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Everyone knows exactly why they don't make search recommendations, and is there really anything we can say about it that won't devolve into trolling, flaming, a

Everyone knows exactly why they don't make search recommendations, and is there really anything we can say about it that won't devolve into trolling, flaming, and deliberate misunderstanding?

gort 17y ago
Everyone knows exactly why Sure, but did you know that they were doing it at all? I didn't until today.
- Retric 17y ago
  I don't think it's removed for the reasons you think it is. It seems to be driven by what people search for. First option under "dead b" is "dead baby jokes". Try "death and r" and "death and return of superman" is above "death and resurrection of jesus". And one of the options under "death squads" is "death squads health care" If people don't use "Islam is ..." all that often it's not going to be part of their suggestion tree. PS: First option under "muslim is " is "muslim is wrong". Muslim is not actually a religion, but I think far more people in the US use it than islam.
  - gort 17y ago
    Hmm - you could be right, but as the article takes pains to note, all of the obvious analogous searches do return suggestions, which I think is evidence against your idea. Still, it's been pointed out that queries like "Muhammad is" still "work", which I think is evidence for your idea. :)
    - joubert 17y ago
      Right, I think the author of the article is not really interested in uncovering the (presumably) interesting heuristics for inclusion/exclusion in the autosuggest list, and is rather just throwing his prejudices out in the open.
  - Batsu 17y ago
    In a related thought, try "Islam will"
  - nitrogen 17y ago
    "I am extremely" provides further amusement as a search suggestion prefix.
    - megamark16 17y ago
      "why is my" is also quite entertaining, with many fun breakoff suggestions possible. "Why is my poop..." makes the list several times.
amichail 17y ago
Yes, fix the algorithm by requiring a higher cutoff for what is shown.
- paulgb 17y ago
  Why tune the algorithm in a way that would make the service less useful just because some people are sensitive? I guarantee you I've been helped by google suggestions that occur less frequency on the web than, say, "islam is false" (which, judging from other religions, would be suggested if it were not blocked).
  - amichail 17y ago
    What about racist suggestions?
    - paulgb 17y ago
      How does a frequency cutoff filter out racist suggestions? Or were you referring to another sort of automatic cutoff? NB. Interestingly, "christians are" and "atheists are" don't return any results either.
      - amichail 17y ago
        I suspect it would filter out much of what is offensive. But you need to try it and see.
        paulgb 17y ago
        "white people are stupid" (without quotes) has 218 million results. It's one of the suggestions that google (presumably) blocks. That's many more results than a lot of useful suggestions ("michael jackson songs" has 88 million). It turns out "(race or religion or nationality) are" is blocked for most races, religions, and nationalities.
joubert 17y ago
Possibly the starting "Is" in Islam throws the googleboxen into a self-recursive Gödel gyroscope. For example, if you try with related phrases such as "Muslim is" it works. So my guess would be algorithm breakdown because of "is" repeat.
- joubert 17y ago
  Actually, I tried a few other examples using "minorities" as the start of the phrase and then using "are". They are all censored. Non-minorities aren't; e.g. "men are" works fine. So my algorithm implosion theory is clearly wrong.
- kwamenum86 17y ago
  Not so...try "Isaac is "
- nollidge 17y ago
  Probably not. "Island is" works. It's not even that you don't find offensive things in the dropdown; it's that there's suddenly no dropdown. Weirder still is that "Muslim is $ADJECTIVE" is ungrammatical. Typing "Christian is" turns up some nonsensical results, not the same negative ones that "Muslim is" or "Christianity is" do.
joubert 17y ago
I don't know what your theory is ("everyone knows exactly why"), but I'll put forth my thesis. 1) Autosuggestions are a sample of the most frequent phrases google users type in 2) This autosuggest list is analyzed statistically and a sentiment score established ranging from 0 (friendly) through 1 (hateful). 3) If the autosuggest list statistics reveal a certain characteristic (e.g. all hateful, or very controversial, etc.), then no suggestions get returned. If I'm wrong that at least in principle this is an automatic, data-driven behavior, then I really feel sorry for the sod who is maintaining a list of what phrases aren't kosher.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- shawndumas 17y ago
  ...so "buddhism is bulls__t" is where on that scale?
- gort 17y ago
  I think the counterexample to this theory is "Christianity is" which returns 7 negative suggestions, 1 ambiguous, 1 positive, and 1 t-shirt. Another argument is that typing in "Islam i[letter]" where [letter] is some common consonant usually returns suggestions.
utku_karatas2 17y ago
Maybe if it came from a muslim himself. Google is just being wise here. Why would they risk offending people who are already offended? Not many would be offended when the completion suggests "niggers are.." - it is a thing of past; "jews are.." - they are sane and educated enough not to go batshit; "indians are.." - pretty well integrated with the western society. Muslims are neither that educated nor integrated well with the western world and we have a stinking situation in hand like occupied countries and a threat of having more occupied countries. The minute after Google suggests completions about Islam there will be forward mails like "GOOGLE IS RUN BY JEWS AND THEY HUMILIATE US ALL!!!1". It is an effective bit of propoganda and there's a possibility of causing a loss of market share. And mind you this is the least of what could happen. So, again, why would they even risk it at all?
- coolestuk 17y ago
  why would they even risk it at all? So, you're saying terrorism works. It's ok to offend groups who don't resort to terrorism to destroy freedom of speech. That Google operates censorship in China and India is bad enough. Now you're saying the number 1 search engine in the west is right to censor.
  - utku_karatas2 17y ago
    I'm not saying terrorism works. I'm just saying Google is not a non profit organisation promoting free speech.
    - coolestuk 17y ago
      You are saying terrorism works. You are saying that one of the most important companies in the world should discriminate in favour of one religion, because the adherents of that religion will use violence to get their way. Google has chosen to position itself as an ethical company. Google's motto is "do no evil". They want us to think they enshrine all that is good. Discriminating in favour of irrational and violent religious fundamentalists is evil.
1010011010 17y ago
It's a bug. It will be fixed.
- Confusion 17y ago
  I think this may very well be true. It has always been the case that some search terms simply don't yield suggestions. The fact that 'islam' is among them, could very well be a mere coincidence.
philk 17y ago
Yes, everyone knows exactly why they're doing it but: a) By censoring some terms they open themselves up to more criticism, they can no longer point out that everything is done algorithmically; and b) It's still possible to get offensive search suggestions out of Google, try typing 'Allah is'

Everyone knows exactly why they don't make search recommendations, and is there really anything we can say about it that won't devolve into trolling, flaming, and deliberate misunderstanding?

gort 17y ago

Everyone knows exactly why Sure, but did you know that they were doing it at all? I didn't until today.

Retric 17y ago
I don't think it's removed for the reasons you think it is. It seems to be driven by what people search for. First option under "dead b" is "dead baby jokes". Try "death and r" and "death and return of superman" is above "death and resurrection of jesus". And one of the options under "death squads" is "death squads health care" If people don't use "Islam is ..." all that often it's not going to be part of their suggestion tree. PS: First option under "muslim is " is "muslim is wrong". Muslim is not actually a religion, but I think far more people in the US use it than islam.
- gort 17y ago
  Hmm - you could be right, but as the article takes pains to note, all of the obvious analogous searches do return suggestions, which I think is evidence against your idea. Still, it's been pointed out that queries like "Muhammad is" still "work", which I think is evidence for your idea. :)
  - joubert 17y ago
    Right, I think the author of the article is not really interested in uncovering the (presumably) interesting heuristics for inclusion/exclusion in the autosuggest list, and is rather just throwing his prejudices out in the open.
- Batsu 17y ago
  In a related thought, try "Islam will"
- nitrogen 17y ago
  "I am extremely" provides further amusement as a search suggestion prefix.
  - megamark16 17y ago
    "why is my" is also quite entertaining, with many fun breakoff suggestions possible. "Why is my poop..." makes the list several times.

amichail 17y ago

Yes, fix the algorithm by requiring a higher cutoff for what is shown.

paulgb 17y ago
Why tune the algorithm in a way that would make the service less useful just because some people are sensitive? I guarantee you I've been helped by google suggestions that occur less frequency on the web than, say, "islam is false" (which, judging from other religions, would be suggested if it were not blocked).
- amichail 17y ago
  What about racist suggestions?
  - paulgb 17y ago
    How does a frequency cutoff filter out racist suggestions? Or were you referring to another sort of automatic cutoff? NB. Interestingly, "christians are" and "atheists are" don't return any results either.
    - amichail 17y ago
      I suspect it would filter out much of what is offensive. But you need to try it and see.
      - paulgb 17y ago
        "white people are stupid" (without quotes) has 218 million results. It's one of the suggestions that google (presumably) blocks. That's many more results than a lot of useful suggestions ("michael jackson songs" has 88 million). It turns out "(race or religion or nationality) are" is blocked for most races, religions, and nationalities.

joubert 17y ago

Possibly the starting "Is" in Islam throws the googleboxen into a self-recursive Gödel gyroscope. For example, if you try with related phrases such as "Muslim is" it works. So my guess would be algorithm breakdown because of "is" repeat.

joubert 17y ago
Actually, I tried a few other examples using "minorities" as the start of the phrase and then using "are". They are all censored. Non-minorities aren't; e.g. "men are" works fine. So my algorithm implosion theory is clearly wrong.
kwamenum86 17y ago
Not so...try "Isaac is "
nollidge 17y ago
Probably not. "Island is" works. It's not even that you don't find offensive things in the dropdown; it's that there's suddenly no dropdown. Weirder still is that "Muslim is $ADJECTIVE" is ungrammatical. Typing "Christian is" turns up some nonsensical results, not the same negative ones that "Muslim is" or "Christianity is" do.

joubert 17y ago

I don't know what your theory is ("everyone knows exactly why"), but I'll put forth my thesis. 1) Autosuggestions are a sample of the most frequent phrases google users type in 2) This autosuggest list is analyzed statistically and a sentiment score established ranging from 0 (friendly) through 1 (hateful). 3) If the autosuggest list statistics reveal a certain characteristic (e.g. all hateful, or very controversial, etc.), then no suggestions get returned. If I'm wrong that at least in principle this is an automatic, data-driven behavior, then I really feel sorry for the sod who is maintaining a list of what phrases aren't kosher.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
shawndumas 17y ago
...so "buddhism is bulls__t" is where on that scale?
gort 17y ago
I think the counterexample to this theory is "Christianity is" which returns 7 negative suggestions, 1 ambiguous, 1 positive, and 1 t-shirt. Another argument is that typing in "Islam i[letter]" where [letter] is some common consonant usually returns suggestions.

utku_karatas2 17y ago

Maybe if it came from a muslim himself. Google is just being wise here. Why would they risk offending people who are already offended? Not many would be offended when the completion suggests "niggers are.." - it is a thing of past; "jews are.." - they are sane and educated enough not to go batshit; "indians are.." - pretty well integrated with the western society. Muslims are neither that educated nor integrated well with the western world and we have a stinking situation in hand like occupied countries and a threat of having more occupied countries. The minute after Google suggests completions about Islam there will be forward mails like "GOOGLE IS RUN BY JEWS AND THEY HUMILIATE US ALL!!!1". It is an effective bit of propoganda and there's a possibility of causing a loss of market share. And mind you this is the least of what could happen. So, again, why would they even risk it at all?

coolestuk 17y ago
why would they even risk it at all? So, you're saying terrorism works. It's ok to offend groups who don't resort to terrorism to destroy freedom of speech. That Google operates censorship in China and India is bad enough. Now you're saying the number 1 search engine in the west is right to censor.
- utku_karatas2 17y ago
  I'm not saying terrorism works. I'm just saying Google is not a non profit organisation promoting free speech.
  - coolestuk 17y ago
    You are saying terrorism works. You are saying that one of the most important companies in the world should discriminate in favour of one religion, because the adherents of that religion will use violence to get their way. Google has chosen to position itself as an ethical company. Google's motto is "do no evil". They want us to think they enshrine all that is good. Discriminating in favour of irrational and violent religious fundamentalists is evil.

1010011010 17y ago

It's a bug. It will be fixed.

Confusion 17y ago
I think this may very well be true. It has always been the case that some search terms simply don't yield suggestions. The fact that 'islam' is among them, could very well be a mere coincidence.

philk 17y ago

Yes, everyone knows exactly why they're doing it but: a) By censoring some terms they open themselves up to more criticism, they can no longer point out that everything is done algorithmically; and b) It's still possible to get offensive search suggestions out of Google, try typing 'Allah is'