join me every thursday on the alec simon show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics small business i'm show business i'll see that. i'm holland in washington this is the big picture on our t.v. america. google has become of verb it's internet search tool is that commonplace in our everyday lives like kleenex and scotch tape it's become a generic term google's corporate mission statement is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful which google says it

accomplishes by considering many factors including the words in your question the content of pages the expertise of sources and your language and location recently we introduce you to activist merriam had 9 who spoke of google manipulating search results at the expense of alternative health information and while google's parent company itself has pharmaceutical subsidiaries if you missed that show you can find it where you'll find all our shows at youtube dot com slash the big picture r.t. and merriam introduced us to a former google software engineer who says there are other ingredients in the secret sauce they were intending to sculpt the information landscape so that they could create their own version of what was objective lee true that for he's worked at google for 11 years he was a senior software engineer until he discovered what he called. so there are 2

official intelligence censorship weapons sack welcome to the big picture. good to be on here thank you for having me on when the search and social media go lie at cirque used of putting their thumb on the scale the standard defenses the algorithms make the call tell us what else factors into results when we search. so it turns out that google is using an army of employees to rate and rank the entire internet and a person website place or thing are ranked according to their expertise authoritativeness and trustworthy score this eat score is actually derived by what we can p.v. has to say about the website person or topic and from those from that score the pages assigned a secret page rank score and then that is used to calibrate the search algorithms

and rank pretty much the entire internet well that scares me right away because when you say wiki pedia everything i've ever seen on wikipedia i always make efforts to confirm elsewhere so they're starting out on shaky ground aren't they. yeah i mean we competed has been politicized and it's been vandalized over and over and over again and more recently in the last quick 4 years there's been a lockdown installed a many many articles of political nature on wikipedia and you know if it's no longer an open system then the question is who have who has access to the system and do they have you know the truth and honesty and integrity. you know in mind when they're editing articles are they really just trying to score political points something else it always comes up when the internet royalty or dragged before.

congress is google platform or is it a publisher. right well you know section 230 of the communications decency act carved out liability protections as long as the. big tech companies didn't. censor political content and now it appears that everything that is passing through their platform is now rearing to according to a political agenda and so the question is should those companies still maintain their liability shield or are they violating the spirit of you know section 230 of the communications decency act well they're trying to sway a lot of other people. right they're trying to have the protections of a platform yet act with the discretion of the publisher yeah merriam her name told us how google down plays alternative health information give us some examples of who and what else you have seen deemphasized in google search.

well one of the largest alternative health public publishers which is dr mercola has seen his organic search traffic to his page pretty much collapse down to less than one percent of what it was before and you see you know this happened also with self hacked and these other. companies that are involved in disseminating information about health they've seen all the organic traffic just really collapse and the question that you know we should be asking ourselves is you know should just this one company be able to decide that entire segment of the economy should just essentially end and you know you see this with you know right now it's a war against alternative health. it's also a war against anyone that has any vaccine has it in c. and also. you know climate scientists that you know assert that global warming is

a sun driven phenomenon are seeing their you know publications being hit with something called news guard which intercepts sort of like the the searches that people are doing on you tube and injecting a statement of you know this this is controversial and it's probably not show it's almost like a nutritional label for and so this is this is really quickly you know seeping into regular in searches what about politics for all the talk that donald trump benefited from this information in social media hasn't he actually suffered from google search. yes absolutely and the thing is that a lot of it starts in google news articles that come in at 4 am in the morning. train the machine learning algorithms in order to match keywords that people are

going to be searching for politics that date to the certain articles that exist and so for example you know what i was able to see as a full time employee is that i was able to you know search for. kids in cages and or you know immigration issues and it was going and what was happening is that google search was rerouting me to articles by c.n.n. and m.s.n. b c and these really these established media players that were in real time changing and redirecting my searches to land in these what i consider propaganda articles and you know this just this doesn't just happen on on you know a particular instance it happens pretty much every single day when people go and search your own story is a chilling tale tell us what happened when you went public with the project a veritable. yes. well i 1st you know went anonymously public so i was

under a veil of secrecy and about whom identity was but then after that disclosure i decided that after some harassment by google that i was just going to go public with everything and right before i did google red flagged me with the local police of san francisco and they did a wellness check at my location. i decided that i was going to answer the door and then escalated they used a flimsy excuse to say that i had a bomb threat in my house and shut down the streets on the lunts here from 20th to valencia all the way to 22nd of evacuating my neighbors the stores in the theater around the street i've actually came out of my house with my hands up with guns pointed at me surrendered to police so that they could give me a 6 part question here about whether i had suicidal thoughts did you ever fear for your life when google and the cops came after you and do you now. you know i

really did i was scared that you know accepting a lot of accidents happened in the past and so after realizing that the cops were not going to leave my house. i started to worry that they would come into my house and. something bad may happen because you don't know what's going to happen so i figured that hey if they're going to confront me that i might as well come out with this much public attention is possible and so when i came out of my house i realized that everyone had cameras that were directed at me and so if there was going to be any funny business then let it appear on 20 different cameras in broad daylight rather than inside of my house where the only cameras that could be working may be the body cams and maybe they might have a sudden malfunction function ok is that there's lots more to google than search and we have heard about the mails being skin. and the google chrome browser tracing

our steps what is the true cost of these free services and do you recommend against using anything google. where you know we have a saying in silicon valley which is if the product is free you are the product and so really google's entire platform is based upon surveillance of your data and then bundling that up and selling your habits online to various intelligence agencies around the world and so the question is whether google spying on you is you know is invalid that their entire business model is to spy on you of course they're spying on you and for people that are looking to sort of detox from all the surveillance capitalism that's secretly been employed i really recommend that they move away from g. mail on to something like proton mail move away from something like chrome browser or firefox and move to what i use which is the brave browser which is based on the

open source version of the chrome browser but with all of the spying you know services being ripped out by a really smart programmer and we can find that brave browser if we google it. yeah or dot dot go or use the start page search engine to find it has shut the government regulate or break up companies like google and facebook and twitter the 1st amendment is a slippery slope. you know i've been thinking a lot about this google has you know in its possession extremely advanced and artificial intelligence i think that some artificial intelligence needs to be regulated by i don't think that google as a whole needs to be regulated i think that it does need to be broken up. you tube should not be under the corporate control of google because. google just can't keep

its hands out of the you know honeypot we've seen them try to hack culture hack politics and for them to be able to use their influence to you know hide searches and decide what the public gets to see on its various services needs to be looked at scrutinized and and broken off from the main company so that for he is thank you for joining us and for your conscience and for speaking out. there's lots more in the big picture after this short break i'm holland cook in washington you're watching r.t. america. and

that's. not. her interest up her i know. that. i know. dear you were thank you for finally changing the change your i understand you're tired of networks that were new with you you were turning her. 'd into them. as they are. no matter what. you know me

'd i'm famous for my views. and let me. yours truly scottie 'd nell hughes. a dark industry comes to life in los angeles every night. dozens of women sells their bodies on the streets many of them under-age. los angeles police reveal a taste of their daily challenge no if you're going to exploit a child here in los angeles there we're going to come out to see officers going undercover as 6 workers and customers to fight the 6 trades. as the democrats gear up to officially start their 2020 presidential primary it is fitting to assess donald trump's performance in office a report card of sorts where is he kept his promises and where has he come up short will any of this really matter in november.

go since. a little bit messed up by our d.n.a. in some way over look really i'm not sure it is such a quick thing you know i'm sure you look better now than when he had hair come on it's nice of you to say so but i went home when i was 25 animals and so create them . when the new york times said a dollar a week i said sold my digital subscription does not include the times crossword puzzle for which they charge more but i can read and search the times on my i phone i pad on my computer which is where increasingly we get our news so you can imagine the fuss within usa today when the poynter institute reported that knowledgeable sources said the nation's newspaper could seize publishing its print edition

publisher méribel perot's wadsworth quickly responded that can and has no plans to discontinue the print edition of usa today which remains an important part of our business and with going to its merger with gatehouse media looming she said we believe the combination of our 2 companies will transform the landscape in the print and digital news business the associated press estimates that more than 1400 american cities and towns have lost newspapers in just the past 15 years and cities as big as pittsburgh have no 7 days a week print edition are hard copy newspaper is merely obsolete or headed for extinction let's ask digital disruptor nagel news editor of go local proverb dot com a local digital news publication making waves in the ocean state rhode island kate welcome. and thanks for having me i recently learned from coverage that you put out

that the once proud providence journal has asked for an exemption from the state's time and a half overtime requirement and the teamsters there accused the company of creating what they call a part time work force with no vacation pay kate as cutbacks have whacked the journal in recent years how are their numbers their circulation and how are your clicks. so i think a case in point with what's happening with the teamsters and the department of labor training here as just a proof point that the model doesn't work you know in 2019 does it really make sense to have barrels of and slabs of paper going through machines that have to be cut that have to be sorted that have to get put on trucks that have to be driven around and dropped off. you know the once proud providence journal had a weekday circulation of 200000 that's down to about 30000 we spoke with the

teamsters holland one of the things that they make the case for which we certainly agree with them they have an antiquated provision here holland that they are the paper of record that legal notices from cities and towns have to spend money on now they question why are you the paper of record if you're 30000 and why then if you're getting the subsidy from these localities can't you pay that over time to your workers again i think the proof is in the putting and could your platform be deemed to paper of record. you know i'll tell you. a monthly basis we get 700000 unique visitors now holland you know there are around market of about a 1000000 residents about 800000 of them would be considered the reading audience if you will year over year revenue has gone up 50 percent year over year holland 43 percent in our readership and clearly obviously the ability to geo target is

something that we have from a digital standpoint that paper certainly don't very cool know how the revenue is there less advertising and the problem is journal and beauty competitor for those ad dollars have you seen the journal's rates take a hit how tough has it been for you to compete for that business without a tangible print product. so you know give you a cab and the news editor at. i am on that side of the aisle on the sales side but going on our say we do have the top advertisers and the market more and alpert medical school at brown university the airport you know from emerging technology companies green technology we have pound for pound the best advertisers i think here in the market they see the value they know where the eyes are you know both from a deliverable standpoint when you can show them but just from an anecdotal standpoint knowing that we break the biggest stories and that's again where the eyes are holland digital you more nimble than print when it comes to your side of the

building the content and content can date before the ink dries and i've often seen you scoop at the journal but what legacy broadsheets half of the digital ops starts don't is momentum because as you said you know for decades the pro joe has been a trusted source talk about the way you are using facebook and twitter to bring our eyes and ears to go local prov dot com. so you talk about the momentum holland i mean let's just take a little step back back and go local started in 2010 i joined in 2013 but back in 10 the providence journal had 150 reporters in its newsroom that number holland is hovering around 15. so they struggle yeah it's a precipitous loss it's clearly visible you know yet heard you talking at a prior segment about the role of digital in the i phone that's exactly why the

local had been started by the local founder josh benson knowing that the media landscape was going to change just drastically with the advent of the i phone and that clearly has now again that geo targeting ability to push stories out to stories out quickly virally we have hundreds of thousands now i gave you that number of unique visitors but. media contacts both within the market and southern new england as well so you get a good story holland it's not unique just or an island it moves around the country it moves around the world sure that speed of light that again a print operation just can't match news editor go local proverb dot com thank you for joining us from providence thanks for having me. now let's welcome back georgetown university professor chris chambers chris i know what kate and her team are up to because i live in rhode island but how common is what they're doing there

this digital pure play news platform how common is that elsewhere. it's pretty common harlan i mean so so much so that the legacy newspapers are trying to copy it on their own but but you are seeing these new outfits basically disrupting the local legacy daily sadly they're also also disrupting the local legacy print neighborhood papers which have taken up a lot of slack from the the the legacy big dailies the cover neighborhood. school and crime sorts of of things that the legacy papers have moved on from in order to be more sexy and to be more global so you know there's a good and bad in all of this but i think it's is something so common that the big legacy dailies are trying to copy it and i wouldn't be surprised if you're going to see the kind of the pushback to try to take over the up starts that are that are

that are pushing them back so it's going to be very interesting in the next 5 years well here in d.c. we recently mourn the passing of washington express that free weekday tabloid the washington post stuffed into boxes all over town especially near metro subway and bus stops there good natured cover story that they said hope you enjoy your stink and phones and editor dan pack of our own news that when we launched in 2003 there was no such thing as an i phone into that environment came expressed a lively attractive quick read newspaper kind of a print precursor to the way news is now fed to us on our devices chris as well targeted to commuters as express was and with the resources of the washington post behind it and being free should we conclude that their problem was it was print. i would say so i mean you have to understand that this is this is almost an

anthropological and sociological sort of thing with our device. as i think it was it was the the paper delivery system the paper format the paper medium was was was transformed overnight by these devices because when when when when this paper came out the only thing people were really reading on devices were books ironically. you know books that were put on you know things like these these these new sorts of platforms and and tablets overnight this change and again it's almost an anthropological. thing you know where people especially younger people really didn't need the tangible feel of paper and a lot of times these these expresses were basically thrown away and became you know garbage on the subway platforms so you know and the phone is a lot more intimate in terms of holding it in your hand and looking down at it

versus a paper it's only old people like me who remember the days of being on a bus or train and actually reading a paper so you know this thing transformed overnight so i think it was the paper aspect of this that did them in as for the where that's the how but you mentioned the where when you talked a minute ago about these suburban local local local papers are they generally healthy than the big metro broadsheets now. these suburban and sometimes urban neighborhood papers it depends on the on the community largely they are doing pretty well with subscriptions and ads the problem is you know look across the board they're not really paying their journalists fare in months but they do make an impact on me that matter fact they make so big of an impact you saw what happened with the capital gazette in annapolis maryland where a lunatic attacked the paper because they were making

a difference and murdered some of the journalists there and some of the editors and that it was a very. healthy local paper but again it depends on the community they are getting bigger in communities say in the state of florida for example where a lot of the local legacy dailies they're gone i mean you know the you know you have basically miami and tampa and then everything in between might be gone so they are taking up the slack there so i think they're taking up some of that old dad revenue and some of the subscription revenue but again it's a question of also how much you're paying your professionals chris as mainstream media become a page or if term. i think mainstream media is has become pretty hard of i think it's so pretty heart of that you might as well just sit at it or are. it's amazing i mean because it means so many things that so many different people

down i think we really need to start speaking in more technical terms unfortunately about platforms and format and stuff like that because i think that it is taking on such a crazy meaning now that we really don't we don't even know what it means now and there might even be people that would describe it to r.t. or scribe it to a local suburban newspaper depending on your point of view so we really have to talk about platforms audience. formats of cetera et cetera and i think that is where the future is going thank you georgetown university professor chris chambers. thank you and thank you for watching the big picture if you see us somewhere else you can now also watch our team america live at youtube dot com slash r t america and we're live on direct t.v. channel 321 of the pluto t.v. 279 if you have dish we're 280 and all of our shows are available anytime

anywhere on any device at youtube dot com slash the big picture are to holland going to washington and at home and cook on twitter where if you follow me i'll follow you question more. and a notion of stories even the news worth knowing can overwhelm you. you could even use your way i know you want it all so let me bring it back. it's easy just. play. listen stop putting online algorithms dictate what you get to want to go to portable dot tv slash download to get killer television it's completely free i'm talking award

winning comedy awesome sports coverage in sight so friends still taste like rats berries on a spring day take so hot burn your face off thousands of videos more added by the hour did i mention it's free it's yet free go go get it portable t.v. . over the past 5 or 6 years very aggressively people have sold dollars to buy these emerging market currencies because they can get a better yield on those currencies suddenly when all liquidity disappears. heisenberg uncertainty for x. market schrodinger's cat of markets everyone is then short dollars they have to buy those dollars back because they're losing catastrophic lee and all their non dollar plays in the market and this is causing a runaway freight train of the u.s. dollar going higher.

greetings and sell you take should. welcome one and all to the next chapter of the great pandemic of 2020 and what have the previous chapters in this book shown us now well you have a variety of bad big to choose from really you have strange frightening inspiring courageous creepy me personally the adjective i like most of the scribe the last few weeks of this pandemic is. revealing yes revealing you see because it's in times of great stress sobs.