Did you know that about 90% of Internet search queries are made through Google?
This is a surprising statistic when you think about a company’s market dominance and its ability to shape the results of public opinion studies. It’s also very problematic if you stick to Google’s trend of anti-conservative bias and manipulation of its search algorithm.
Todd Ricketts, co-owner of the Primary Baseball League’s Chicago Cubs, is challenging Google’s dominance by launching Freespoke, a search engine that provides unbiased, uncensored data to its users.
Ricketts joins this episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast. “Listen or a transcript of the interview below.
Rob Bluey: Before you tell me more about Freespoke’s features, I’d like to start by listening to what encouraged you to create a competitor for Google. It is certainly not a simple competitor in the market.
Todd Ricketts: I think, in general, I have a skeptical brain and, throughout my career, I’ve had this healthy skepticism about what someone was doing or how they presented themselves in relation to reality. Google effects, I felt like I was getting effects that I didn’t expect, and I felt like they were leaning a little to the left, they weren’t showing up everything I was looking for, really, and searching to consult me for a trail that wasn’t the one I was looking for.
The most productive example I have: I was showing this concept to a potential investor in Freespoke and I said, “One of the craziest things I’ve discovered is that when you type “NRA” into Google, the NRA itself is the sixth thing. that’s coming.
And so we did, and fortunately for me, at this particular meeting, the NRA went down, it was moderate, under the cloak of discussions in the newspapers, and Array just highlighted the fact that Google is showing them things that are fixed. and manipulated in a way, specifically, from a news perspective, to advise you on a trail or to direct your thinking in a specific way. And I don’t think that’s what it’s all about.
I have the idea that studies deserve to present all the data and allow you to make a decision, and if I can link that to the business of our circle of relatives at Ameritrade that we sold to Schwab a few years ago, but actually when Ameritrade got here in business in 1975, it was the deregulation of brokerage commissions.
And the concept was that before 1975, you had to pay high commissions to an estimated inventory broker to have access to inventory exchange. what he did was allow other people to take control of their own monetary future.
So I think what we’re looking to do is some kind of similar vein. I need to return information to other people. I need other people to read all the news and make their own decisions about what’s going on in the world.
Bluey: Thank you for that. And in addition to being a co-owner of the Chicago Cubs, he is most recently a member of Charles Schwab’s board of directors and in the past has been a member of the board of directors of TD Ameritrade, a company founded by his father. , as you say, in 1975. So you have had a resounding success in the business world.
And to stick to the last answer, why do you think Freespoke is so forward-looking right now?And when you look at the potential audience and the users who would take advantage of it, why is it positive about its future?
Ricketts: The American approach is competition. Obviously, when it comes to baseball and business, I’m a competitor. As you yourself said, Google has 90% of the search queries on the Internet. This is too much for a single person. market player There are many industries in which you have a player who has so much dominance.
And being a little bit close to D. C. et listening to politicians communicate, they talk about regulating those industries, however, in my opinion, I don’t need regulation. I just need competition. Give me a points game box and let me faint and find a product that is an option for Google and other search engines out there.
And the fact that some other search engines are also emerging right now, underscores the fact that there is a need in the market for a search option.
Bluey: In the past, you served as CEO of Ending Spending, which focused on fiscal issues, and was national finance chair of the Republican National Committee. So as someone who has worked in conservative and Republican politics, I’m sure you’ve noticed firsthand the anti-conservative bias. What are some of the remarkable things that big tech has done that has sparked your interest in focusing on a Google choice?
Ricketts: There are some themes. The one that strikes me the most is how Google used to send RNC emails to people’s spam folder.
Now, I think it’s not unusual for you to receive some spam in your spam folder, however, in 2020, Google, if you had a Gmail account, 80% of emails sent through the Republican National Committee to Gmail accounts were spammed, compared to less than 10% of Democratic National Committee emails.
This is a big deal, first of all, because those email campaigns are expensive and a lot of other people have Gmail. But that’s just a glimpse of how Google thinks about conservative perspectives and conservative values.
You don’t have to look too far, that COVID had so much data removed about other people that they just questioned what the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] was saying and questioning, it was lockdowns and masks and all those things that we did, were they the right thing to do?So if he said that, they immediately removed him from YouTube or removed him from a Google search.
So, there are a lot of examples where Big Tech seeks to consult the thinking of the American people, which I just don’t think is fair, and I don’t think it’s healthy. I think it’s dangerous.
Bluey: I need to come back to that in a moment. By the way, this study he referred to was from the Department of Computer Science at North Carolina State University. It was by no means a partisan study.
And as someone who has worked for several years to triumph over the algorithmic bias of social media companies, and several years ago at the Daily Signal we changed address to invest in emails, we really appreciate what you’re saying there, because it’s the number one way In which Daily Signal users and our audience get their information. So, we know that when filtered into other inboxes or spam, it can have a big effect on the number of people who view our content.
Ricketts: Yes, exactly.
Bluey: Now I need to ask you about some of the features and capabilities that users can expect from Freespoke. You talked about the principles of the search engine. When they use the search engine themselves, what are the things they will locate there?
Ricketts: Specifically in existing news and events, we identify resources as left, right, or in the middle of the road. And really, it’s not a panacea. It doesn’t solve everything. But what it does is give you a quick review of where the user who wrote this story came in, and so you can adjust in your own mind, “Do I want to load a green attack to what I’m reading, because I know this user is attacking left or right. “
So, Array, we’re just looking to help other people figure it out. Again, it’s about putting data in front of other people and helping them draw their own conclusions, and that’s all that turns out to be outside the gates of what big global tech is thinking right now, where they need to consult their thinking.
The other component is that we look for all kinds of content. Our crawler is constantly looking for new content, and we’re constantly expanding that crawl, looking to locate new applicable data resources and highlighting items. And really, if you go by googleing news, you find that the New York Times will pay all the time for that first niche. And so we avoid having that by not making other people pay for that niche, and we check to upload the content as applicable, not as it is paid.
Bluey: Again, I feel like we have a lot of synergy here, as you think it’s vital to tag the news and commentary, and we do that in The Daily Signal. I like the fact that it goes through this step and provides users with this additional information.
I imagine, however, that many other people who paint in the left-wing news media have tried to hide under the banner of the mainstream media. What could they say if they oppose the classification you gave them?Have you been in a scenario where a media outlet has complained?And if they complain, what will be their response?
Ricketts: Some media outlets have said they need to be classified as intermediaries, so it’s attractive for you to ask that question. We will continue to do so in our own way. We take a look at several sources. There’s Ad Fontes, an organization that identifies content as left-thought, right, and middle-thought, and we take a look at a few others, and we also cast it ourselves, and identify the language that’s on the left or right. . But we will continue to label things as productively as possible and in the most obvious way possible.
Bluey: Big Tech platforms promise to combat misinformation almost daily, whether it’s about climate change or COVID. Why is it to provide other people with the facts and let them think for themselves?
Ricketts: It’s going back to that old adage: the terrorist of one is the freedom fighter of the other. So when you enter this global of what you misinform, it’s a little scary to think that there’s a 25-year-old old kid in Silicon Valley who makes a decision that.
I think other people are wise enough to know for themselves what the right and wrong data is, and I don’t think we want to have this idea of the police telling you that you must have those ideas about climate change. What is the consensus on climate? And I say, “I’m not a denier, but I like to have a fair conversation. “
So any kind of platform that says it’s going to remove data from other people who question the consensus on climate change, that scares me. I think at one point Galileo said that the Earth was circular and imprisoned it because the thinking of the Flat Earth Society at the time was not an accepted part.
We don’t want to be placed in one of those positions where we have a society where other people who question the brunettes of the day are canceled. This is the worst.
You see other people being reverted and ranked as anything by comments that are just fair reviews. And one of the things we need to do is make sure we don’t cancel other people and allow other people to have this platform to communicate.
Bluey: It’s very true. And I think one of the other facets that you’ve noticed social media corporations use, and even some classic media, is the use of fact-checkers. And those fact-checkers clearly present a program. And those social media corporations paint in tandem with them and, in many cases, try to remove media content like ours in The Daily Signal or others. Therefore, there are a number of demanding situations and tactics that they are analyzing to combat “disinformation”, in their own words, which in the end only seek to advance in a safe schedule that they seek to advance.
Ricketts: No, it’s 100%. And that highlights precisely the need for platforms like Freespoke, and there will be more we will want. I don’t know if we’re going to expand beyond search in the future, but if you take a look at sites like Twitter or Instagram and those other platforms, there’s a real challenge there. As Americans, we want to have all the information, not just one point of view.
Bluey: I’m curious about this, because there’s been a lot of attention in the conservative space, whether it’s Truth Social or other platforms that came up recently. What led you to focus on studies rather than other facets of Big Tech, as a media platform?Is there anything in particular that made you feel like maybe there was an opportunity here that didn’t exist elsewhere?
Ricketts: I guess there were two parts. The first thing, that I was absolutely wrong in my thinking, I thought, “Well, how complicated can it be to create a search engine?”I say this with a little irony, because It’s incredibly complicated to create some kind of exploration generation that labels things in a way that makes sense. So it was hard.
But genuinely, the genuine explanation for why I’m looking for a smart position to start with is that, going back to Google, it has such a large market position percentage that you don’t need to get 50% of the market position position to have a viable business. Google has a billion normal users and you think, “Well, if I have 10 million, if I can only get 1% of that market position, I have a viable business, or even a tenth of a percentage. “it’s such a big market position. I got the impression that this is where the opportunity to have a viable business arose, even if you are not a market position leader.
Bluey: That’s true, and I think you’ve already seen, in the good fortune you’ve had in building a community, you call them Freefolk. Tell us who the Freefolks are and what they did to improve the platform and provide the feedback they were in terms of starting a new business.
Ricketts: Freefolk is just a kind of laugh call we use for other people who use our search engine. But in reality, Freespoke is for everyone.
I’m a Republican, but I don’t get into this corporate thinking: “Oh, this is a search engine for Republicans. “Anyone who wants to find the fact or learn. It turns out that those other people today have a tendency to be more conservative and more Republican. Many other people on the left seem to agree with the way the effects of Google and other platforms provide information.
We are for everyone and therefore everyone should be Freefolk. And I think if you’re an intellectual user in this country, you think, “This is a product I need. “
Bluey: One of the other things we haven’t talked about yet, but I think it’s another vital feature, is the fact that it doesn’t track or sell its users’ information. Why is it vital that you integrate this into the search?engine?
Ricketts: We’ve talked about it, but we haven’t noticed it in the mass market, but I think over time, other people will become more and more involved in the privacy of their non-public data found on the internet.
And even Google’s Eric Schmidt, you called it the scary line. Google tries to walk the scary line scary, but I think the fact that it never said that is scary.
And so protecting your privacy on the web is going to be important, I think, more and more as we go along, because more and more of your data is available. And other people just want to be able to make decisions about what’s going on in the world. you can see about them.
When you’re on the internet, I think other people deserve to keep this in mind, that if you don’t pay for something, you’re the product. Your data is sold to advertisers through this online page or search engine. So if you don’t pay for it, you’re the product. So if other people can have that mindset when they go over the internet, I think it would be a huge step forward in protecting their own privacy.
Bluey: I think, especially as this younger generation emerges and so much of their lives, almost their entire lives, they’re now online since they were born, I agree with you. This will be a more important factor and it’s a fear that I think we all have seeing how those corporations can manipulate knowledge and know things about us that we didn’t expect to end up where they are.
Todd, I need to replace the position just for a moment. Talk about some of your own non-public reports and what brought you to this point. He has had an incredibly successful life, and as we talked earlier with Ameritrade and some of the values that his father and his circle of relatives have brought. to this company, his brother, obviously, being the governor of Nebraska, why is he conservative?How did you get here in your life? And share with our listeners a little more about your own private history.
Ricketts: I grew up in Nebraska. It was two grandparents who taught us other things. My mom enjoyed sports and taught us how to be competitive. I say she taught us to be competition in the box and type and compassion outside the box.
And my father actually focused on risk-taking and entrepreneurship. I had the idea that you deserve to make mistakes and fail at something. And if not, you’re not looking for enough new things.
So he started several corporations before Ameritrade was successful, and he continues to do so. He is a serial entrepreneur. And I think that kind of mistake, or that gene, is in our family. My brothers and I seek to push the barriers and verify common thinking and see where there are markets that have opportunities.
Bluey: And you’ve notoriously had a lot of good fortune with your Major League Baseball team, the Chicago Cubs. As a lifelong baseball fan, for the Pittsburgh Pirates, your department rival, I just need to spend a moment here, to close. , to tell you how you’re helping to reshape the Cubs, a struggling franchise, hadn’t been in the World Series, and then that moment when you won the World Series championship.
What was it like? You were there. You have experienced this yourself. But it took five years, if I perceive it correctly, to get to the point where he was able to reshape an organization that had struggled to become World Series champions.
Ricketts: There are some pretty attractive facets. When we bought the team, we had a pretty transparent view of what Tribune had possessed the Cubs. So if you’re left thinking they belonged to the Chicago Tribune, which also owned WGN, what television network they were on, they came to the credits of the Chicago Cubs, seeing it like, “This is great TV content.
So they were able to stream the Cubs’ games and make a lot of money on their TV channel, and they weren’t as involved in how the team fared in the box as long as they had all that content to stream on TV. I think that’s the No. 1 explanation for why the team suffered so much in the ’80s, ’90s and early 2000s.
So we looked at that and said, “Look, this is a team that wins all the time. This is a team that has great enthusiasts in a big city with a smart ballpark. And if you run it as a company looking to win, you would earn the most in fact.
And it took us six years to win the World Series, yet I would say it took us about a year to combine our strategic plan, which we call the five-year plan. So it took us five years from the time we were there to get our strategy in place.
Really, it’s a matter of reducing the whole thing to half-timbered, if you think about it, and renovating a house. We redesigned the price box office. We have reviewed our entire advertising campaign. We’ve revamped everything in baseball. We have built new services in the Dominican Republic. We invested heavily in Wrigley Field to bring it into the twentieth century and turn it into a place where other people can come and watch a game like other people do today and instead of a 100-year-old building.
And I think all of those things, this seriousness in each and every point and this attention in each and every point, has gone through total organization to a point where other people have placed themselves at a higher point, and they are at a higher point, it doesn’t matter what frames they have in the Cubs.
With this culminating in a victory in the 2016 World Series, it was such a wonderful feeling to be able to return this gift to the city of Chicago, having lived in Chicago for 30 years and being a huge fan, to give this gift. to all the enthusiasts who had been waiting so long to have this birthday party and this kind of success, it was wonderful.
Bluey: We hope, as conservatives, that you’ll have the same luck with Freespoke because, as we know, the competitive environment of Major League Baseball is very difficult and the challenge you face here with Google is huge, but it’s so much to have an alternative.
And I think there are a lot of people who pay attention to the Daily Signal, other people who pay attention to this podcast or read our site, who are for anything other than the dominant player in this market.
Before concluding, how can other people learn more about Freespoke?I understand that it’s obviously on the web, but you also have an app.
Ricketts: At one percent. Yes. We have Freespoke. com, our online search engine. And then you can go to the Droid or Apple store and download the Freespoke app, so you can use it on your cellular device and have it convenient all the time. And I showed you other people, how they can move Safari out of their quick bar on the back of their phone and put Freespoke there to use it as the default search engine.
Bluey: That’s a wonderful idea. The big challenge is that preloaded setups markedly favor big competitors, so we deserve to inspire our Daily Signal listeners to do so as well. Todd, thank you so much for being a guest on “The Daily Signal Podcast” today. What.
Ricketts: Gladly. I would conclude by saying that freedom and festival are what has made our country great, so we never allow anyone to have a market percentage of 90% of anything without at least one challenge.
Bluey: It’s Todd Ricketts, co-owner of major league Baseball’s Chicago Cubs and founder of a new search engine called Freespoke. Visit it on Freespoke. com or download the app.
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Rob Bluey is editor-in-chief of The Daily Signal, the multimedia news of The Heritage Foundation. Email Rob.
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