Google Is Censoring Reviews of ICE Detention Centers

elmer2

When specific movies were poorly reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes, apparently because they thought they were not genuine,the company pulled the reviews. This is no different. I seriously doubt most of them are genuine and instead a way to post political commentary inappropriately.

cube00

They've disabled reviews on all kinds of law enforcement locations for some time. Examples of places that may have long-term restrictions include police stations, prisons, oceans, seas, and schools. https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/1303613...

ilaksh

My question is, are they actually deporting people efficiently? Because if they are accumulating people in these facilities, it could become dangerous. They have been dehumanizing them for months. If there are constraints for food supplies, staff are not going to risk their jobs to keep prisoners fed. There needs to be a law for video audits every X weeks. Or there is a real risk of starvation in some places. Some of them are for profit and the intense racial hatred is no joke.

outime

Google has routinely removed respectful, factual, but low-rated reviews I've left for restaurants and other places just because someone complained. They have also cleaned up or disabled reviews for many public institutions in some (or all?) countries. Then there are cases like Germany, where even a 3-star review may be automatically removed because it's considered potentially defamatory. I understand that ICE is a very contentious topic but this seems to happen quite often in other situations as well. It's made me value Google Maps reviews much less.

felooboolooomba

We've seen before how companies fall in line: Of the 4,700 newspapers published in Germany when the Nazis took power in 1933, no more that 1,100 remained. Approximately half were still in the hands of private or institutional owners, but these newspapers operated in strict compliance with government press laws and published material only in accordance with directives issued by the Ministry of Propaganda. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-press-...

dlahoda

Also it censors schools reviews.

morkalork

This is not new. Way back in the day, you could see and add reviews to Guantanamo Bay on google maps. They were absolutely hilarious since most were trolly reviews of the music (which detainees were forced to endure) and the food (force fed to those on hunger strikes). Suffice to say, that did not last very long.

tzs

I'm surprised reviews were enabled for those locations. From their explanation of posting restrictions [1] that was linked in another comment: > Posting on a particular place may be turned off if its category or geographic area has experienced a continuous pattern of low value or off-topic posts. Contributions are considered low value when they don’t typically play a large part in helping users decide whether to visit the place. People being detained generally aren't asked by ICE which detention center they want to be put in, and people visiting a detention center generally are doing so to see a client or relative, so ICE detention centers fit this (as do most other incarceration facilities). Later they list characteristics of places they may restrict, and one is: > Generally unvisitable or have limited public access. These are places where people typically don’t have a choice about which location to go to, that aren’t open to the public, or where access to the place may be limited to people who are stationed or assigned there. Most incarceration centers definitely fit this. [1] https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/1303613...

daft_pink

Why would they allow reviews of ICE Dentention Centers anyways? Who gives a 5 star review to a prison?