June 26, 2007

We @ thepeoplesvoice.org need your help! Anti-democratic forces have succeeded in making Google take us off its news list. It is important for web sites like ours to be listed there, so that more people will have access to alternative points of view, not just the Main Stream Media. Below you will find an extract of what we have to say about these negative forces. You will find the rest of it on our homepage. We will later post an extended article about this. As you will understand, we WILL fight back, but we do need your help to succeed in this. Please consider helping us.

Well, they're at it again. This time a gang of crazies at the Daily Kos have managed to convince Google News to remove our site. They may have had help from the extremists at 'Little Green Footballs' or 'Elder of Ziyon', two other sites that want to shut us down. They falsely accuse us of anti-Semitism when we are fiercely opposed to bigotry and racism in all it's forms. They falsely label us as holocaust deniers, but there is not one denial of the Jewish holocaust on our site. They falsly accuse us of being a hate site because we have posted a few constructive articles by writers that they want to silence. We post excellent articles by many different people and from journalists risking their lives to bring us the non-corporate truth about the Occupied Palestinian Territories. That is what we are about, giving people a voice on the net to speak out on environmental political and social justice issues. We want the writers who submit their articles to us to know that our hits have decreased only marginally and the majority of our traffic remains unaffected. Here are some of Google News's rules about content: "Although Google News doesn't proactively review articles or images for adult content, violence, or hate speech, we depend largely on user reports to identify articles containing these materials. We appreciate any feedback with regard to these types of content appearing in our News index. Contact Google News"

Unfortunately Google News isn't using terms like 'prejudice' or 'racist' speech to describe what is unacceptable to them. Those definitions have clear meanings and can not be used by special interest groups to skirt the U.S. Constitution and deny people their freedom of speech. Taking their cue from the tiny mob making all the noise, Google subscribes to the nebulous and ever-changing rules of "hate speech". Once used to label white supremist web sites, the term, "hate speech" has now expanded to include sites like thepeoplesvoice.org. Irregardless of the flimsy evidence of our so-called anti-Semitism, our accusers are actually attacking us because we are openly critical of Israel's genocidal treatment of the Palestinian people. If this kind of labeling and silencing of legitimate activist news sites continues, the term 'hate speech' could expand further to include sites that criticize the government or Bush. It is our sincere belief that a handful of people who seek to inhibit freedom of speech cannot equal the power of the majority of the people. If you like what we are doing and want more people to see the articles on our site please write a few words or a letter to Google News. Tell them that you like the site and to please put thepeoplesvoice.org back on Google News. Contact Google News