For many years, whenever one Googled “jihad,” Jihad Watch was the first result. This was back in the days when Google’s results were based on the relevance of the subject matter to the search and the popularity of the site. But then Google began engaging in social engineering, attempting to manipulate opinion by changing the results of searches to lead people to sites that offered the perspectives it favored. Then when one searched for “jihad,” Jihad Watch became the second result, and then the fourth, even though our readership was steadily rising; replacing it at the top were Islamic apologetics sites with a fraction of the readership, offering soothing falsehoods about the meaning of jihad. Marc explains this phenomenon in greater detail here.

That manipulation wasn’t enough to divert people away from the truth. Now, if you search for “jihad,” Google will give you a whole page full of Islamic apologetics, and Jihad Watch doesn’t appear on the front page at all. Is this because our readership has plummeted? No, quite the contrary. It is because Google is now fully committed not to allowing people to search the Internet, but to controlling what they find when they do. (Incidentally, when one Googles “Robert Spencer” now, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hit piece on me comes up before my own website bio.)

On June 24, the Huffington Post ran a piece entitled “Google Search Is Doing Irreparable Harm To Muslims,” about Texas imam Omar Suleiman’s effort to compel Google to edit out search results he deemed “anti-Muslim” (not “false,” just “anti-Muslim”). I commented: “If Omar Suleiman gets his way, Google will only return Sharia-compliant results, and another battle against the imposition of Sharia blasphemy laws upon the West will have been lost.”

It looks as if Google hastened to fulfill Suleiman’s desires.

It’s a silent encroachment of totalitarianism, as only one perspective is allowed to be aired, and the ground is increasingly being cut out from under the feet of dissenters. Of course, they’re only doing this because their narrative is so outstandingly counterfactual that they can only put it over by censoring us and giving pride of place to sites that peddle the soothing lies they favor, but even though it reveals their insecurity and desperation, it is extremely dangerous nevertheless. And no one seems to care. This is the kind of thing the Trump administration should be fighting against, and working to ensure a level playing field for all points of view. Is no one in a position of power or influence concerned about the rapid erosion of the freedom of speech?