« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

Tech at Night: Google, Christian Coalition, Net Neutrality, Glenn Beck

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 27th, 2010 at 11:30 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Tech at Night

Here we go again. Carol Greenberg, also known as RedState diarist LadyImpactOhio, has begun her charge to peel off another ally from the neo-Marxist group Free Press and its Net Neutrality front group Save the Internet. She’s going after the Christian Coalition now. Amusingly enough they tried to defend themselves by telling her that the Gun Owners of America were an ally of Save the Internet, when Greenberg herself got the GOA to flip on that issue.

Individual activists can make a difference.

Google got embarrassed tonight, as left-wing activists manipulated their service to try to inconvenience possible attendees of a Glenn Beck rally. The rally is set to take place at the Lincoln Memorial, but as Caleb Howe already pointed out today at RedState, any search on Google Maps for the Lincoln Memorial would return the locations of and directions to the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial. Further, searches for the Lincoln Memorial on the main search site would return as a top hit… the Google Maps entry for the Roosevelt Memorial.

At first I thought it was just a terrible error on their part but as it turns out, this wasn’t just an error. As Google has allowed in the past with Blogger and YouTube, the site’s services are wide open to malicious reporting by coordinated activists to attack the political right. RedState commenter charlienosurf found that the Google Maps data for the Lincoln Memorial had been recently edited by the Google-using public specifically to direct people to the Roosevelt Memorial.

This is still a huge failure, but not of the kind I first thought. Google consistently allows this sort of thing to happen. Conservatives can be mark ed as spammers on Blogger, can have their videos temporarily (right when traffic is highest) taken down on YouTube, and now our events can be manipulated on Google Maps (integrated in other services as well, such as the iPhone).

For conservatives to trust this firm, much more work must be done.

Final factoid for the night: Cell phone plans have come down in price about 50% since 1999. Since when do we need heightened regulation?

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • 6eorge Jetson

    From Geographic Travels

    Strangely though Google Maps did know where the memorial was before and the “Report a problem” link has without a doubt been used a vast multitude of times since last night yet the error remains. Hopefully this misplacement is a technical glitch or a rouge cartographer playing petty games.

    What is shown and what is not shown in maps reflect the biases of the cartographers. Google is such a power player in geography today that I hope it can keep itself neutral. If Google Maps data cannot be respected (or if one can legitimately cry manipulation) the online expansion of geography can suffer a massive blow.

    I certainly don’t trust Google.

  • http://wadingacross.wordpress.com logus

    since they became the big dog in the internet search field.

    Who to go to? Bing? Yahoo? Other?

    Yippy???

    That is pathetic that Google Maps, Youtube and other such services can be so easily manipulated. This isn’t supposed to be Wikipedia!

    Couldn’t that be deemed illegal in some way? Seeking to purposefully misdirect.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    I think not. :)

  • http://wadingacross.wordpress.com logus

    -

  • ywhyvon1

    I don’t google, I don’t use google search in tool bars or on other sites I don’t click on google ads.

    if we don’t do any of those things we take the Turf outta google’s Surf.

    Simple

  • kmacwayne

    While I still have the right to choose – I choose anything but Google.
    They have proven to me over and over who’s bed their laying in.
    All the way back to the stimulus and the billions provided for Electronic Medical Data reporting.
    This is an example of just how desperate the left has become and just how sophomoric they are. I just wish I knew how to convey the hijacking of the Democratic Party to the dyed in the wool Dems I go to church with, my neighbors, etc…

  • mitchsf

    Bing, and I have no regrets. Search results are similar. No regrets, just enthusiasm.

  • http://www.redstate.com/etcartman Kenny Solomon

    AP story via Andrew Breitbart’s website.

    Microsoft Corp. co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen is suing nearly a dozen major companies, including tech giants Google Inc. and Apple Inc., alleging they infringed on four Web technology patents held by his company Interval Licensing LLC.

    http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9HS4BS00

    In addition to Google and Apple, the defendants named in the suit are: Facebook Inc., eBay Inc., Yahoo Inc., Netflix Inc., AOL Inc., Office Depot Inc., OfficeMax Inc., Staples Inc. and Google-owned YouTube LLC.

    ==============

    Mr. Allen, I’m behind ya all the way on anything that can whack Google legally…… Just please lay off the NASCAR sponsor (Office Depot)…… My rednecks need all the kaysh to keep flowin’ inwards.

    ;)

  • ywhyvon1

    After the post on Redstate about EPA (supposedly) banning lead ammo and I didn’t see you pop up with a comment-I Got Sceared!!!

  • http://www.redstate.com/etcartman Kenny Solomon

    I posted about it on the Morning Briefing thread much earlier in the day.

    Only one person saw it and/or cared then.

    ——–

    Apparently the ban deal has been canceled anyway ( I don’t believe that for a second).

    http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Federal/Read.aspx?id=6010

    Agreeing with the position of the NRA and the firearms industry, the agency explained in a news release that it ?does not have the legal authority to regulate this type of product under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).? Further crushing the hopes of anti-gun and anti-hunting activists, the release added: ?nor is the agency seeking such authority.?

    Let me spell it out quite clearly:

    B U L L C R A P

    Legal authority means nothing to the administration.

    Neither does the TSCA unless it furthers the agenda.

    The EPA isn’t seeking the authority – It’s being handed to them by Sunstein and Obama as a task.

    But have no fear?. an exec. order is on the way….. I can feel it in my gut.

  • bigredone

    Norton Security allows me to search.

    I quit using Google about a month ago. They are too ‘blue’ for me.

    My brother uses Bing. Anything will work. Just say NO to Eric Schmidt and his Obaminions.

  • Michael Dugas

    Heck I vacuum packed an “un-told” quantity of the stuff my self.
    I’m not much for worrying but this administration has me worried.

  • http://www.veronicaestrada.com Veronica

    She not only brought out these big guns, she’s given us a model of what works: research and exposure.

    This also tells us that the public is more aware — and conservative groups know the public is more aware — of who the more sinister socialist-commie orgs are out there.

    This is fantastic news, considering Carol’s repeated spoken about how key Repub orgs igrnore the information she’s sent their way.

    Yep, we’ve got a model — dig and expose, dig and expose.

    Keep it light on the side, but research.

    Her fantastic 8/17 GOA post is here.

    The Hill followed up here on 8/23.

    Big Government covered it here here on 8/23.

    Per Carol’s tweets Christian Coalition is one group that is still on the bandwagon.

    Christian Coalition, w/ 25K followers, spoke out against Beck saying Net Neutrality is not some Marxist plot.

    They took their pro-net neutrality stace before the FCC last December:

    “The Christian Coalition does not seek burdensome regulations. We generally believe that less government is better than more government. We support a free market of ideas and commerce on the Internet. However, at this time, we need very limited rules of the road to protect the new public cyberspace.”

    Other groups that need to be taken down are:

    National Religious Broadcasters
    Parents Television Council

    And while Beck is hot,esp w/ the Honor Rally, now would be the time to strike.

    I think it’s extraordinary that the Christian Coalition wrote an entire defense against Glenn Beck. This tells me that they’re probably against him b/c he’s Mormon, using the same, lame anti-Mitt Rmmney thinking that leads them to support .. BARACK OBAMA!

    Nothing that comes out of his camp is good for America. I’m surprised they don’t know this.

    It’s like they hate Beck more than they love America. Pathetic.

    Back to Carol!!!

    Extraordinary work — again, this is a model for all of us who feel useless, as though they’re running in circles covering the same spiel (like me).

    Adding her to my list of heroines!

  • Richard Mullins

    There is nothing good about the Government regulating speech on the Internet because the next thing is much worse. If NN is implemented, what would happen to things that the Government doesn’t like, such references to the bible and other things? What would happen to those people if the violated a government edict of staying neutral? There a lot of questions out there and being against one person that happens to be on the anti-NN camp like Glenn Beck isn’t helpful. Carol, David Horowitz and few others are helping us combat the left’s tactics.

  • ywhyvon1

    I usually read through all the posts I find a couple times a day.
    It seems I’m turning into an addict and must now actively limit myself:)

  • qixlqatl

    the withdrawals were terrible when I went back to work full time and couldn’t spend all day reading every bit of commentary here ;)

    Work is slowing back down now, so I can indulge my addiction again…

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Well my Wednesday rant was well timed then. :)

  • http://www.redstate.com/etcartman Kenny Solomon

    :)

    Don’t you just love when an unplanned plan comes together ?

  • arnoldmagnet

    If you want an unregulated internet, then tell AT&T and Verizon that they can’t (1) Get billions in universal service subsidies, and (2) Can’t run their wires, and erect their poles, on government-owned land for free, and (3) have to pay market rates for spectrum.

    If those 3 conditions were true, maybe there’d be more competition and thus less call for regulation.

    Since those 3 conditions will never come true, we need net neutrality, or some sort of line-sharing, to keep these corporate welfare cases from profiting too handsomely from the communications laws they themselves have written.

    In the meantime, there’s a lot of misinformation in this thread. Net neutrality has nothing to do with the government getting involved in content–it tells ISPs that they can’t block certain websites or services. Reasonable people might disagree about this issue, but it’s not government control of content in the manner of the fairness doctrine.

  • http://www.redstate.com/etcartman Kenny Solomon

    I wouldn’t know where to begin.

    Y’all handle our four-day wonder, o-tay, ‘Panky ?

  • ladyimpactohio

    I’ll continue to rout out these Marxists and lefties to the best of my abilities.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • arnoldmagnet

    Do you not agree that the very companies who argue against government involvement in column A, advocate quite strongly for it in column B?

    I’m fine with the position that new government involvement is always wrong, even if it is trying to remedy past government involvement. This is consistent, but leaves you with the status quo, favoring incumbents.

    I’m not fine with the position that the telcos and cable companies are paragons of capitalism, and owe their existence to their competitive merits as opposed to their lobbying prowess. All the companies with Baby Bell or cable components trace their dominance to government-granted monopolies.

    I take the position that, while getting rid of bad regulation might be the best approach, realistically the way forward is to try to counter it with good regulation. So while I’d much rather get the state out of the picture entirely, since that simply won’t happen, let’s do what we can to prevent the current dominant firms from taking rents from their complements.

    Spectrum is the clearest example. If you could have a free market in spectrum (which is enormously more complicated than some commenters think), it’s highly unlikely (I wildly guess, there’s no way to know for certain) that wireless broadband would be such a concentrated market.

    AT&T and Verizon right now are the loudest opponents of ANY plans that would just so happen to make it easier for the T-Mobiles of the world to compete. Of course, they couch their arguments in terms of “public safety.” They are state-loving entities that do whatever is in their power to have the government protect them from competition, and my reflex view is if they hate something it can’t be all bad.

    Red State should be against corporate welfare, not realistic attempts to ameliorate it.