Lawyers representing Dinesh D’Souza’s newest film, America, have fired off a letter to Google demanding that the search engine correct problems that they say are hampering the ability of consumers to figure out where the movie is playing.
The letter claims that Google has been confusing America with 2016: Obama’s America, which was D’Souza’s first movie and has been out of theaters for two years, while Lionsgate released America on July 2 and it is currently playing in about 1,100 theaters nationwide.This is my favorite part of the whole thing:
While Google did not respond to multiple requests for comment, some potential moviegoers are accusing the search company, or others, of engaging in a plot of misinformation. "This mixup is likely being coordinated by those in the film industry who hope the film fails at the box office," one wrote at the film’s Facebook page.Say this for D'Souza's team: Getting mainstream press to take this seriously is impressive, but getting The Hollywood Reporter to put Facebook comments by "potential moviegoers" in their story is even more impressive. Best of all, they got action from Google:
“Our systems have unfortunately confused the title of the movie America, because it’s a common term and appears in many movie titles,” a Google spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday. “We’ve updated the Knowledge Graph, our database that stores this type of information, but it will take some time to display showtimes and other details for this movie. We’re always working on improving our systems, and we appreciate the feedback.”The squeaky wheel gets the publicity!
The complaint is of course bullshit -- any "potential moviegoer" who can't remember the full name of the movie he wants to see, nor think to check with his local theaters, is probably too developmentally disabled to go outside alone. And you can imagine what kind of "update" Google is doing based on one complaint, even one sent by lawyers.
But for D'Souza's purposes it doesn't matter: If box office receipts go up, the D'Souzans can say it was because they broke the Google-Commie logjam; if they don't go up, they can claim Google is stonewalling them, just like the IRS!
As anyone can see by the steady stream of paranoid emails (and Reason videos) that they churn out, pitchmen for conservative products believe their audience are suckers for anything that stokes their persecution mania. On the evidence, it seems they have assessed that audience correctly.
Important safety tip: give different titles to all your movies.
ReplyDeleteThe Kenyon has gone to far! Deviously trying to suppress D’Souza’s constitutional right to having his movie be popular by taking advantage of his fans being unable to remember a complex title like "America"! What is this, North Korea!?
ReplyDeleteRemember "An American Carol"! Never Forget!
have fired off a letter to Google demanding that the search engine correct problems
ReplyDeleteLike when you type "Dinesh D'Souza A" it auto-completes it with "arrest". That's bullshit. Everyone knows that he's already been sentenced.
Also, I'm sure that "those in the film industry who hope the film fails at the box office," have enormous clout with the people running Google.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe that beats out "Dinesh D'Souza asshole".
ReplyDeleteI feel for D'Souza here because Google is also discriminating against my movie, "Funny Kitten Pictures".
ReplyDeleteWell yeah, they're all liberals. They're all in collusion, don't you know that? < /wingnut>
ReplyDeleteDon't miss D'Souza's recent successful attempt to bully Costco into carrying his latest screed because CENSORSHIP!
ReplyDeleteNice to see he's getting his money's worth out of his defense team. Has he started shaking the McDonald's coffee cup of charity under his fans' noses yet?
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't think it is impressive that shitty reporters will treat Facebook statements as reliable, I do think it is delightful that Google has now laid out the Vilkommen mat for every rabid squinty-eyed bigoted paranoid right wing shriekbat (but I repeat myself, a lot) who is convinced that the Great Liberal Search Result Suppression Conspiracy is an actual thing.
As an artist, none of my failures are my fault. If a project fails, or even underperforms, it can only be due to a nebulous yet monolithic group of powerful people conspiring against me. Even if I generate some confusion by giving my project a common name - one which is similar to a recent project - it is still not my fault. The system should have been designed specifically with me in mind.
ReplyDeleteHey, this is easy! So, conservative moneymen, care to finance my documentary? It'll be a lot cheaper than D'Souza's, and I promise I'll whine way more.
Hey, that's the name of MY movie!
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if, when that blessed day finally comes, and D'Sousa is perp-walked into his prison cell, he'll cry "discrimination" and "conservative victimhood!" when he doesn't have a view or a private restroom?
ReplyDeleteHoly crap. The film is now the #1 and #2 results for a Google search for "America", the word not the movie. Mission fucking accomplished. Gotta feel bad for that Vespucci guy or anyone looking for the lyrics to A Horse with No Name.
ReplyDeleteI suspect he thinks he'll never be sent to prison.
ReplyDeleteSo D'Souza wins no matter what happens at the box office? Sounds like good news for John McCain to me! ;)
ReplyDeleteI gather from this that D'inesh D'dummy is already laying the groundwork to explain the abject failure of his film. I guess that conservative movies are like conservatism itself: They cannot fail, they can only be failed. So the fact that people stay away in droves is just more evidence of liberal something or other.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, we can all miss what Variety might have done with this:
Conservative Flick Gets Google Pic Kick
"If you liked my last movie, United States, you'll absolutely adore my latest movie, United States. In fact, I think you might be interested in getting on board with my next project, which I'm tentatively calling United States. I'll be working on that just as soon as I finish my novel called "United States."
ReplyDeleteDid I mention I have a music CD coming out? Yeah, it's called United States. How did you know?
I seem to remember once upon a time that some morons were seriously claiming that "An American Carol"'s failure was due to ticket sellers conspiring to intentional sell it's many fans the wrong tickets so it would APPEAR to be a box office failure, while actually being secretly being a huge hit. Because there's so much more plausible than clumsy, witless propaganda pieces just not being popular with the movie going public.
ReplyDeleteSo, yeah I'd guess he is.
It couldn't possibly be due to the invisible hand of their vaunted free market giving them the finger!
ReplyDeleteYou think you've got it bad? Google really has it out for my forthcoming YA novel XXX Hot Naked Schoolgirls.
ReplyDeleteHe's probably right. Hard to imagine a less-enforced set of laws than those governing campaign finance shenanigans that benefit Republicans.
ReplyDeleteMy debut single, I Liek Pokemon, currently languishes on page 641 of the Google results.
ReplyDeleteWhy would anyone hope for something that they know is going to happen?
ReplyDeleteIt's always win-win for these clowns. Or dumb-dumb.
ReplyDeleteDo not want.
ReplyDeleteI wanna see some D Johnston stuff at Liberty Island.
ReplyDeleteI suspect Google won't be the only one who "has it out" for your forthcoming novel.
ReplyDeleteWell, Didi has every right to be angry at Google. He's not even on the first page of "chinless, clueless dork." Not on "chinless, clueless doofus," either. The nerve!!
ReplyDeleteThis. Exactly. Everyone knows the invisible hand only gives the finger to struggling families, minorities and women. RealCons get the hand job and anything else is the sign of liberal shenanigans.
ReplyDeleteOf course, if D'vorce D'Convict was a liberal the right wing response would make a buzzard puke.
And they're also grumping about how Costco removed 'America: Imagine a World Without Her' from their shelves.
ReplyDeleteWhy? Well the right-wingers say it's because the owners of Costco are liberals. Costco says it's because the book doesn't sell.
Of course, right-wingers are willing to go to the supreme court to let a pharmacists not fill a prescription because they have personal objections, so even if their version is right, they still shouldn't object.
Once again, the right-wing version of freedom is clear: those in the tribe have the inalienable right to whatever they want (including shelf space at Costco). And the rest of us? We have the right to be persecuted by the right-wingers.
Dinesh D'Souza has made a career out of being another voice in the echo chamber. By reflecting and amplifing the prejudices of his patrons. It seems like every time he screws up, it's because he thinks he's part of the ruling elite to whom the rules don't apply. If instead of being the president of some fly by night christian college, he had been a member of evangenical christianity's top tier, like Orel Roberts or Billy Graham, all it would have taken would have been a televised tearful apology and he would have kept his job, and there would have been praises all round.
ReplyDeleteIn his little stunt with illegal campaign contributions, if he had just followed the freaking rules, he could have shoveled all the cash he wanted and more at his preferred candidates. But he couldn't even recruit enough dupes to be his financial catspaws and decided to cheat in the most incompetent fashion of the post Citizens United era. His political allies don't appear to have lifted a finger to help him, unlike for example Scott Walker who has courted the sleaziest donors and employed the most ham handed political operatives, all of whom are apparently loyal enough to shut up when a prosecutor comes knocking.
When he gets out of prison, it will be a matter of months before he steps on another metaphorical rake. He makes Mr. Bean look like a model of omnicompetence and efficiency.
Google is a well known part of the liberal conspiracy along with science and universities. This is why conservatives never Google stuff to find out if it is true or not. To do so would be palling around with the enemy.
ReplyDeleteLiberal = anyone not insane, hence Costco and Google are now liberal.
ReplyDeleteI prefer the sequels, Mechagodzilla vs Godzilla and Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla.
ReplyDeleteAnd the rest of us? We have the right to be persecuted by the right-wingers.
ReplyDeleteIf they're not allowed to persecute us, then ispso fatso, we're persecuting them!
'Google agog at GOP goober's Boondoggle'?
ReplyDeleteI just wanna see D Johnston get the fat publishing contract we all know he deserves. A talentless hack like D'Zaster gets published, and our own D Johnston does not: Proof the universe has no taste.
ReplyDeleteWell the right-wingers say it's because the owners of Costco are liberals. Costco says it's because the book doesn't sell.
ReplyDeleteSo it's even worse than right-wingers think....liberals who know how to make money!
Google kinks dink's links
ReplyDeleteI thought that's what his mistress was doing.
ReplyDeleteGoogle smirches movie searches
ReplyDeleteTicket seekers left in lurches
D'Sousa: sad
D'Lawyers: glad
D'Parrots: on their perches
Remember "An American Carol"!
ReplyDeleteJust don't try to Google it using the "American" part.
and I promise I'll whine way more.
ReplyDeleteBe careful writing checks your gallbladder can't cash.
Dear Mr. D'Souza,
ReplyDeleteI typed "america dinesh d'souza locations" into Google and easily found the home page for your movie. If you want people to know where it's playing, HOW ABOUT LISTING THE LOCATIONS ON YOUR FUCKING WEBSITE???
Tempest in a Tea Party Pot.
Bite me,
BG
Amazon will be next. In 2009, Rosie O'Donnell produced, wrote, and starred in a film called "America." Potential Amazon instant video customers will find their D'Souzan urges hampered yet again and, worse still, will potentially see scenes in which a psychiatrist helps a bi-racial boy named America deal with his not-white-enough-for-the-White-House life.
ReplyDelete"New Dinesh D'Souza movie" gets 3,336,000 hits.
ReplyDelete"Fucking Dinesh D'Souza" only gets 72,200. This look backwards to anybody else?
Plenty of titles for D'Souza's next one!
ReplyDeleteAmerica Raids Again
Son of America
America's Revenge
America on Monster Island
America vs. Mechamerica
America vs. Spaceamerica
The Return of America
America: Final Wars
And of course, due to a liberal media conspiracy, the original America was released in America (with additional Raymond Burr footage) under the disrespectful title America, King of the Monsters!
Oh, yes, of course, no doubt! Why, just yesterday I overheard Sherry Lansing get on the phone to Google demanding that they deep six Dinesh's movie.
ReplyDeleteGosh, how many hits would "dinesh d'souza convicted felon" get?
ReplyDelete201,000
ReplyDeleteGiven the number of people who (a) want to fuck Dinesh or (b) watch Dinesh fucking, 72,200 looks really high.
ReplyDeleteLeave the quotation marks around it, and it drops to 5. One of which is your comment. Coincidence ... or conspiracy?
ReplyDeleteIt'll be a lot cheaper than D'Souza's, and I promise I'll whine way more.
ReplyDeleteWhine more than D'Souza? You could break something just trying to!
Dinesh, Ramesh, and "Bobby" don't realize they're being laughed at by the very people they'd like to empower, when they're not looking. AMMFSFEA
ReplyDelete(Almost Makes Me Feel Sorry For 'Em. Almost)
If I keep hearing about Dinesh's stupid movie that horseride to the desert is going to start looking pretty good.
ReplyDeleteWell the right-wingers say it's because the owners of Costco are liberals.
ReplyDeleteAnd how dare they act like Capitalists when it's us they're Capitalizing on...
Or deep doo-doo...
ReplyDeleteWell, to be fair, when Avatar was hot, it was probably the top 50 results. Same thing for Alien, if it was a Google-era movie. Anyway, that's how Google rolls these days. I'm so old I remember when it was an actual search engine...
ReplyDeleteOne good thing, "Club Fed" is pretty much a thing of the past, what with the War on (some) Drugs (used by some people)
ReplyDeleteTBogg really went off the deep end the other day with hotnakedphyllisschlafly.com". I still feel unclean...
ReplyDeleteTransparent attempt to swindle Laurie Anderson fans.
ReplyDeleteNumber 3 is a prominent one-star rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
ReplyDeleteFirst 100 purchasers get a free trench coat!
ReplyDeleteSure I'll pay extra for the transparent vinyl.
ReplyDeleteI have an old college friend who's a bit of a right- winger, and he found An American Carol too heavy-handed.
ReplyDeleteSo close to limericity.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget Wet Hot American America.
ReplyDeleteObviously Costco should force people to buy a copy every time they visit. Because Right wingers are also as exempt from being judged and found wanting by the Free Market.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it's the same coat. You send it on like a chain letter--or like the Traveling Pants, but not as wholesome.
ReplyDeleteAnd so you had to share for those of us who missed it in its original venue.
ReplyDeleteI'm at work, dammit! I can't go and shower!
So he could piss and moan about a liberal conspiracy when the inevitable happened.
ReplyDeletethe 3.3M hits are all bot link bait pages for SEO :)
ReplyDeleteoh god there simply isn't enough soap in the world to clean that away
ReplyDeletePut that hit count down! Hit counts are for movies with unique names.
ReplyDeleteI know I'm late to the party, but I wrote a review of the movie because I'm kind-hearted.
ReplyDeleteNight of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return
ReplyDeleteof the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien,
Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Zombified America Part 2, in Shocking 2-D