Blog #6

I have never heard of any anti-war websites before this class. I thought it was interesting to learn that there are many websites online that protest America's involvement in the war in Ukraine. While these websites exist, they are not readily talked about, rather, they are disregarded. When you do a Google search for the word "American wars," no anti-war websites come up. Instead, many of the websites listed talk about when, where, and why the wars took place. 

It is interesting that in school, when students learn about war, they are taught that serving in war is a patriotic thing to do and being anti-war is associated with not being loyal to your country. Only one side of the story is taught to impressionable children. School curriculums do not explore the topic of being against America being involved in war. From a young age, students are encouraged to join the military because it is a way of supporting their country. However, it is important to point out that just because a person is anti-war does not mean that they are not unpatriotic or disloyal to their country. In fact, some people's reasoning behind not wanting America to be involved in war is that they do not want American lives to be lost in a war America is not obligated to be in. 

While citizens of America have the right to freedom of speech via the First Amendment. Companies like Google have the power to pick the order in which websites appear. Typically, users do not scroll and do not look at all of the websites listed simply because there are so many. Search engines like Google are able to silence anti-war websites by not putting them high up on the main page. It can be very difficult for anti-war websites to gain popularity simply because people are not able to find them easily on Google.