5 ms·

Google is manipulating search results in favor of Hillary Clinton

30 points by kauffj 10y ago

ccvannorman 10y ago
Just tested this and the article is on point, at least about "Hillary Clinton cri" search autocompletes. I took some screenshots for proof: http://imgur.com/R2uqYlL http://imgur.com/R2uqYlL If we can't trust Google, who can we trust? Bing? I don't want to live in that world.
- datamingle 10y ago
  "Trump U" First result Google: Trump University Lawsuits Yahoo: Trump University Bing: Trump University
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 10y ago
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- burkaman 10y ago
  Try any other name. Google will not autocomplete "____ cri" to criminal, regardless of the name. The closest I could get was "Adam Lanza criminal minds".
  - ccvannorman 10y ago
    hmm.. I guess the waters are a bit more murky than I originally thought -- it looks like plain whitewashing on the face of it. Still don't like the idea that Google is no longer showing me the most relevant results, but instead the most appropriate results. Clearly, "criminal" was the desired term. Why is Google trying to push me away from it? (in this case and I assume many others)
- dandelion_lover 10y ago
  It's called "filter bubble", see http://dontbubble.us http://dontbubble.us
  - Torgo 10y ago
    They filter lots of stuff in their autocomplete, people have observed for years that "embarrassing" questions work for a while, then disappear. You used to be able to measure how many people "wondered" if a particular celebrity was gay, e.g. "$CELEBRITY g"...[autocompletes to gay, because a lot of people typed it] because of autocompletion, that's now vanished. It's not got to do with the bubble.
carlmcqueen 10y ago
When life imitates begins to reflect a Netflix series it is sometimes hard to tell real life from fiction.
jaredwindover 10y ago
Donald Trump evi gives me Donald Trump eviction, despite Google Trends showing Donald Trump evil to be a much more common search... just saying. Maybe google won't auto complete defamation.
airza 10y ago
Is there someone that google WILL autocomplete "criminal" for? I tried a lot of people, including those who have been convicted of crimes, and it seems to refuse to do so. (E.G Mike Tyson, John Gotti, as well as politicians like Nixon, George W Bush, and even hitler.)
- burkaman 10y ago
  Yeah, this is a garbage article, "criminal" and "indictment" don't autocomplete for anyone. Probably so Google doesn't get sued for accusing an innocent person of being a criminal with autocomplete.
  - transpy 10y ago
    But.. I type "Hilarry ind" (to see if I get "Hillary Indiana" like the example) and I get immediatly "Hillary indictment". It seems that search results are very hard to reproduce and compare, given that they are very tailored, is this the case?
- kauffj 10y ago
  Interesting. It did seem a bit heavy handed, which made me wonder if something else was going on (and I figured by posting here I'd find out :). For what it's worth, I _can_ get indictment to autocomplete for others (e.g. try "vick indi"). Also, I'm guessing this whole story would have gone nowhere if Google had just said "we filter labels like criminal" rather than claiming they only filter "offensive or inappropriate content".
  - airza 10y ago
    Hmm, vick indi works but michael vick indi doesn't. Maybe it's doing it based on a name detecting NLP component.
  - burkaman 10y ago
    "Clinton cri" and "Clinton indic" work too. Looks like this is a really basic filter that doesn't allow criminalish words to be added to full names.
tdb7893 10y ago
You see similar behaviour with trump and bernie. Also the stanford rapist dude and martin shkreli. This isn't a story until they have evidence that it is significantly different than many other famous people on google. People keep comparing google results to bing but they are different engines
sickbeard 10y ago
So we are upset over autocomplete now? Why not type in the word criminal yourself you lazy bums. If it wouldn't show any results for that then maybe the rest of us would care but google not autocompleting your bias is actually quite refreshing.
plaugg 10y ago
isn't this just showing the effects of your filterbubble as defined by google?

30 points by kauffj 10y ago

Just tested this and the article is on point, at least about "Hillary Clinton cri" search autocompletes. I took some screenshots for proof: http://imgur.com/R2uqYlL http://imgur.com/R2uqYlL If we can't trust Google, who can we trust? Bing? I don't want to live in that world.

datamingle 10y ago
"Trump U" First result Google: Trump University Lawsuits Yahoo: Trump University Bing: Trump University
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
burkaman 10y ago
Try any other name. Google will not autocomplete "____ cri" to criminal, regardless of the name. The closest I could get was "Adam Lanza criminal minds".
- ccvannorman 10y ago
  hmm.. I guess the waters are a bit more murky than I originally thought -- it looks like plain whitewashing on the face of it. Still don't like the idea that Google is no longer showing me the most relevant results, but instead the most appropriate results. Clearly, "criminal" was the desired term. Why is Google trying to push me away from it? (in this case and I assume many others)
dandelion_lover 10y ago
It's called "filter bubble", see http://dontbubble.us http://dontbubble.us
- Torgo 10y ago
  They filter lots of stuff in their autocomplete, people have observed for years that "embarrassing" questions work for a while, then disappear. You used to be able to measure how many people "wondered" if a particular celebrity was gay, e.g. "$CELEBRITY g"...[autocompletes to gay, because a lot of people typed it] because of autocompletion, that's now vanished. It's not got to do with the bubble.

carlmcqueen 10y ago

When life imitates begins to reflect a Netflix series it is sometimes hard to tell real life from fiction.

jaredwindover 10y ago

Donald Trump evi gives me Donald Trump eviction, despite Google Trends showing Donald Trump evil to be a much more common search... just saying. Maybe google won't auto complete defamation.

airza 10y ago

Is there someone that google WILL autocomplete "criminal" for? I tried a lot of people, including those who have been convicted of crimes, and it seems to refuse to do so. (E.G Mike Tyson, John Gotti, as well as politicians like Nixon, George W Bush, and even hitler.)

burkaman 10y ago
Yeah, this is a garbage article, "criminal" and "indictment" don't autocomplete for anyone. Probably so Google doesn't get sued for accusing an innocent person of being a criminal with autocomplete.
- transpy 10y ago
  But.. I type "Hilarry ind" (to see if I get "Hillary Indiana" like the example) and I get immediatly "Hillary indictment". It seems that search results are very hard to reproduce and compare, given that they are very tailored, is this the case?
kauffj 10y ago
Interesting. It did seem a bit heavy handed, which made me wonder if something else was going on (and I figured by posting here I'd find out :). For what it's worth, I _can_ get indictment to autocomplete for others (e.g. try "vick indi"). Also, I'm guessing this whole story would have gone nowhere if Google had just said "we filter labels like criminal" rather than claiming they only filter "offensive or inappropriate content".
- airza 10y ago
  Hmm, vick indi works but michael vick indi doesn't. Maybe it's doing it based on a name detecting NLP component.
- burkaman 10y ago
  "Clinton cri" and "Clinton indic" work too. Looks like this is a really basic filter that doesn't allow criminalish words to be added to full names.

tdb7893 10y ago

You see similar behaviour with trump and bernie. Also the stanford rapist dude and martin shkreli. This isn't a story until they have evidence that it is significantly different than many other famous people on google. People keep comparing google results to bing but they are different engines

sickbeard 10y ago

So we are upset over autocomplete now? Why not type in the word criminal yourself you lazy bums. If it wouldn't show any results for that then maybe the rest of us would care but google not autocompleting your bias is actually quite refreshing.

plaugg 10y ago

isn't this just showing the effects of your filterbubble as defined by google?