Independent reporters accuse Google of warmongering

September 9, BPN. Google deranks independent media websites blacklisted by the Łukašenka regime, Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) chairman Andrej Bastuniec told an industry forum in Lithuania on September 9.

The issue has been reported by several foreign-based Belarusian media, he said. When the Belarusian authorities block a website, the search engine reportedly qualifies it as unreliable and lowers its position in the search results.

Communication between the journalistic community and the corporation has not led to anything, Bastuniec added. According to him, Google replied that “this is how their algorithms work.”

For example, if you google about Emil Czeczko, a Polish serviceman who deserted to Belarus amid the migrant crisis and was later found hanged, the search engine would give you “articles by Interfax, Sputnik and other propaganda media,” and independent reports on this topic would be “somewhere far below,” the NGO leader said.

According to Bastuniec, the search engine also gives preference to reports from the Russian and Belarusian authorities in response tp queries on the war in Ukraine, discriminating against independent sources.

“As colleagues say, it turns out that Google acts as a warmonger,” Bastuniec concluded.