Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

Google ‘Responsible’ for Dissemination of Holocaust Denial

In two scathing Guardian articles, this week and last, Carole Cadwalladr outlines how right wing extremists have gamed the Google algorithm in order to present Holocaust denial and vitriolic anti-Semitism as “authoritative” internet responses to “Did the Holocaust happen?” and “Are Jews evil?”

In her December 11 “Google is not just a platform” she tells how her, and everyone’s, internet searching is shaped by the internet and how the internet goliath profits from every ad served on racist right-wing entries.

In “Google, democracy and the truth about internet search” from last week she talks about the threat posed by the search engine’s abrogation of responsibility. It’s not just a threat to civility but to history and democracy.

This isn’t a secret Nazi cell lurking in the shadows. It’s hiding in plain sight.

Never mind “fake news” this is fake history colonizing the top ten of your Jewish searches with hate speech. Cadwalladr calls Google to task as “Responsible.”

Google writes the code that drives the algorithm that returns the results. How they write this code, what they use to assess authority and credibility, how that enables Stormfront to spread its lies and spew its poison is entirely its responsibility.

Dan Friedman is the managing editor of the Forward. Follow him on Twitter at @danfriedmanme

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.