Imagine if humans weren't born with biological mouths, instead synthetic mouths were invented and sold by a company, allowing people to speak. We wouldn't accept the company installing a blacklist of words or phrases to stop people from saying them.
The internet is making online discourse more and more important, perhaps online discourse is already more important than oral discourse.
My metaphor obviously differs in some regards to the article, but I think it elucidates my main point, that Google has become sufficiently large and important that we can't really excuse this type of censorship on the basis that they are a private company.
For example the list clearly shows that Google is pro-choice, with phrases such as "abortion is wrong" appearing on the blacklist. This is not up to Google to decide for others. If Google, or its employees, want to voice their perspective, that is fine. It is not fine to try to manipulate people through their software while pretending to be a neutral party.
The internet is making online discourse more and more important, perhaps online discourse is already more important than oral discourse.
My metaphor obviously differs in some regards to the article, but I think it elucidates my main point, that Google has become sufficiently large and important that we can't really excuse this type of censorship on the basis that they are a private company.
For example the list clearly shows that Google is pro-choice, with phrases such as "abortion is wrong" appearing on the blacklist. This is not up to Google to decide for others. If Google, or its employees, want to voice their perspective, that is fine. It is not fine to try to manipulate people through their software while pretending to be a neutral party.