, it’s rigged with a vicious slant.

    Facebook has put me in touch with very

    important people, it is a joy.

29. Inactive
    Nick Stuart

    @NickStuart

    9:00 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    I’m in thrall to Adobe for graphics tools (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign), Google for my smart phone, and Microsoft for office tools (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook).

    Whenever I can go against the grain/push back against the machine (e.g. by using Bing instead of Google) I do. Going to give DuckDuckGo a try for a while though.

    I deleted my Facebook account last summer. Zuckerberg can go micturate up a rope.

30. Member
    MarciN

    @MarciN

    9:01 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2016

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.: Google and Facebook hold what amount to monopolies, and their control over the flow and distribution of information about politics is unprecedented in American history — as is their ability to microtarget that information to users based on an unprecedented amount of detailed knowledge about their concerns and preferences.

    This ability is how they make their money. They brag about and market this ability.

    Your concerns are completely justified. And the manipulation is way less obvious than it is with the print and broadcast media.