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Google's top results for 'Did the Holocaust happen' now expunged of denial sites

33 points by yabatopia 10y ago

kahrkunne 10y ago
Even though I am convinced that the holocaust did happen, I'm not sure that Google should be tweaking their algorithms until they show the results Google wants you to see...
- euyyn 10y ago
  On the other hand, if you think about it, working on improving the quality of a search engine's results is tweaking its algorithm until it shows the results you think are better. A search engine that presents you with relevant, true information on a subject you don't know about (or about which you might be misinformed) sounds more quality IMO than one that doesn't. I hope the algorithm is generic (instead of one-ofs for specific subjects).
  - kahrkunne 10y ago
    For this specific example it's alright, but when Google starts responding to public pressure by tweaking the algorithm to get rid of specific results, it's not that big a step going from something like this to something more questionable.
    - konceptz 10y ago
      Did we forget what page rank was? A way to find relevant and accurate information on the internet. This is why edu pages and pages with many (reputable) citations were ranked higher. Remember this is not twitter where popularity = truth. I do agree that it's dangerous but it's not new; this is built into the DNA of google searching.
  - inimino 10y ago
    I very much doubt that it is generic. Unless they have an artificial intelligence that analyzes queries, reviews the whole of human knowledge and determines the truth, and then prioritizes search results accordingly, it would seem more likely that they are manually stepping in. Once the media got hold of this story it isn't surprising they took action. I would guess they are simply adding an "odiousness" factor to some sites which will penalize them in search results, or giving a boost to "consensus" sites as necessary until the results are socially and politically acceptable.
- wcummings 10y ago
  You think holocaust denial sites are high quality sources of information? If you asked a librarian for information about the holocaust would they present you with this information? Nope.
  - inimino 10y ago
    Google is not a librarian. The expectation of search engines in the early days was that they were neutral parties and reflected whatever ideas were current on the Web itself. Since then, people gaming Google results for political reasons, and the occasional Google countermeasures such as this one, have become routine. In the current climate the technological gatekeepers are being explicitly politicized very quickly. To me this is part of a rejection of personal responsibility for political opinions and an urge to lay blame. I wonder if we won't soon see distinct social media and even search engines with distinct political biases, as we do already with traditional media.
    - wcummings 10y ago
      PageRank is hardly neutral. I don't believe this was ever an expectation among educated users. The number of back links a site gets, or its gov/edu tld have nothing to do with its content.
      - inimino 10y ago
        It's an algorithm, so it is by definition neutral with regard to things that are invisible to algorithms. Back links are (were) a proxy for content quality, as are domains. Setting per-domain weights is not neutral, but incoming links as a measure is. That is to say, it is not open to political bias on the part of Google. The shift towards increasing political interference with these algorithms raises additional issues. Google becomes responsible for what you are able to see, rather than just showing you what exists on the web relevant to your query. You may remember that Google exited the world's largest market some time ago precisely because they were not willing to accept political influence on search results.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
sytelus 10y ago
Result of query arguments against holocaust denial are much better. It's hard to constantly defend against misinformation put out by deniers which then can get viral and pollute the search result. As one website put it, Holocaust deniers often mimic the forms and practices of scholars in order to deceive the public about the nature of their views. They generally footnote their writings by citing the publications of other Holocaust deniers and hold pseudo-scholarly conventions.
aaron695 10y ago
Any normal person searching for 'Did the Holocaust happen' wants a denial site. For Google to move it, would be not giving people the results they want for political reasons. I'd hope this is just due to the site having technical difficulties as some have suggested.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
omarforgotpwd 10y ago
This is very tricky moral and philosophical ground. Sure, from a practical perspective most educated people believe the evidence that the holocaust did happen and Google ranking conspiracy sites highly in a way lended Google's credibility to those sites. The holocaust is a case I think most people can agree on. But isn't it kind of a dark road to go down to silence a dissenting opinion even if it is "crazy"? First this, then maybe people start demanding they down rank the global warming deniers and then before you know it a political party that is not in power, porn that is too weird, etc. Does Google really want to be the one that has to decide what the truth is? Then again, do we really want average people to be the ones to decide what the truth is? That's the simplest course but is not working that well right now. This is a tough question I don't think we have the answer to yet.
- aphextron 10y ago
  >But isn't it kind of a dark road to go down to silence a dissenting opinion even if it is "crazy"? No, it's not. This is what google does. They rank pages and present the most valid search results for a given query. Returning easily falsifiable nonsense as the first result for a common search is a bug, not a feature, and they've now fixed it.
rahrahrah 10y ago
I don't understand what the outrage around this is. Google's goal has always been to organise all knowledge around a query box, and that's exactly what it's doing. If it understands that the holocaust did happen, why should it display that it didn't?
- Grangar 10y ago
  From a business perspective this is a bad choice. I'm not advocating showing holocaust denial either, but this got them in a very bad spot: they've set the precedent that they curate the truth. This opens them up to all sorts of curation demands.
  - rahrahrah 10y ago
    Curating IS their business. When you type in "public key pinning", for example, google understands that you want to learn about public key pinning and so it curates OUT results about kim kardashian for example and instead shows you factual truths about public key pinning. Why should the holocaust be different? AGAIN, google's goal is to organise all knowledge and that's exactly what it's doing. That holocaust denial is a thing is also knowledge, and so you can find it by typing "holocaust denial".
  - wflann 10y ago
    Might some truths be incontrovertible beyond business reasons?

33 points by yabatopia 10y ago

Even though I am convinced that the holocaust did happen, I'm not sure that Google should be tweaking their algorithms until they show the results Google wants you to see...

euyyn 10y ago
On the other hand, if you think about it, working on improving the quality of a search engine's results is tweaking its algorithm until it shows the results you think are better. A search engine that presents you with relevant, true information on a subject you don't know about (or about which you might be misinformed) sounds more quality IMO than one that doesn't. I hope the algorithm is generic (instead of one-ofs for specific subjects).
- kahrkunne 10y ago
  For this specific example it's alright, but when Google starts responding to public pressure by tweaking the algorithm to get rid of specific results, it's not that big a step going from something like this to something more questionable.
  - konceptz 10y ago
    Did we forget what page rank was? A way to find relevant and accurate information on the internet. This is why edu pages and pages with many (reputable) citations were ranked higher. Remember this is not twitter where popularity = truth. I do agree that it's dangerous but it's not new; this is built into the DNA of google searching.
- inimino 10y ago
  I very much doubt that it is generic. Unless they have an artificial intelligence that analyzes queries, reviews the whole of human knowledge and determines the truth, and then prioritizes search results accordingly, it would seem more likely that they are manually stepping in. Once the media got hold of this story it isn't surprising they took action. I would guess they are simply adding an "odiousness" factor to some sites which will penalize them in search results, or giving a boost to "consensus" sites as necessary until the results are socially and politically acceptable.
wcummings 10y ago
You think holocaust denial sites are high quality sources of information? If you asked a librarian for information about the holocaust would they present you with this information? Nope.
- inimino 10y ago
  Google is not a librarian. The expectation of search engines in the early days was that they were neutral parties and reflected whatever ideas were current on the Web itself. Since then, people gaming Google results for political reasons, and the occasional Google countermeasures such as this one, have become routine. In the current climate the technological gatekeepers are being explicitly politicized very quickly. To me this is part of a rejection of personal responsibility for political opinions and an urge to lay blame. I wonder if we won't soon see distinct social media and even search engines with distinct political biases, as we do already with traditional media.
  - wcummings 10y ago
    PageRank is hardly neutral. I don't believe this was ever an expectation among educated users. The number of back links a site gets, or its gov/edu tld have nothing to do with its content.
    - inimino 10y ago
      It's an algorithm, so it is by definition neutral with regard to things that are invisible to algorithms. Back links are (were) a proxy for content quality, as are domains. Setting per-domain weights is not neutral, but incoming links as a measure is. That is to say, it is not open to political bias on the part of Google. The shift towards increasing political interference with these algorithms raises additional issues. Google becomes responsible for what you are able to see, rather than just showing you what exists on the web relevant to your query. You may remember that Google exited the world's largest market some time ago precisely because they were not willing to accept political influence on search results.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

sytelus 10y ago

Result of query arguments against holocaust denial are much better. It's hard to constantly defend against misinformation put out by deniers which then can get viral and pollute the search result. As one website put it, Holocaust deniers often mimic the forms and practices of scholars in order to deceive the public about the nature of their views. They generally footnote their writings by citing the publications of other Holocaust deniers and hold pseudo-scholarly conventions.

aaron695 10y ago

Any normal person searching for 'Did the Holocaust happen' wants a denial site. For Google to move it, would be not giving people the results they want for political reasons. I'd hope this is just due to the site having technical difficulties as some have suggested.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

omarforgotpwd 10y ago

This is very tricky moral and philosophical ground. Sure, from a practical perspective most educated people believe the evidence that the holocaust did happen and Google ranking conspiracy sites highly in a way lended Google's credibility to those sites. The holocaust is a case I think most people can agree on. But isn't it kind of a dark road to go down to silence a dissenting opinion even if it is "crazy"? First this, then maybe people start demanding they down rank the global warming deniers and then before you know it a political party that is not in power, porn that is too weird, etc. Does Google really want to be the one that has to decide what the truth is? Then again, do we really want average people to be the ones to decide what the truth is? That's the simplest course but is not working that well right now. This is a tough question I don't think we have the answer to yet.

aphextron 10y ago
>But isn't it kind of a dark road to go down to silence a dissenting opinion even if it is "crazy"? No, it's not. This is what google does. They rank pages and present the most valid search results for a given query. Returning easily falsifiable nonsense as the first result for a common search is a bug, not a feature, and they've now fixed it.

rahrahrah 10y ago

I don't understand what the outrage around this is. Google's goal has always been to organise all knowledge around a query box, and that's exactly what it's doing. If it understands that the holocaust did happen, why should it display that it didn't?

Grangar 10y ago
From a business perspective this is a bad choice. I'm not advocating showing holocaust denial either, but this got them in a very bad spot: they've set the precedent that they curate the truth. This opens them up to all sorts of curation demands.
- rahrahrah 10y ago
  Curating IS their business. When you type in "public key pinning", for example, google understands that you want to learn about public key pinning and so it curates OUT results about kim kardashian for example and instead shows you factual truths about public key pinning. Why should the holocaust be different? AGAIN, google's goal is to organise all knowledge and that's exactly what it's doing. That holocaust denial is a thing is also knowledge, and so you can find it by typing "holocaust denial".
- wflann 10y ago
  Might some truths be incontrovertible beyond business reasons?