Comments: Wall Street Journal on Google and JewWatch.com

Perhaps I have not been reading your work long enough to grasp the depths of Google's sleights, but *malice* is a word that must be used with care.

As it seems impossible Google would act with malice (for instance, game the system so Jew Watch was *promoted*), I suspect you and others bring malice into the equation.

Google and stupidity go well together, but bringing malice into the fray seems a JDL impulse. Which begs the question, are you intellectually honest when dealing with issues that intersect with Jewish activism?

Do you treat the Chester and Jew Watch issues with the same intellectual and ethical rigor. Does that matter to you?

Of course, we might disagree on the meaning of "is", which is to say, I can see where a delight with word play would perceive the combination of malice and stupidity as interesting. But the statement has a meaning, and without some kind of proof, it seeps through the bounds of rhetoric and collects as a pool of slander.

"Deflect" appears inconsistent with malice, so perhaps this is sloppiness and not intent. In a previous thread, though, you compared being goaded into a flame-fest with answering the taunts of a black-hooded executioner. You need to be more diligent when editing your work. It is not about self-censorship, it's about communicating better.

The text you added to this post was not extensive, and while your time is valuable, a gamut check is always in order.

Posted by sean broderick at April 17, 2004 08:58 AM

What I was trying to express is that there's elements of both ill-will and ignorance. There's "stupidity" (more precisely, ignorance), in that Google is a complex system and very few people really understand what is happening to produce a given result. But there is also "malice" (more precisely, a kind of PR flackery), in that even if they did understand it exactly, they sure don't want to give out the information, they want people to just go away.

I DID NOT mean to imply Google promoted the "Jew Watch" site. By no means! I was referring to their general attitude of circle-the-wagons whenever dealing with a controversy.

Posted by Seth Finkelstein at April 18, 2004 12:39 AM