...how far does "propaganda and misinformation" go? Political parties also put out propaganda and misinformation, as do businesses and individuals.

But what if someone, somehow, through some extraordinary bit of research, does find evidence contradicting a widely supported claim? Not the soviet famine claim, but e.g. David Glantz did research and found that the early years of the USSR's involvement in World War II had been substantially misrepresented due to the USSR censoring many of those records to save face. Prior to his publication of that work, it was the "truth" that the USSR launched no major offensives until 1942-3. After the publication of that work, that was no longer the "truth" (the USSR had in fact launched many offensives and then purged them from the historical record in order to appear infallible).

Sure, new historical discoveries (based on evidence!) deserve to be published.

But do you believe Google should keep search results that deny the Holocaust? I personally see no value in that trash and if I was Google, I'd blacklist that stuff too.

Whoah whoah whoah, how is marketing different than propoganda?

Your examples are cherry-picked UGC from Reddit (not a good brush to tar any viewpoint with).

Are there specific WSWS examples, or is the the concept of advocating socialism which is false to you?

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist."

Ironic because Socialist forums are heavily moderated and quickly ban those who don't repeat the talking points. They hate having their ideas challenged, but get mad that a public company won't give them web traffic? Cry me a river.

>Ironic because Socialist forums are heavily moderated

I'm a member of at least one such forum which isn't heavily moderated.

>and quickly ban those who don't repeat the talking points

The forum I use prides itself on allowing such discussion.

>They hate having their ideas challenged

I love having my ideas challenged, and I love arguing, who are you constructing a straw man of?

Give some examples if you're going to name names.

did this website do this?

Who determines what is misinformation?

A private company with no oversight, obviously.

> A private company with no oversight, obviously.

Would you prefer a state/government entity? Or a political organization? Because god knows that socialist regimes are so hell-bent on promoting truth and impartial reports on inconvenient facts.

No oversight whatsoever... none... obviously.

And really, would you seriously prefer the government to set search rankings? Because they have no conflict of interest either, right?

It's almost like "truth" isn't an absolute thing, but an ongoing discussion... which has become fractured!

And yet there are observable and objective facts. Water freezes at 32 degrees. The sky is blue. Grass is green.

When a source repeatedly tells you not to believe your own eyes, but offers no valid counter-argument--you should be suspicious. I'm fine with Google/Facebook or whoever filtering out known dishonest and inaccurate websites, whether they are intentionally malicious or just ignorant.

So WSWS is a known dishonest and/or inaccurate website?

WSWS? Oh yeah. It's an extreme left site that makes no attempt at any objectivity.

I hate to have to ask again. Lack of objectivity isn't dishonest or inaccurate.

ob·jec·tive (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.

So is WSWS a dishonest and/or inaccurate website?

If you notice, they seemed to be flagged for neutral historical search queries. Things like "Russian Revolution". Someone reading it would get a viewpoint that is not supported by mainstream historians. So yes, dishonest.

Do you have any proof that the content they host is dishonest? I'm seriously asking.

EDIT This page doesn't seem dishonest: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/07/twrr-a07.html Are you saying Google has examined the historical accuracy of this page and found it lacking?

The first line in their chronology uses terms like 'bourgeois' - a loaded term that is exclusively used by Communists and Marxists. I wouldn't trust it as a source for a middle school essay.

I'm sorry you don't see why an ideological advocacy organization would be de-prioritized for neutral search queries by a search engine. If you don't get it, I cannot bridge that gap for you. A Marxist perspective on the Russian Revolution is interesting and there's value to it but it has to be rooted in that context, otherwise it's just dishonest.

Up on the top of this mountain my water freezes at 31 degrees! You are a liar and propagandist.

> When a source repeatedly tells you not to believe your own eyes, but offers no valid counter-argument--you should be suspicious

Who put Google in charge of determining what is true and what is fakenews? And how are you entirely comfortable with that?

Would not it be better to explain why something is a propaganda and what is its purpose rather than block it?

This is ironic, right?

so much reductionism, there isn't one left. there're factions and they do have different opinions on the previous political projects.

Sorry, but the tankies who think nothing bad has ever been done in the name of communism are just as foolish as the InfoWars junkies screaming about chem-trails.

Do you have evidence that this website in question is a "tankie" website? Or does it offer a different viewpoint, or a range of viewpoints?

you want them to block what you think is misinformation, but what they paint as misinformation might be very different.

>From my experience, socialist websites and forums tend to ignore, rewrite, or white wash the history of communism in Russia/USSR

Your experience is irrelevant, because we're talking about a particular case, not a hypothetical website. Do you have evidence that your experience applies in this particular case, or are you just generalising? For a user named after a philosopher, you don't seem to be very keen to apply logic in this circumstance, perhaps because of bias or bad prior experience.

Not to mention you're grouping in several tendencies and ideologies and opinions within a very broad movement that's lasted 200 years to date in your criticism, which is at best inaccurate and at worst disingenuous.

>Your experience is irrelevant, because we're talking about a particular case, not a hypothetical website.

It's also true in this case. WSWS is a political and a ideological advocacy site with a non-mainstream interpretation of world history. If you want an objective view of the Russian Revolution, this is not the site you would go to - so I have no issues with Google tuning their search engine to suppress them in the search results for those kinds of queries.

>WSWS is a political and a ideological advocacy site

I'm always a little amused when people use "ideology" in this way. Marx said that ideology promotes "false consciousness" about political power structures; by this measure, that which exposes false consciousness is anti-ideological. So by this measure, WSWS is non-ideological.

On the other hand, Zizek claims that for someone to actually be captured by ideology, the ideology must be first presented to them as non-ideological. Can you see the conundrum? Ideology isn't an illusion, rather, to be rid of ideology may be to put on the glasses rather than take them off, to use Zizek's example in the film They Live.

>with a non-mainstream interpretation of world history

Perhaps it is the mainstream that is ideological, because it's true ideology that holds the most power!

>So by this measure, WSWS is non-ideological.

And by every other (sane) measure, Socialism, Communism, Marxism are regular ideologies.

>Perhaps it is the mainstream that is ideological, because it's true ideology that holds the most power!

Playing with language is fun, I agree.