Andrew Orlowski

Collected Journalism

Tag: googlewashing

  • Google abandons Search

    Google abandons Search

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    It’s hard to explain to people new to the web since 2004 – the Digg kids – the effect that Google had on the internet at the turn of the decade. They can’t conceive the Before and the After. Google was miraculous, and so much better than the competition that they effectively gave up trying…

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  • Google cranks up the Consensus Engine

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It’s a historic statement – and nobody has yet grasped its significance. Not so very long ago, Google disclaimed responsibility for its search results by explaining that these were chosen by a computer algorithm. The disclaimer lives on…

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  • Google Health offers reputation massage

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    “Fire the publicist. Go off message. Let all your employees blab and blog!” fantasised the writer Clive Thompson in a recent WiReD magazine cover story. “The name of this new game is RADICAL TRANSPARENCY, and it’s sweeping boardrooms across the nation,” burbled the mag. But the perils of allowing employees to “blab and blog!” were…

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  • Anti-war slogan coined, repurposed and Googlewashed … in 42 days

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    In early 2003, the phrase “Second Superpower” became a popular way to refer to the street protests against the imminent invasion of Iraq. The metaphor had been used by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and on the cover of The Nation magazine. A small number of techno utopian webloggers hijacked the phrase. The narrower sense…

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  • Anti-war slogan coined, repurposed and Googlewashed … in 42 days

    by

    Andrew Orlowski

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    This year marks the 100th anniversary of George Orwell’s birth, and the writer who best explained the power of language on politics would be amazed what can be done with the Internet. On February 17 [2003] a front page news analysis in the New York Times bylined by Patrick Tyler described the global anti-war protests…

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