An interesting email doing the rounds

Forums › Off topic › An interesting email doing the rounds - Whitehouse vs Google

nunz

1421 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 314
Inactive user

#208760 26-Feb-2017 23:10

My first thought was to dfump this as a scam, especiallially considering the sites (natural news) being mentioned but all the links do go back to whitehouse.gov and .gov sites are tightly controled.

Anyone else seen this or similar?

Ironically if it was truely sent via the whitehouse then they are trying to ban googles right to put or remove whatever media they want to on their own site and is itself a violation of the USA constitution.

-------- Forwarded Message --------

Subject: Action Needed: Verify your signature
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2017 10:19:32 +0000
From: We the People: Your Voice in Our Government <admin@whitehouse.gov>
Reply-To: admin@whitehouse.gov
To: someone@example.org

We the People Thank you for submitting your signature to the We the People petition "Petition to Ban Google's Blatant Suppression of Free Speech" via We The People.

By confirming your signature below, you are participating in the White House's We the People online petitions platform, and you agree to abide by the We the People Terms of Participation and Moderation Policy provided below.

The validation link will expire within 48 hours of receiving it. If you haven't clicked the link within 48 hours, you will need to sign the petition again.

*Confirm your signature by clicking here.

* Terms of Participation <https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/how-why/terms-participation>, Moderation Policy <https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/how-why/moderation-policy>.

*Petition Title: Petition to Ban Google's Blatant Suppression of Free Speech*

Google, which controls 67.5% of internet searches in the United States is attempting to silence any voice that doesn't coincide with their political views. This incidentally targets some of the biggest voices in alternative media, such as NaturalNews.com and Infowars.com. This week Google wiped 140,000 Naturalnews.com articles from its database, prohibiting individuals from viewing the sites webpages if searched. Google sent no prior warning. Natural News has stated that they follow all Google terms of service rules and that they do not condone or endorse any techniques that may manipulate Natural News in the search engines. This censorship of the Independent Media is a blatant attack on the first amendment rights of users. Please sign and share this petition.

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
80647 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 41030

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#1726729 26-Feb-2017 23:21

The White House runs a program to accept suggestions and online petitions. People that want to sign it have to confirm their email address, hence the email asking for confirmation.

Sending this email around does nothing since one the address is confirmed clicking the link won't add anything to the petition.

Place this in the stupidity of humankind basket.

Referral links: Quic Broadband (free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE) | Samsung | AliExpress | Wise | Sharesies

Support Geekzone by subscribing (browse ads-free), or making a one-off or recurring donation through PressPatron.

gzt

18679 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 7811

Lifetime subscriber

#1726732 26-Feb-2017 23:25

It's a genuine petition. However, the spam is most likely part of 3rd party campaign to get 'signatures' for that. Google really did make a change recently which affected the search rankings of NaturalNews and Infowars:

http://gizmodo.com/google-blacklists-natural-news-the-webs-leading-author-1792680935

I'd be interested to know the nature of the change in search ranking algorithm. I'd guess it is a bit more complex than 'if site = Infowars or NaturalNews, then dump ranking..'

nunz

1421 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 314
Inactive user

#1726756 27-Feb-2017 00:10

gzt: It's a genuine petition. However, the spam is most likely part of 3rd party campaign to get 'signatures' for that. Google really did make a change recently which affected the search rankings of NaturalNews and Infowars:

http://gizmodo.com/google-blacklists-natural-news-the-webs-leading-author-1792680935

I'd be interested to know the nature of the change in search ranking algorithm. I'd guess it is a bit more complex than 'if site = Infowars or NaturalNews, then dump ranking..'

It was a manual dump of the site by google humans. supposedly 140 pages, all of which were over 3 years old, contains some kind of advertising or back link code in them. - which would make dumping the site suspect.

That's googles reason for doing the ban.

However they have done the same thing to bmw and others for bad practice so natural news is not a special victim - but there are very little actual facts on why it was dumped.

The fact that a whitehouse email / web address can be used to send petitions adds legitimacy to what may be a ticked off scam artists rant on being censored.

But it does raise the questions of who google and others (facebook were in the gun recently for similar actions skewing political or public opinion trends) are doing with their power and how vulnerable we actually are to their control.