Tuesday, May 23, 2006

My distinguished colleague ...

... Carlin Romano put together a very interesting story from his visit to BEA: Conservative books in a liberal market. This is why Carlin is among the best in the business.

Glenn Reynolds links to reports of political bias at Google and some worthwile commentary as well. Suppressing opposing viewpoints only suggests that your own is too weak to engage them.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:36 PM

    As I understand it, "freedom of speech" as established in the constitution guarantees two rights.
    First, the government cannot censor speech.
    Second, a publisher can publish what they choose. Clearly, the owners of Google have the right to publish what they choose. And so they do.
    Like the founders of Google, the publishers of e-zines have the right to establish a corporation which provides search capabilities and to disseminate their zine through that site.
    Their complaints about "bias" demonstrate ignorance of, illusions about, and disrespect for property rights.

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  2. Points well taken. But none addresses mine -- which was that the urge to suppress a viewpoint suggests that one's own is too weak to compete. Also, Google is certainly within its rights - though it weakens its usefulness as a search engine and makes itself less competitive thereby.

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