I hold no brief for David Irving. He’s a self-important, sad, weasly little man who is largely the author of his current troubles.

However, I do care about the independence of search engine results.

Try Googling “David Irving” and the first result returned is his official site and that of his publisher, Focal Point. No surprise there.

Except the abstract below the link says: “Web site of disgraced British Holocaust denier David Irving.”

Whatever your own feelings about Irving, it’s clear that he would never thus describe himself. These words occur nowhere in the site’s content, nor in the meta tags.

Remember, Google’s database is generated not by human beings, but by a computer algorithm.

So where did this description originate? Has someone at Google editorialised the entry? If so, how many other entries have been similarly editorialised? I can see a possible case for neutralising or sanitising sites with objectionable indexed content, but the front page merely reads: “Publishers of works of Real History by David Irving and other authors.”

You may argue with Irving’s interpretation of history, as most people will. But to seek to extinguish dissent, however distasteful, is a step on the road to tyranny - about which Google already knows something, having bowed to Chinese censorship of the web in pursuit of the almighty dollar.

Am I allowed to say that I find it all deeply disturbing?