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The big tech companies have constantly catered to conservatives and Republicans since the blogosphere blew up in the early 2000s, but when it comes to progressive websites like Crooksandliars, not so much.
An example: When Michelle Malkin was on Fox News constantly during the Bush and Obama years, she would post one or maybe two opinion pieces on her website a day, yet Google immediately classified her as a news website.
When C&L submitted an application to become a news site, Google refused us with no explanation, even though we are journalists and opinion writers who have broken real news stories over the years. We also produce 20 times the content that Malkin did in a day.
This has been an ongoing issue for us and many other independent sites. Some have gone to Substack to defray their server costs and costs to maintain archives. We could have done that too, but are stubbornly committed to remaining independent.
Google's decision has had a terrible effect since Google drives their information through their own algorithm, which means when you're out, you're out.
Enter Zuckerberg and and now Musk.
There never is a way to engage with any of them unless you're a billion-dollar Koch brother or cater to white nationalism and and fascism.
We've been fighting this fight for almost two decades.