In the past several hours, I have received multiple e-mail messages from readers claiming that internet behemoth Google, for a brief period of time Saturday morning, flagged a number of conservative websites including NewsBusters, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Fox News as possibly harmful to computers.
UPDATE: This is NOT a problem exclusive to conservative websites.
NewsBusters has reported such instances before when they happened to Lucianne and the American Spectator.
NewsBusters reader James Marie e-mailed moments ago (with permission):
I just read your article: You’ve Got to Wonder About Google and I wanted to tell you about Google blocking Fox News this morning. When I tried to bring up Fox news at about 10:45 AM, this is what I received:
Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!Suggestions:
- Return to the previous page and pick another result.
- Try another search to find what you're looking for.
Or you can continue to http://www.foxnews.com/ at your own risk. For detailed information about the problems we found, visit Google's Safe Browsing diagnostic page for this site.
For more information about how to protect yourself from harmful software online, you can visit StopBadware.org.
If you are the owner of this web site, you can request a review of your site using Google's Webmaster Tools. More information about the review process is available in Google's Webmaster Help Center.Advisory provided by
I then tried to access Fox News several other ways and received this type message every way I tried for Fox:
Breaking News | Latest News | Current News - FOXNews.com
This site may harm your computer.
Every site had this note: This site may harm your computer.
Breaking News, Latest News and Current News from FOXNews.com. Breaking news and video. Latest Current News: US, World, Entertainment, Health, Business, ... www.foxnews.com/ - Similar pages
I then tried several other conservative sites and got the: Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!
Fascinating. Earlier in the morning, a reader sent the following to our tip line:
I log on to NEWSBUSTERS USEING [sic] google [sic], it took me to GOOGLE SEARCH and said NEWSBUSTERS can harm your computer
Another message to our tip line stated:
Briefly, on Saturday, January 31,around [sic] 10:30 EST, when I went into Google to go to Limbaugh's website, the search engine indicated that if I were to access this site it would damage my computer. It said the same thing on other sites such as Hannity, Beck, etc. I wish I copied the disclosure. Interestingly enough, a short time later, Google eliminated the warning...what's going on? Was it testing something? I sent emails to Hannity and Limbaugh to indicate this.
In the past, many tech-types have suggested that these warnings were actually caused by problems at the websites in question and might not indicate anything nefarious on Google's part.
However, assuming these tipsters are correct, did all of these websites suddenly experience the same software glitch Saturday?
Stay tuned.
P.S. If you saw similar messages when trying to access NewsBusters or other websites today, please advise.
*****Update: NB reader James Marie claims the following websites also experienced flags on Saturday:
Michelle Malkin
The Right Side of Life
Citizen Wells Blog
*****Update II: NBer kg informed readers in the comments section:
Today Heritage Foundation came up with a mallware warning.
Weekly Standard has has a "known virus" site as well.
Also "Olbermann Watch" videos have been taken off you tube.
NBer shawn confirmed the Heritage sighting.
*****Update III: The Calgary Sun is reporting this to be a system-wide error (h/t NB reader Tony McHugh):
Fascinating.If you did a Google Internet search between 9:30 a.m. ET and 10:25 a.m. ET on Saturday, you likely were unable to access any website in the search results list.
Google labelled all websites, even www.google.ca, as a malicious website with the warning ”This site may harm your computer.”
Clicking the warning took the user to a page which explained that “This warning message appears with search results we’ve identified as sites that may install malicious software on your computer.”
Google later said the problem occurred because of “human error” and issued an apology.
—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters. Follow him at Facebook and Twitter.
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
Free though is harmful to
January 31, 2009 - 13:41 ET by ThisnThatFree thought is harmful to dictatorial minds. Not yet to computers, though.
___________________________________
The challenge is to follow a consistent plan despite inconsistent prices - Sarah Palin, State of the State of Alaska speech
Today Heritage Foundation
January 31, 2009 - 13:44 ET by kgToday Heritage Foundation came up with a mallware warning.
Weekly Standard has has a "known virus" site as well.
Also "Olbermann Watch" videos have been taken off you tube.
"Forget change, I want improvement!"
I saw the warning
January 31, 2009 - 13:47 ET by shawn228On Heritage site as well.
He had my vote
"I don't have this problem when searching Chinese google"
January 31, 2009 - 13:46 ET by upcountrywaterSpongebob in china
CNN have this problem?
NBC?
bye bye FREEDOM
(D)
Noel
January 31, 2009 - 13:49 ET by shawn228A NB member has been encouraging me to go to more scripture sites, most of them had the google warning this morning as well.
He had my vote
Google's Epic Fail
January 31, 2009 - 13:47 ET by Saint ZeroThey had the whole internet flagged as "Malware" this morning for about 20 minutes...
Saint Zero is correct. The
January 31, 2009 - 13:52 ET by DaBirdSaint Zero is correct. Google says the entire internet was tagged as malware. Here's their explanation.
Not happening now, at least
January 31, 2009 - 13:54 ET by BKeyserNot happening now, at least when I just tried it. They've probably been hacked and have since fixed it...
Unlike Bush's 'Google Bomb,' Google Quickly Defuses Obama's
January 31, 2009 - 13:56 ET by allanfNoel links to this in his Foxnews blog. But this is stunning Unlike Bush's 'Google Bomb,' Google Quickly Defuses Obama's
Uhhh, guys.....
January 31, 2009 - 14:01 ET by dronetekThis happened to every site today. I couldnt get to any site without it telling me it was harmful.
This time!
January 31, 2009 - 14:08 ET by Uncle ToashThis time it was an Google issue. I couldn't get to apple.com, or facebook.com either.
probably nothing
January 31, 2009 - 14:11 ET by tonemeisterevery site i tried even innocuous ones (food network, parts shopping for laptops) etc were flagged....either a hack on google or screwup on there end. apparently nothing nefarious.....t
since this isn't actually liberal bias...
January 31, 2009 - 14:23 ET by nicholas nicklebyNoel,
You don't think this post's title needs editing--or maybe the whole post needs deleting?--since this isn't actually the story of what happened?
Next time, to avoid such retractions, here's my advice: if NB is being tagged as harmful, check Media Matters (or other liberal site), then maybe a non-political site; if NB is the only site of those three that is being tagged as harmful, then go ahead with the post. Otherwise it just looks paranoid.
(Although if you want to go full-bore paranoid, I'd like to see a post about how gravity is keeping conservatives down.)
The post was pulled well
January 31, 2009 - 23:02 ET by DaBirdThe post was pulled well before your snarky little comment.
snarky sometimes gets the job done
February 1, 2009 - 14:28 ET by nicholas nicklebyhi DaBird,
I'm not sure that the post was pulled before my snarky little comment--I mean, I found this post here and then I commented, and now it looks like it's been pulled (although still available through the search function).
However, just to be clear, the point of my snarky little comment wasn't to say "ha, you're wrong, Noel"--it was to say, "ha, you really could've spent 5 seconds investigating to find out that this was a non-story." That is, if Noel had checked some other websites, it would've taken him less time to verify that conservatives weren't under attack than it took him to write a post about how conservatives were under attack.
So, I'm trying to save Noel time and embarrassment--because, after wasting his time posting this nonsense, he had to waste time updating it several times to admit that it was nonsense, before he finally pulled the story since it was nonsense.
If my comment was snarky (which it was a little, although it wasn't the first time that Noel and I would've argued about something, so I'm not worried that I hurt his feeling with my teasing), it was snarky for a reason: conservatives need to get their ducks in a row, and stop wasting time and energy on things that don't matter (like Obama's choice of Elizabeth Alexander to read a poem--Bozell was all up in arms over that).
NN
February 2, 2009 - 22:35 ET by Noel SheppardNN,
Yes, snarky can get the job done, but only if it's timely. For instance, your opening remark here came fourteen minutes AFTER this post was pulled from the front page AND updated to reflect this being a non-issue.
What was that you were saying about timing?
As Groucho said before we were both born, you gotta get up pretty early in the morning if you want to get out of bed. ns
Typical
February 1, 2009 - 05:06 ET by RagamuffinThis was about as credible as the rest of the anecdot based proof of liberal news bias I see here.