Google excluded major conservative and alt-media outlets from its search results for hours, hiding hits for sites like Breitbart and RedState even in searches for the outlets' names - only to mysteriously revert to normal later.
Conservative sites were in a panic Tuesday morning, reporting they seemed to have been blacklisted from Google. Articles and pages published by PJ Media, Daily Caller, The Blaze, and many other sites were absent even from searches for the publication name, replaced by links to Wikipedia and other sites talking about the outlet in question - usually negatively.
Just noticed Google has removed several conservative websites from search results (at least on my end, in the UK). RedState, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Human Events, and more - all like this for pages of results pic.twitter.com/v2PHFgZ3zY
— Charlie Nash (@CharlieNash) July 21, 2020
While most of the affected sites hailed from the right side of the political spectrum, leftist sites whose views don’t conform to prevailing orthodoxy also appeared to fall victim to the purge. Mediaite’s Charlie Nash posted a screenshot of a Google search for “MintPress News” that included no hits from the left-leaning antiwar outlet, while another commenter noted Occupy Democrats was MIA.
Websites providing a left-wing perspective are also affected. MintPress News has a small link in the Wiki info bubble, but no links to the website (or any of its articles) in 8 pages of search results pic.twitter.com/KtMHbYwCbo
— Charlie Nash (@CharlieNash) July 21, 2020
Looks to be a test in how they represent alternative news sources in their organic results -- the same is happening for extreme left websites. pic.twitter.com/gctoMPGSTD
— Cori Graft