How many times do we use google a day? We don’t keep count, for we use it too many times to keep track of. What do we use google for? Just about everything. Google represents a sort of vast, mysterious abyss. It has the answers to everything we want to know. We don’t normally think of the power google has but the article “Journalist Who Exposes U.N. Corruption Disappears from Google” reveals google’s extraordinary control over information.

The article discusses Journalist Matthew Lee. His style is described as “clunky,” his methods as “unorthodox” and his judgment as “off the mark.” However, In the past, Lee has been a whistleblower for the U.N. He has helped in unveiling human-rights abuse by the Ugandan People’s Defense Force.

Lee was surprised when he received an email from google, after google allegedly received a complaint from a source about Lee’s small website. The assumption is that the UNDP sent the complaints. What’s strange is that after two years, this was the first time Lee was receiving complaints. Although Lee had helped the UN in the past, as a journalist, he was naturally also skeptical of the UN itself. He found that in November of 2007 the UN had not signed global human-rights and anti-censorship compacts. He questioned why they had not done this. This was not taken well by the UN.  Lee states,

"I've been covering ... U.N. stories, three to four a day, for two years, and for the last two years there's been no problem at all… Then that Friday, I received the e-mail. There's something a little skeezy here. I think that Google got involved with the U.N. on these Millennium goals and thought, this is the United Nations, if they tell you some small Web site is a thorn in their side and there's a credible reason you could remove them from your news service, you do it."

Lee’s quotation revealed how google is able to control journalism. In my last blog post I also spoke about how Jacobson had to leave google, fearing its power over his identity as a liberated and independent journalist. It’s interesting because the UN seems to be acting like complete hypocrites. They respect Lee when he’s a whistleblower in their favor, but as soon as he steps out and is critical of them, they dismiss him. Why can’t organizations accept criticism if it will make them a more ethical organization in the long run?