“If the Internet shuts down, we wouldn’t know anything. The union isn’t going to tell us”
Autoworkers in Detroit support campaign against Google Internet censorship
By
a WSWS reporting team
9 September 2017
Socialist Equality Party supporters collected scores of signatures last weekend from workers in the Detroit area for the petition demanding tech giant Google stop its censorship of Internet search results. An investigation by the World Socialist Web Site has revealed that the company has changed its search algorithm to block results from the WSWS and other anti-war and progressive web sites.
Auto workers at the Dearborn Assembly Plant, part of the Ford Rouge complex outside of Detroit, gave strong support to an SEP campaign team led by WSWS Labor Editor Jerry White. The team circulated the Open Letter from David North, WSWS International Editorial Board chairperson, to the directors of Google.
“Google is wrong,” declared a Ford worker with 22 years seniority when he first heard about the search engine’s political censorship. Receiving and reading a copy of the open letter, he continued, “That is why we have the Constitution and freedom of speech.”
“We have the right to voice our opinion, and find whatever information we need on the Internet.” Many workers shared his sentiments.
Several workers recalled an incident during the 2015 contract struggle when the United Auto Workers sent goons to physically remove White and another WSWS reporter from a press conference called by UAW Vice President for Ford Jimmie Settles to force through a sell-out deal.
The UAW’s attempt at censorship of the WSWS is being replicated at a much higher level by Google, which in April changed its search algorithm…