4 ms·

You mean violate the political stance of Google or any other arbitrary properties they got. You can go and compare search results across Duckduckgo, Bing and Go

You mean violate the political stance of Google or any other arbitrary properties they got. You can go and compare search results across Duckduckgo, Bing and Google to get a full picture how much the search results are censored. When people talk about "net neutrality" I always wonder why isn't there outrage against this, because it is definitely not neutral. Same goes to many Google services, most notably Youtube. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Concrete examples?
- vetinari 9y ago
  This is more about youtube than google search, but it will be not that different: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0c1Bph1jrQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0c1Bph1jrQ After all, it goes from the top "We're not arguing for censorship, we're arguing just take it off the page. Put it somewhere else. Make it harder to find." - Eric Schmidt
- StreamBright 9y ago
  Christina Hoff Sommers, Dave Rubin, Prager University, all of their content is delisted and demonetized on Youtube. Non of them is illegal content.
  - jamespo 9y ago
    But it's available? Seems like your comparison with Tienanmen Square falls a little flat.
    - StreamBright 9y ago
      I was pointing out that I am very well aware of the difference between government initiated censorship vs. Google just randomly filtering something that it disagrees with.
  - benmmurphy 9y ago
    I don't think google is to blame for this. This is being driven by what google (rightly) thinks advertisers want and advertisers are worried about their brands being associated with this content. Google is just reflecting the values that a lot of people in society hold. Most people aren't comfortable with people expressing opinions different from what they hold and so this is where we end up.
    - barry-cotter 9y ago
      No need to delist it for advertisers benefit. Demonetising it would have worked fine. If you can’t show ads on it what have advertisers got to complain about?
f_allwein 9y ago
No, this is an entirely separate process. The wikipedia link you shared relates to content that is illegal in a country, so consequently Google does not show it. E.g. in my home country (Germany), this includes some types of Nazi propaganda. I would assume all other search engines follow the same rules.
- tpolzer 9y ago
  In theory all other search engines have to follow the same rules, in practise nobody cares if ddg shows illegal results.
- StreamBright 9y ago
  So in your country can you look stuff up about China and Tiananmen Square? Well you can't in China. This is censorship coming from the state. Now go on Youtube and look for PagerU videos. I understand that conservative views are not popular in Google but filtering legitimate content is just bad. https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1406441&start=240 https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1406441&st... What about Dave Rubin? Does he fall into the same category as nazi propaganda according to you? What about Christina Hoff Sommers? Same question. And the list goes on an on. I do not necessarily agree with these viewpoint but I strongly against censoring them just because it does not fall inline with Google's political agenda.
  - leephillips 9y ago
    It's important to realize that Google censorship to appease a foreign government sometimes affects search results in all countries, including the U.S. For example, search results worldwide are partly determined by Google's decision to avoid offending the government of Pakistan with content that may be critical of some aspects of Islam: https://lee-phillips.org/youtube/ https://lee-phillips.org/youtube/
    - freeflight 9y ago
      This isn't reserved to Pakistan, the US, Islam or Google. [0] Tbh if I had a choice between nudity being censored and bigotry being somewhat buried, I'd always go with the later. But for whatever reason a certain demographic, from a certain country, takes quite a lot of offense at the sight of something as silly as a female nipple. [0] https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/09/censorship-is-killing-the-spirit-of-social-media.html https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/09/censorship-is...
dominotw 9y ago
Usual response I get is that its easier to switch search engines so its not necessary[1]. Neutrality seems to be a function of availability of choice and ease of switching. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15045653 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15045653

sillysaurus3 9y ago

Concrete examples?

vetinari 9y ago
This is more about youtube than google search, but it will be not that different: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0c1Bph1jrQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0c1Bph1jrQ After all, it goes from the top "We're not arguing for censorship, we're arguing just take it off the page. Put it somewhere else. Make it harder to find." - Eric Schmidt
StreamBright 9y ago
Christina Hoff Sommers, Dave Rubin, Prager University, all of their content is delisted and demonetized on Youtube. Non of them is illegal content.
- jamespo 9y ago
  But it's available? Seems like your comparison with Tienanmen Square falls a little flat.
  - StreamBright 9y ago
    I was pointing out that I am very well aware of the difference between government initiated censorship vs. Google just randomly filtering something that it disagrees with.
- benmmurphy 9y ago
  I don't think google is to blame for this. This is being driven by what google (rightly) thinks advertisers want and advertisers are worried about their brands being associated with this content. Google is just reflecting the values that a lot of people in society hold. Most people aren't comfortable with people expressing opinions different from what they hold and so this is where we end up.
  - barry-cotter 9y ago
    No need to delist it for advertisers benefit. Demonetising it would have worked fine. If you can’t show ads on it what have advertisers got to complain about?

f_allwein 9y ago

No, this is an entirely separate process. The wikipedia link you shared relates to content that is illegal in a country, so consequently Google does not show it. E.g. in my home country (Germany), this includes some types of Nazi propaganda. I would assume all other search engines follow the same rules.

tpolzer 9y ago
In theory all other search engines have to follow the same rules, in practise nobody cares if ddg shows illegal results.
StreamBright 9y ago
So in your country can you look stuff up about China and Tiananmen Square? Well you can't in China. This is censorship coming from the state. Now go on Youtube and look for PagerU videos. I understand that conservative views are not popular in Google but filtering legitimate content is just bad. https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1406441&start=240 https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1406441&st... What about Dave Rubin? Does he fall into the same category as nazi propaganda according to you? What about Christina Hoff Sommers? Same question. And the list goes on an on. I do not necessarily agree with these viewpoint but I strongly against censoring them just because it does not fall inline with Google's political agenda.
- leephillips 9y ago
  It's important to realize that Google censorship to appease a foreign government sometimes affects search results in all countries, including the U.S. For example, search results worldwide are partly determined by Google's decision to avoid offending the government of Pakistan with content that may be critical of some aspects of Islam: https://lee-phillips.org/youtube/ https://lee-phillips.org/youtube/
  - freeflight 9y ago
    This isn't reserved to Pakistan, the US, Islam or Google. [0] Tbh if I had a choice between nudity being censored and bigotry being somewhat buried, I'd always go with the later. But for whatever reason a certain demographic, from a certain country, takes quite a lot of offense at the sight of something as silly as a female nipple. [0] https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/09/censorship-is-killing-the-spirit-of-social-media.html https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/09/censorship-is...

dominotw 9y ago

Usual response I get is that its easier to switch search engines so its not necessary[1]. Neutrality seems to be a function of availability of choice and ease of switching. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15045653 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15045653