4 ms·

Google is profiting from Holocaust denial, says Jewish museum

21 points by oneeyedpigeon 10y ago

greydius 10y ago
Google profits off a lot of stuff I disagree with too. I don't really blame Google, though. They're just a search engine, right? The real problem is that people can say things I don't agree with on the Internet. Something needs to be done about this. We should really look to China for leadership in this area. Ok, enough sarcasm. What is really interesting about this is that the old saying "history is written by the winner" may have to be changed to "history is auctioned off to the highest bidder".
- staticelf 10y ago
  Yeah, fuck people that express different opinions.
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  The real problem is that people can say things I don't agree with on the Internet. I'm sure you know this already, but Google's search rankings !== "the internet". Not only that, but they've been downranking all kinds of content -- including spam of all sorts; and most assiduously (and famously), virtually all forms of pornography -- for nearly as longs as they've been in existence. Which no one calls "censorship", or "blocking stuff I disagree with"† -- because of course it isn't. It's simply a matter of editorial discretion -- of the kind that all mass media companies have always engaged in, since mass media became a thing. Got a problem with that? Start your own search engine. † As if holocaust denialism were a simple matter of "stuff I disagree with". But it isn't of course -- which again, I'm sure you knew already.
disruptalot 10y ago
Oh please not this again. The internet is not the united nations. Any step away from serving users free from external pressure in ORGANIC results is a step towards censorship. If you want to sway people's opinion from results that match their demographic and search behaviour then you better pay for it because that's an AD - no definite representation of truth or relevancy. If you really want to provide the most relevant result for those queries, produce the content and make it trusted enough for it to rank first. If you can't then you are not relevant. Google works on trust and relevancy (government links mean a lot for example). There's no devil behind the screen deciding to rank neo Nazi material at Google.
onion2k 10y ago
Searching for "did the holocaust happen" in Bing brings back the Wikipedia article for "Holocaust Denial" first, followed by a BBC article about why the holocaust happened, and then the results from neo-nazi sites who have SEO'd their way to (nearly) the top. The difference is small, but it's better than Google. If people start thinking Bing is actually better at finding relevant things than Google's search engine then Google should be very concerned.
tomhoward 10y ago
Related discussion from 10 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13153086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13153086
dogma1138 10y ago
If I Google: "Is the earth..." the first suggestion is flat... That said when you Google "Is the earth flat" the first result is a wikipedia entry frame. "The flat Earth model is an archaic conception of the Earth's..." If you Google "did the holocaust happen" the first result is from Stormfront "Top 10 reasons why the holocaust didn't happen" Am Jewish; Parents were born in 1942 in Europe don't have a specific objection or a strong (or any at all) opinion about this; I don't think Google should tamper with results but as they already do I don't think showing the wikipedia entry as the first result rather than Stormfront is a horrible breach of freedom of expression. After all they do that if you Google ways to kill yourself and similar bad things, and Google does tamper with political search results as it seems.

21 points by oneeyedpigeon 10y ago

Google profits off a lot of stuff I disagree with too. I don't really blame Google, though. They're just a search engine, right? The real problem is that people can say things I don't agree with on the Internet. Something needs to be done about this. We should really look to China for leadership in this area. Ok, enough sarcasm. What is really interesting about this is that the old saying "history is written by the winner" may have to be changed to "history is auctioned off to the highest bidder".

staticelf 10y ago
Yeah, fuck people that express different opinions.
kafkaesq 10y ago
The real problem is that people can say things I don't agree with on the Internet. I'm sure you know this already, but Google's search rankings !== "the internet". Not only that, but they've been downranking all kinds of content -- including spam of all sorts; and most assiduously (and famously), virtually all forms of pornography -- for nearly as longs as they've been in existence. Which no one calls "censorship", or "blocking stuff I disagree with"† -- because of course it isn't. It's simply a matter of editorial discretion -- of the kind that all mass media companies have always engaged in, since mass media became a thing. Got a problem with that? Start your own search engine. † As if holocaust denialism were a simple matter of "stuff I disagree with". But it isn't of course -- which again, I'm sure you knew already.

disruptalot 10y ago

Oh please not this again. The internet is not the united nations. Any step away from serving users free from external pressure in ORGANIC results is a step towards censorship. If you want to sway people's opinion from results that match their demographic and search behaviour then you better pay for it because that's an AD - no definite representation of truth or relevancy. If you really want to provide the most relevant result for those queries, produce the content and make it trusted enough for it to rank first. If you can't then you are not relevant. Google works on trust and relevancy (government links mean a lot for example). There's no devil behind the screen deciding to rank neo Nazi material at Google.

onion2k 10y ago

Searching for "did the holocaust happen" in Bing brings back the Wikipedia article for "Holocaust Denial" first, followed by a BBC article about why the holocaust happened, and then the results from neo-nazi sites who have SEO'd their way to (nearly) the top. The difference is small, but it's better than Google. If people start thinking Bing is actually better at finding relevant things than Google's search engine then Google should be very concerned.

tomhoward 10y ago

Related discussion from 10 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13153086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13153086

dogma1138 10y ago

If I Google: "Is the earth..." the first suggestion is flat... That said when you Google "Is the earth flat" the first result is a wikipedia entry frame. "The flat Earth model is an archaic conception of the Earth's..." If you Google "did the holocaust happen" the first result is from Stormfront "Top 10 reasons why the holocaust didn't happen" Am Jewish; Parents were born in 1942 in Europe don't have a specific objection or a strong (or any at all) opinion about this; I don't think Google should tamper with results but as they already do I don't think showing the wikipedia entry as the first result rather than Stormfront is a horrible breach of freedom of expression. After all they do that if you Google ways to kill yourself and similar bad things, and Google does tamper with political search results as it seems.