Stories by John C. Ryan

Google's Threat to Democracy Hits AlterNet Hard

In late June, Google introduced a new algorithm aimed to fight fake news.

It sounded like a good idea—until it became clear that Google was targeting progressive news sites fighting racism and fake news. Many progressive sites were hit, but none more than AlterNet, which lost 2.4 million readers this summer, compared with the past two-and-a-half years. That's a lot of lost impact.

Google is a monopoly on steroids. They don't understand how journalism works. And it will hit our ad budget hard, potentially $100k or more, which we rely on to bring you 200 great articles a week for free.

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