We’ve heard now about Google’s plan of building a censored search engine for China. But we’ve not heard about how many censored search engines it may have already built.

I was attempting to determine the exact distances between Tel Aviv and Gaza City, and then from Gaza Center to Jerusalem. I’m currently living in Mexico, so the response I received was in Spanish:

“Lamentablemente, no pudimos calcular cómo llegar de “Gaza City Centre, فكتورهوجو، gaza strip” a “Jerusalén, Israel” .”

Easily translated as: Lamentably, or, Unfortunately, we are not able to calculate how far it is from Gaza City in Gaza Strip to Jerusalem, Israel.

this might be a google mexico issue. but that seems highly improbably. and even if it were strangely so… it raises the issue of how much google is tailoring it’s searches to various nations, like it’s been reported doing for china. i’m not suggesting that mexico has requested this sort of censorship, but it could well be a place where Google is testing it’s censorship algorithms…. who would bother to look at mexico? far more importantly, it raises the question of how extensive is Google’s censorship on a global scale? I would not be surprised to learn that they are involved in censorship on a massive geopolitical scale… yet to be determined. particularly after net neutrality was killed by the trump administration.

[does anyone remember the moment when Google was sued for scanning every book on the planet in order to be able charge of access to it? no? Google. at that tome commented, well, fuck you. we’re doing it. and there was never any challenge to them. so know what was formerly knowledge in the public domain, available for free, has now been hoovered up by google and privatized behind a pay wall. just as ALL images have been similarly privatized by getty and microsoft. so, who gives a shit about the exploitation of humans anywhere around the world?]

okay… so in the meantime, my test of google maps search has been tested again, by a highly techno-savvy source in the US. who responded:

and there is of course the question: why would Israel want to suppress such information? the answer is not difficult to find: the distances between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem or Gaza City are less than an hour drive. So the Palestine-Israel conflict, to put that 60 year old war in banal terms, is like Boston declaring war and then occupying, and then, fencing off Providence, Rhode Island. and then cutting off their water, electricity, food, trade, free transit in and out of the city, quality of life, and in general, all the human rights ‘guaranteed’ by a democratic government.  And then using snipers to kill the residents of Providence for protesting against being forced into such an open air prison camp. The problem with my Providence analogy is that the population of Providence is 180,000; while that of Gaza is 32 million people. Though, the numbers should not matter. one death is as egregious as 5000.

see:

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/10/19/btselems_hagai_el_ad_calls_for