Anti-gay bus baron rages at being stuffed in Google closet The founder of Stagecoach is accusing Google of censoring him by dumping his personal website from their search engine results. Sir Brian Souter is a Scottish businessman who controversially funded a campaign in 2000 to keep the anti-gay legislation of Section 28 in the Local Government and Finance Act. Could it be Sir Brian's …
Sir Brian has in now way, shape or form ever been accused of censorship - what on earth does your bizarre comment allude to?
We all have a right to our opinions, and although the gay lobby might not like it, most of the world now and for most of its history has always been aware of the fact that homosexuality is a deviation, not the norm.
Censorship against the truth is amongst the last signs of totalitarianism.
I assess websites for quality according to the criteria that Google uses. The reason that Souter's site has dropped in ranking is because Souter's site is low quality along several dimensions and Google's algos demote it. Google's search results aren't perfect but their crap detector has gotten much better.
Familliar. Often get jumped up big fish in a small pond types kicking up a fuss because their company isn't number one in the google rankings.
Had a few companies with <GENERIC COMMON USED ENGLISH LANGUAGE WORD> as their name wondering why they weren't number 1 on google.
On the plus side, his URL is now on the BBCs website so that'll improve things.
Nothing like free advertising!
AC because of opening paragraph - I still need to make a living ;)
I was at a Repeal Section 28 rally outside Manchester Town Hall 10+ years ago. Lots of Stagecoach buses drive around there. Suddenly one of them was leapt upon by a load of activists who proceeded to spray water-soluble pink paint all over the front, take a few pics, then just as quickly hose it down so they couldn't be accused of criminal damage. Beautifully executed and extremely funny.
looks like he's fine when he's the one behind censorship, but he's happy to cry foul when he thinks it's happening to him.
Given the Google (and other search engines) seem to rely on a number of factors including page rank to weight the order of the search results I can only assume very few people link to his personal site but lots do refer to his actions
There's no room in society today for people who insist on peddling ideas contrary to those of the masses.
The sooner people abandon their reliance on old-fashioned ideals to tell them what to think and start thinking like the rest of us, the better this country will be able to be free of thought controlling organisations that are pushing their distasteful ideas on the rest of us.
Some of us actually want to be free to think for ourselves, not having people like this telling us what to think. Free speech is one thing, but when people use it to try and stop us from agreeing with the majority, we're in trouble.
We need to re-educate people like this into being able to think freely, unrestricted by dogma, prejudice or bigotry. They need to understand that thinking freely will cause them to naturally arrive at the same conclusions as the rest of the free.
"There's no room in society today for people who insist on peddling ideas contrary to those of the masses."
Wow. Just... Wow.
"The sooner people ... start thinking like the rest of us, the better this country will be able to be free of thought controlling organisations ..."
Irony, thy name is _RCH_.
You really should read what you wrote there.
Let's begin with "There's no room in society today for people who insist on peddling ideas contrary to those of the masses."
So no dissenting opinions? Whatever we hear on the tube as being the most popular theory today is hereafter the only thing we can think? You sound exactly like the powers that were in the 50s and 60s. "Everything is as it should be, put down your anti-war signs!" As a matter of fact, you sound just like pretty much anyone who has been in the majority (or at least thinks they were) in the whole of written human history.
I just ran out of care to continue to debunk your thinking. Suffice it to say I value the right to disagree with the majority when it appears right to *me*. You can stuff your sheep herding.
"We need to re-educate people like this into being able to think freely, unrestricted by dogma, prejudice or bigotry. They need to understand that thinking freely will cause them to naturally arrive at the same conclusions as the rest of the free."
And if they don't arrive at the same conclusions presumably it's back to room 101?
"They need to understand that thinking freely will cause them to naturally arrive at the same conclusions as the rest of the free."
Was that meant to be satirical? (sorry if it was; having a fluffy brain moment and really couldn't tell)
Free thinking may well lead you to think the same as others, but not necessarily. And that can be a good thing, as most advances start by being rejected by the masses. Not that I think whats his face is right, just that he has the right to be a git if he chooses to be.
"Was that meant to be satirical?"
Thank you for spotting it. I thought I'd put enough clues in there to be honest but you're the only one who noticed... everyone else was too busy getting angry...
I thought the re-education bit would have given it away, along with the long stream of contradictions.
Have a pint on me y'all and apologies for the distress caused ;)
To be honest I thought that was rubbish satire.
The main problem with it is that it's misplaced, since neither the article itself nor most other comments questioned the right of the person concerned to voice his views. They all had a go at what they considered to be a pompous, ill-advised, and technically challenged complaint about not being at the top of a Google search.
Thank you for posting it anyway, since the subsequent replies give an interesting insight into the mindset, reading, and analytical skills of what appears to be a fair number of readers of this site.
"when people use it to try and stop us from agreeing with the majority, we're in trouble"
"We need to re-educate people like this into being able to think freely"
From the sound of the article he is trying to censor the education of young people but not saying that homosexuality it's self is wrong, only that it is wrong to promote it. I am sure in reality his opinion is that it is wrong but that he realizes that such a stance will not get his cause anywhere.
50 years ago most people probably viewed homosexuality as wrong and without the minority who were using their free speech to say that it was OK we would not tolerate it today. You cannot choose who you grant free speech too and must accept that along with what you want & like to hear you will also get plenty of things you will not like.
"There's no room in society today for people who insist on peddling ideas contrary to those of the masses."
Such people would be guilty of thought crime and wrong speak.
"We need to re-educate people like this..."
...in Room 101.
Luckily, Articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights give us all rights to freedom of thought and freedom of expression.
"There's no room in society today for people who insist on peddling ideas contrary to those of the masses.
The sooner people abandon their reliance on old-fashioned ideals to tell them what to think and start thinking like the rest of us, the better this country will be able to be free of thought controlling organisations that are pushing their distasteful ideas on the rest of us."
Don't I recall hearing a shortish gentleman with a natty moustache but too much hair cream saying the same thing a while ago? Chap called Adolf, IIRC - made a few million people disappear, too? Or was it someone from a bit further east called Joseph who did all that excellent work collectivising farms and disappearing a few million people? Or more recently that Cambodian chappie who had everyone with glasses massacred as being 'intellectual' - another couple of million disappeared?
I do so hope that my irony detector has suffered a temporary malfunction and I've just missed the joke: I fear not. But just in case, I'm not going to downvote the post.
I can't believe the number of people who took RCH's post at face value and blindly downvoted it or rose to the bait. It's so obviously meant ironically, and at several levels, it's one of the best comments I've seen on the Register for a while, especially once you see how people responded to it. Sadly it seems RCH is right and most people are totally unable to think for themselves.
What do such a disparate group as Jews in Nazi Germany, people labelled as paedophiles, MPs filing their expenses, and Brian Souter all have in common? Hint: it has nothing to do what if anything they are guilty of. The interesting question is how uniformly the populace responds. It seems that most people like nothing better than to see a good lynch mob! Doesn't matter who the target is, just as long as there's someone one to vent one's anger and frustration at and you've got the crowd on your side.
What a waste of money; he could have used that to sponsor several kids in inner city areas with mentors so they can attempt to keep away from crime and make something of their lives.
... but oh no, let's dig-up the middle ages dogma and force our blinkered views on people than need support and understanding.
What a choad!
This post has been deleted by its author
Mix together homophobes and people against activist social engineering and you get the following legislation:
---
(1)A local authority shall not—
(a)intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality;
(b)promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.
---
It's the (b) wot dunnit. It made it illegal for local government to say to children that a gay couple with children is OK.
Don't be too quick to jump on his bandwagon. Specifically, parts of that section included things like:
"promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship"
which HE wanted kept in and others wanted removed (and it was). The impact of such things? "a number of lesbian, gay and bisexual student support groups in schools and colleges across Britain were closed owing to fears by council legal staff that they could breach the Act".
So while no-one is claiming that schools should put the idea of everyone "trying" a homosexual relationships into kid's heads, they are being lumped with people who didn't want schools telling little Johnny that it's okay that he has two dads/mums (specifically, that would be "unacceptable" as a family relationship), or that his gay sister is somehow "unacceptable". To the extent that support groups were shut down for fear of somehow portraying being gay as "acceptable".
I'm not gay but (as the line goes) I have gay friends, and have friends whose family includes gay people. I think you'll find that in school they suffered enough without the teachers being told BY LAW that they can't view a second daddy as an acceptable family member, or that they can only help a student who comes to them with issues about their sexuality by, basically, saying they can only be straight.
It's almost funny (if it wasn't so serious) to see a law worded, on a legal text, in a way that actively breaks much stronger laws on discrimination.
<I'm not gay but (as the line goes) I have gay friends>
Absolutely on your post. And I think you will find that most of us have gay friends and acquaintances; We just don't always know it, which, thinking about it, is a shame. They aren't all flaming whoopsies, poets, or luvvies. I know policeman, brick layer, construction electrician, engineer...bigots would be shocked if they knew, so, don't tell them that man or woman sitting next to them on the bus is a you-know-what.
Section 28 was a vile, and badly drawn piece of education, that forbade the suggesting in state maintained schools that a 'pretend family relationship' was acceptable. Honestly, I don't understand why it should be so shocking to say to people that, you know, it's ok if little Johnny has two mummies, so you shouldn't beat the crap out of him for it.
Worse, being so vaguely drawn, it ushered in an era of horrendous self censorship, and people using the vague "promoting homosexuality" notion as an excuse to refuse to do things, because no one wanted to be a test case (no prosecutions were ever brought). It lead to such nonsenses as Lothian Regional Transport refusing to allow a simple advert on their buses for the local gay switchboard - as a council run service, they worried it might be "promoting" homosexuality.
As others have pointed out, the idea of "promotion" is risible. Could you honestly suddenly become gay if I tell you it's really wonderful, and you'll have a great time? I rather doubt it, any more than telling me how great it is to be married to a woman is likely to turn me from a big fat poof into an adoring husband eager to make babies with a wife.
Oddly, these ideas about promotion seem to go with two somewhat incompatible world views; firstly, that homosexuality is so horrible and disgusting that everyone must be protected from it, while secondly also believing it to be so fabulous that the merest mention of it in anything other than the most disapproving tones will have all the local teenage boys banging away at each others' arses like steam hammers.
Needless to say, the real world's not quite like that. Telling people it's ok to be gay, or for someone to have gay parents, isn't going to suddenly turn the whole classroom queer. But refusing to acknowledge it, or to allow people to say it's ok, can and does have real consequences in terms of bullying and upset.
I don't want homosexuality promoted at school any more than I want religion or coca-cola or the BNP promoted at school. It's just not the right place to do it.
School is not supposed to be a propaganda station or marketing sink for whoever has the most money or political clout at the time.
Homosexuality may be an equal lifestyle in this culture but it's not a special one and it doesn't need special consideration.
Section 28 wasn't there to stop the promotion of homosexuality (whatever that means). It was there to stop any discussion of the subject. It was a hateful piece of legislation imposed to assuage a particular narrow-minded part of the population at the expense of a vulnerable minority.
Like any concept, homosexuality can be spun or propagandized. The legislation was introduced in reponse to a few schools advocating homosexuality to very young children in a rather over-the-top way. One book in particular caused uproar IIRC, but memory fades.
I just realized Google's huge additional power to propagandize anything by adjusting their listings. Wow. I don't think they scuppered Soulter though. After all their listings contain web sites *far* more disturbing that his.
You're probably thinking of the book "Jenny lives with Eric and Martin" which did indeed cause a big fuss in some of the papers, who seemed to suggest that this was being made available in school libraries and children would be forced to read it.
In fact - after all, the tabloids never exaggerate, do they? - there was a copy, or possibly more than one, placed in a teachers' resource library, with the intention that, if a teach felt it might be necessary, it would be available, and might help some kids understand that the home they came from, or that other people came from, wasn't the only one of its kind.
Now, some people may find that disgusting, but honestly, I still don't think it's propagandising to tell people that, no, they're not the only person who has a background like that.
I remember when I started school in the early 70s, my brother and I had a fab new word that none of the other kids in class did - "divorce." That wasn't, thankfully, the sort of thing you got teased about at school but children can be very cruel, especially when they see some of the vile hateful rubbish that used to appear routinely in the media.
For a little more on the book, and the original furore around S28, it's worth reading this piece by Ian McKellen, which also points out that, contrary to popular belief, the book wasn't placed in school libraries. And it reveals many of the sort of instances of self censorship that the vile clause caused.
http://www.mckellen.com/writings/activism/8807section28.htm
It's heartening to see so many of the commenters here agreeing that the whole notion of "promoting" homosexuality was a nonsense; a shame there are clearly still a few who manage to equate "it's something that happens, no big deal" with "you simply must try it; last one to buggery's a sissy"
@ Nigel Whitfield - yes, that is probably the book I was remembering. It's fair enough to say the tabloids exagerated, and that the book was provided to teachers and not children. But it was a children's book, not an adults', and it is hard to believe that that the council did not intend children to read the book or have teachers relay it to them, otherwise why put it in the aschool? At the time it was thought that this amounted to advocating a way of living to very young children. Hence the controvesial clause.
Much has been made of this clause ever since, and many on both sides of the argument fail to see the difference between promoting tolerance of something and promoting the thing itself. Leaders onboth sides have taken advantage of this confusion for political ends.
Hmm.. While I have no time for the man's personal politics, surely there's no way you can agree with censoring him in Google search results yet condemn him for his stance on Clause 28/2A? You can't say that it's terrible for this man (Souter) to limit what people are told, but it's OK for these other men (Google)to limit what people are told. Your'e basically saying censorship is fine as long as it's in agreement with our beliefs, but when it's not it's evil. That's hypocritical in the extreme.
Either he's wrong to call for what he did therefore Google are wrong to tweak their search results, or Google can do whatever they like with their search results and therefore he's also free to call for whatever he likes as well.
Free speech is an absolute. You either have it for everyone no matter how distasteful, or you don't.
"...surely there's no way you can agree with censoring him in Google search results yet condemn him for his stance on Clause 28/2A?"
Clause 28/2A is a government action and hence constitutes institutional censorship. Google is a private business and have the right to say or not say whatever they like (as does Sir Brian.)
You and Sir Brian assert that this is a "free speech issue." I wholeheartedly agree. The fact that he would actively campaign to constrain a private company (Google) to speak in the way he wants them to does a wonderful job of highlighting his true feelings on free speech.
Free speech is an absolute, and if Google doesn't have it, then none of us do.
That Google (shall we call it the big G ?) measures other peoples interest in a given web page to give it a rank - if people don't link to the page then it drops down the rankings.
I would find it surprising that anyone at Google would care enough to make any specific effort.
ttfn
I can't believe I had to get to the second page before someone pointed out that google are likely considerably more interested in things other than this bloke's opinions, however interesting he thinks they are.
If they messing with what's-his-name's google ranking then they must be spending 100,000's of man hours messing with everyone's. I wonder if Mr Stagecoach even knows what an algorithm is, let alone a search one.
Maybe he should read this - http://www.google.com/explanation.html
Mr Souter has free speech; his witless blathering (or rather, that of his PR) that this is against free speech is just a feeble minded attempt to wrap a big sulk up in some sort of matter of principle.
Google has not blocked his website; it has not taken it off line, and it has not censored him in any way. His website, with whatever self aggrandising piffle it contains is still in the same place, with the same content as it's probably always had, and just as accessible as ever. No one is preventing people from reading it, or locking them up if they do, or installing web filters to protect the innocent from viewing it.
The concept of "free speech" does not extend to "I demand that Google's algorithms determine that I'm the expert on a topic," even where that topic may be himself; indeed, you might argue that very often a person's own account is the least objective place to go for information about them.
It's hardly a massive leap of imagination for those who desire to hear words from the man himself to realise that BrianSouter.com may be the address to type; nor should it be particularly surprising, given his views and the amount that has been written about them, and the number of times other people may have linked to those sites, that Google's algorithms rate some of those accounts higher than his own PR puffery.
I'm sure many people are annoyed that their own sites don't rank higher on Google; that the search engine, in effect, says "you know, that's not very interesting, here are some better sources of information about X."
Most of them, however, are not quite stupid enough to equate that with censorship, and to decide that they need to sulk to a government department.
You searched for "Brian Souter" did you mean "Maggie Thatcher, the PM that brought in Section 28 and meant I daren't even ask a teacher for advice about being gay and made it illegal for me to have sex until I was 21 while everyone else could do it at 16?", "Stonewall.org.uk" or "Peter Tachell"
Or if we actually bother to learn our history, rather than spout "it was in the 80's therefore Thatcher was to blame", we should note that this amendment was originally raised by Lord Halsbury in 1986 and promoted in the Commons by Jill Knight.
It then went to a vote to be passed into law, which duly happened in the Commons in December 1987.
As for "not being able to talk to a teacher about sex", I never felt a need to do that and I was a teenager for a large proportion of the 80's. If the reasoning behind talking to a teacher was due to a lack of parent/child interaction, then the issue lies with your parents, not with the establishment (whether that be school or government) and not with anyone who did or didn't support this outdated law.
Don't you remember the fuss the decrepit old witch made in the Lords to try to stop its repeal?
Whatever you think of her economic policies, *nothing* excuses that sort of behaviour. Whoever thought the amendment up in the first place, she could have stopped them with not so much as a swing of her handbag.
And just because a completely unrepresentative sample of one - you, whom I am assuming are heterosexual - didn't want to talk to your teacher about sex doesn't mean that nobody else did either. Besides which, it was about far, far more than that as has been explained in this forum much more eloquently than I could ever do, as you can find out if you only bother to read with your mind open.
>Maggie Thatcher, the PM that [...] made it illegal for me to have sex until I was 21 while everyone else could do it at 16?
Um, no she didn't, unless she was a lawmaker in 1533:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buggery_Act_1533
or 1967:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_Offences_Act_1967
She didn't fix it, but she damn well didn't create it. Don't conflate.
/orders extra-large shot of mindbleach for defending Thatcher
Come off it, considering you weren't allowed to promote or talk about homosexuality because of Section 28, she hardly made it a level playing field.
Do you really think it was fair for someone to have to wait an extra 5 years to have sex?
Maybe we should ask Alan Turing ... oh! no he buzy eating an apple at the moment
I sure a lot of people will be having a party when MT finally dies
I live in a small town in Scotland on a residential street with families and children.
My partner and I have been here for 5 years and we're just very much part of the local backdrop.
Everyone talks to us and includes us in everything going on. The children talk to us and accept us with no problem or qualms whatsoever.
There is no homophobia or even the merest hint of disapproval.
How different from my previous address in Brighton: supposedly a gay mecca. In reality it was a vile homophobic dump with gay men being beaten up or murdered on an almost daily basis.
I am Scottish, my partner is English and I've lived all over the UK.
Soutar and his sister are two of the worst examples of human greed and parochial tunnel vision one could imagine. He's entitled to his views, but he's bound to notice that NO ONE IS LISTENING, at least not here.
No, he isn't. That is what this is all about. The low Google page rank about which Souter is complaining is entirely because no-one is going to it. However, instead of accepting that he is in a minority, he decides that he is being censored. He is just another low-grade moron with a strong psychopathic streak (just like many successful business people).
Teaching about homosexuality in schools promotes it in the same way that teaching about fish promotes breathing underwater.
There must be something pretty attractive about this homosexuality business.
Schools attempt to promote 'community' leads to riots, years of say no to drugs in every lesson produces a cabinet that has more (ex-)drug users than a Grateful Dead concert, promoting healthy eating and exercise has lead to chicken nuggets and kids that can barely carry an LCD TV out of Dixons.
And yet all schools would have to do is mention that Alan Turing was guy and the entire youth of Britain would be turned in Julian Clary overnight.
I mean, you wouldn't believe the sheer amount of time it takes fitting in the gym, the hairdressers, the shopping for designer clothes, the manicures.
And that's even before you make a start on the sex; apparently, we have an average of 106 partners a year, according to some christian web sites.
I try to do my bit, as much as the next man. But I went on holiday for a couple of weeks, and then work was busy, and now I have a massive backlog to get through; I had to have sex seven times in my lunch hour, just to keep up!
I'm telling you, it's a chore. A glamorous one, but still a chore
Google is a company - Unless this idiot has a contract with Google - they are free to include / exclude anything they want from their search engine (with in the bounds of the law).
If anyone has an issue with how Google runs their business they can use another site or start their own search engine and drive Google out of business (As Microsoft is finding it's not that easy).
Yeah Brian I'm sure Google (a massive global conglomerate) are conducting a personal vendetta against you. After all you are so important that how dare your site fall down in the rankings. It must all be a conspiracy. That or their ranking algorithm changes from time to time and your site has fallen afoul of it. Try following their suggestions and wait for the caches to pick up the changes. And quite whingeing.
No one has a 'right' to No.1 and the site is in google.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&cr=countryUK|countryGB&client=firefox&hs=vlV&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&biw=1658&bih=786&tbs=ctr%3AcountryUK|countryGB&q=www.briansouter.com&oq=www.briansouter.com&aq=f&aqi=&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=1408l5791l0l6461l25l22l1l0l0l0l219l3123l1.17.3l21l0
There are other search engines available.....
what an idiot, obviously needs some publicity.
"...on their own bloody website"?
Why not? I dislike Google for some of it's actions, but it's a private company, paying for (lots of) web servers and they can put anything they like there. If Brian Souter wants to pay them, they'll put an ad for him on that site.
"It's not Google's place to decide which sites we can see and those we can't."
Ummm, actually it sorta is...
"It amounts to search engine censorship and it does not afford what Google says it is striving to create – a good user experience."
Keeping fringe opinions out of my search engine results gives me a "good user experience". Unfortunately the pendulum will swing too far and we will have all sorts of sites degraded because what they say goes against the grain. Even now, governments are doing just that. More in Iran, North Korea and China, but the rest of the world is doing it too.
Governments restricting what we can see as a society was a problem long before the Internet came along.
Not sure what Brian is moaning about, his site is indexed by Google as searching for www.briansouter.com produces results including his website. I guess his point is that searching for "Brian Souter" does not bring up his site which may* be due to a lack of meta information for the Google search engine to correctly (contextually) identify that site as being relevant to your search enquiry and more relevant than wikipedia or Stagecoaches' own website.
* yes, I said "may"
Side topic: Has the Title field actually been made optional at last ?
>>"All in all, while I may disagree with his lobbying record I would die for Souter's right to appear on the first page of Google."
Though if someone types in 'Brian Souter', I'm fairly confident he *will* appear on the first page, even if maybe not in ways that he might like.
But then that's what real competition means, Brian.
Not everyone can have their own way.
Not even *you*.
Leaving aside the odious Clause-28, the gentleman in question needs a better web designer. One who understands the correct use of the alt attribute. And a host that knows what reverse DNS is for might help, too.
Viewing sites in Lynx is always instructive when people start ranting about their Google rank dropping.
On the Clause-28 issue, you don't need to be gay, or even know anyone who is, to know, if you're a decent person, that all forms of discrimination against minorities are evil. When we have a genuinely equal society, when people in schools neither notice nor care that another kid has two dads or two mums instead of one of each, or what skin colour they are, then there will be no need for teachers to have to teach that different people live in different ways. But until that time comes (which, TBH, is probably "never"), then action to protect minority kids from thoughtless bullying by "the majority" will always be needed. Clause-28 was a terrible mistake. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
I have rather vainly just Googled myself, and I didn't appear on the first (or subsequent) pages - just a lot of references to a poor taste joke around my name. Does anybody know how I get my millions from Google for this outrage? Who else can I sue? My parents for a start for calling me Mike, my father for having the surname Hunt, in fact, his entire lineage are going to cop for some legal fisting !
Google search of Souter or Stagecoach or Souter Stagecoach returns correct links to relevant sites-- at or near the top of the results page.
But if Google *did* want to censor their results to leave this turd out in the cold, they'd be entirely within their rights being a private company, not a government agency.
"We don’t have a clue as to why Sir Brian’s website has disappeared from Google’s search results."
...yet they're willing to make the worst possible assumptions and shout victimhood to the press. Plenty of small business owners have experienced this. Google is not after you. There simply happen to be other sites on the web that perform better than yours. Google likes sites that are frequently updated -- like the blogs that show up first.
"Souter says he is not homophobic but doesn't believe in "promoting" homosexuality."
Ever noticed how many bigots say "but"? As in...
I'm not homophobic, but...
I'm not racist, but...
I'm not sexist, but...
You either hold a particular opinion or you don't, you can't qualify the fact that you are not homophobic.
I hate self serving dickheads. And there's no but.
Alex Salmond, whom he bribed with a half a million pound "donation" to the SNP weeks beforehand. Unfortunately that doesn't make Alex Salmond an idiot - just a politician.
A few years ago the SNP also mysteriously dropped its commitment to re-regulation of Scotland's hopeless bus system, a month after receiving a similar donation.
...where it comes to 'It's not Google's place to decide which sites we can see and those we can't'...
Yes, it bloody well is. If Google, as a private company, decide to block you or allow you then they should be able to do what they bloody-well like with their own data. I really don't like Google, but I'll defend their rights to do as they wish as a private company.
Of course, if people don't LIKE Google's way of doing things, they can go and use another search engine that DOES work for them.
If these people want to go along those lines, why not say 'it's not Apple's right to not have Flash running on all of their products' or something equally stupid?
Considering Google's position in online search, and that the combined market share of all its competitors is just of fraction of Google's share, for them to decide which sites are acceptable and which are not, gives them the ability to consign anything that they do not like to the Memory Hole. It is not much different than if the phone company left out of the phone book the numbers of organizations whose politics it doesn't like. This is exacerbated by the fact that no one visiting Google's page would have any idea that the results are being censored: have you ever seen any disclaimers on www.google.com informing users that they reserve the right to censor search results that they find objectionable?
If Google were not far-and-away the most popular search engine, I (and I would think many other people) would not have any objections. For example, if there was a niche company running a "Leftist Search Engine - The Only Search Engine With A Social Conscience" then who could possibly object if they censored their results - as censored results would pretty much be what a user of such a search engine would both want and expect. If Google put such a disclaimer on their webpage, it might perhaps be a different matter, to some people.
But in my opinion, having the biggest search engine, effectively a monopoly, surreptitiously censoring results according political and ideological criteria, is an unacceptable and intolerable situation.
And all of this has no points of comparison with Apple and Flash, which is a dispute over barring certain technology whereas the Google seems to be barring certain content. The difference is fundamental.
I don't think it's really possible to "promote" homosexuality anyway, surely at most you can "promote" bisexuality, assuming the promotion makes people want to try something they otherwise wouldn't...
If you believe it is, then surely the best thing would be to promote heterosexuality in schools, maybe some practical sex ed, after school lessons and a "Virginity: give it up now!" programme in the classroom.
£500k? Bloody hell. That's a hell of a lot to spend on something you're really not that fussed about, honest to God, you're not a homo, um, homophobe, you just don't think it should be forced down the throats, er, er, in the faces of, er, the upstanding members, er, of the British public.
Maybe he just happened to find £500k in loose change in the corner of his fucking massive closet.
Between promoting being gay and explaining gay people are not monsters.
I do not believe schools should dictate sexuality to their pupils or promote one over the other, but letting them know that there are people out there who may not be the same as them, but at the same time are not evil or to be punished for being different with physical or verbal abuse might help.
Might even have stopped me having to spend a night in A&E with my partner who had been beaten up just for walking down the street at 5pm of an evening because 2 guys saw me give him a quick peck on the cheek.
If people really believe I am going to hell they should stop preaching and beating and trust their faith that their god / gods will punish me after I die. I thought that was the point of hell / damnnation, or could it be that they don't really believe in what they are saying?
</rant>
Apologies but as you can imagine this is a subject that touches a nerve with me.
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