Google News has come under fire in England from anti-fascists organizations for picking up a news article published by far-right “Nazi” and “openly racist” British National Party (BNP), reports Times Online.
A leader of the party is currently in court on race-hate charges after a BBC undercover report outed him. The BNP’s story about the rape and murder of a young girl by a gang is high on the list of Google News Google+Search&sa=N&tab=wn” class=”bluelink”>search results, outranking Reuters and BBC.
One of the chief critics of Google News is Sabby Dhalu, joint secretary of Unite Against Fascism (UAF), who says being picked up on the site lends credence to the party.
“The BNP is an openly racist organisation. Through Google using the BNP as a supposedly legitimate news source it legitimises the party. It should not be treated as a legitimate organisation in this way,” said Dhalu.
After reporting the details of the tragedy, the BNP story takes an abrupt right turn, criticizing the BBC for not mentioning the ethnic background of the assailants in its report.
“the BBC, which is normally so quick off the mark to label a crime as “racist” when the victim is Black and the perpetrators are White are, apparently having trouble finding this word in their corporate mindbenders dictionary!” reads the article.
That the BNP represents neo-Nazi sentiments is widely accepted in Britain. Times Onlines’ Rhys Blakely reports that the Standards Board for England ruled the party could be described as a “Nazi” organization.
Though Google asserts that all material is algorithmically chosen by computers and denies their ability to screen everything that comes through their index, the search company has admitted in the past that some human selection is utilized. For example satirical websites are tagged as such so spoof articles won’t appear along side CNN articles.
A Google spokesman told Times Online that if the company is notified by authorities of illegal content in their index, then the webpages in question would be removed. Google has maintained in the past that it generally takes a hands-off approach to the material returned in search results.
For an in depth discussion about potential search engine bias, click here.
Email the author here.
Drag this 
Add to document.write(“Del.icio.us”) | DiggThis | Yahoo My Web
