Aidan.

*... Do you think they should treat truth and lies the same...*

We are not conflating truth and lies here, with censorship.
It’s a question of morality.

Morally speaking, it’s a google owned platform which they may control in their own way, if inside the law, (whatever law that may belong to.

If Google as an enterprise, have a desire to back a certain horse in a race, why is that wrong?

The question for us becomes, what if we as an individual don’t back the same horse, what action should we take?

Dan

It's not a matter of Google or any other influencer backing whatever whatever horse they like. It's the information they present - or suppress - to internet searchers. A couple of examples:

YouTube videos on Senator Maxine Waters are all from "verified" channels like NBC, CNN, C-SPAN, PBS, MSNBC - all Left wing sources. You might find something not supporting Waters' extremism in the deep depths of you live long enough to keep looking.

There are 'blacklists' on certain subjects. This is not blacklisting in the usual sense (banning). But one side is predominant. Abortion is one such topic. After a SINGLE Leftist, pro-abortion journalist made a fuss about anti-abortion entries, entries are now principally pro-abortion. There might be anti entries, but few people would have the patience to keep looking.

An organisation controlling 92% of the internet, with no oversight, is controlling what sort of information is presented.

True. But Murdoch press were very quick to change horses mid race and join the church choir with anti-Trump dialogue .

Nothing can be trusted. That is the world in which we live.
And ever increasingly, nobody will be trusted, politicians downward.
So what is different with google?

The world is awash with polished liars. And liars seed the lie with some truth for effect.
Since google hold the monopoly over access to both, that puts google In a leading position to distort truth.

But isn’t that the ageless Philosophical question: What is truth?

And today, over on another thread, poor old Al B bangs away blindly down the wrong burrow searching for truth and honesty in Biden. Those sort of misguided poor souls are fooled with a lie.
But then there is us. We are astute enough to recognise the baits laid in discreet places like google. And there is the answer.
Buyer beware!

Dan

Pretty good summary Dan.

Yes Google does seem to be the most dangerous tech company on the planet.

Hollywood is also pretty dangerous.

Trump should have done more to constrain them.

It's going to be a pretty dangerous world.

Thanks ttbn for the thread and Diver Dan for the comments.