Helsinki Times
Try searching Google for some of Helsinki Times’ in-depth consumer guides and specialized reporting today, and you might come up empty-handed. Where original articles once stood, readers are instead met with a quiet, sterile disclaimer tucked away at the bottom of the search page:
“In response to a complaint that we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed results from this page.”
The articles haven’t been retracted, nor did our newsroom violate anyone's intellectual property. Instead, we have been erased by phantom copyright strikes - spurious takedown notices filed under United States law by anonymous actors using demonstrably false claims.
Even more alarming than the ease with which our journalism was knocked offline is what followed: months of dead silence from Google. Despite submitting comprehensive, legally sworn counter-notices complete with proof of authorship, our appeals have vanished into an automated void. Across our newsroom and affiliated digital properties like Stadtgame, original reporting has been held hostage in Google's unyielding "in queue" status since June.
Our experience is far from isolated. It reflects a growing, systemic crisis in digital journalism - one laid bare by UK media monitor Press Gazette, which documented how US copyright law has been systematically weaponised by commercial rivals and rogue operators to censor legitimate reporting and manipulate the web.
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WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Division have launched a six-month Healthcare False Claims Act Self-Disclosure Pilot ...