While Google is a private company and can do whatever it wants, there’s something more than a little hypocritical about its recent censorship of conservative web sites from its news aggregator. As one of the leading sponsors of net neutrality legislation, Google is peddling the argument that unless Congress steps in and regulates the Internet, the telecommunications companies that currently provide broadband service could censor Internet content!. As the editors put it:

Where the telecoms predict bold innovations, advocates of net neutrality see Orwellian nightmares. They argue that if telecoms are allowed to speed up the delivery of some content, there is nothing to stop them from slowing down or blocking content they don’t like. But such anti-consumer behavior is unlikely in a competitive market. Let’s say George Soros somehow took over Verizon and made troublemaking websites like National Review Online disappear from his network. Competition from other broadband providers would discourage him from thus breaking his customers’ hearts.

No wonder Google is so convincing when it goes to Capitol Hill and sells this censorship story — it’s already engaged in the practice!