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It should be noted that despite the headline - Google is not censoring any search terms. They're just not allowing certain words in the search auto-complete. A
by dholowiski 16y ago
It should be noted that despite the headline - Google is not censoring any search terms. They're just not allowing certain words in the search auto-complete. A controversial move to be sure, but something they've done with other words since the introduction of search auto complete
- barredo 16y agoWell, I'll say "Google is not censoring any search results" but it is censoring any search terms, right?
- JonnieCache 16y agoNo. It is declining to actively push certain terms on the user.
- barredo 16y agoWell, I think that's it and you're right.
- smokeyj 16y ago> It is declining to actively push certain terms on the user. Let's say a search engine in China was obligated to "decline actively pushing a certain query", would we not call that censorship? Can someone explain my semantic hangup?
- rhizome 16y agoWell, whatever they're doing it's never going to have any effect on blogspot, where the vast majority of filedrop blogs are located.
- loup-vaillant 16y agoOnce upon a time, a frog lived in a pool of water. One day, the water began to slowly grow hot…
- Uhhrrr 16y agoI take your meaning, but as to your metaphor... http://www.theatlantic.com/james-fallows/boiledfrog/?cid=140 http://www.theatlantic.com/james-fallows/boiledfrog/?cid=140
- radicaldreamer 16y agoAren't there plenty of sexual terms that are already "censored" in the instant suggestions database? That hasn't affected anything so I doubt this will have any large scale impact on file sharing.
- endtime 16y agoRacial ones too, I believe.
- JonnieCache 16y agoYeah. You can't do this shit anymore: http://uvtblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/why_do_black.jpg http://uvtblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/why_do_black.j... http://suggestoftheday.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/gsold.gif http://suggestoftheday.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/gsold.... At least the results aren't as funny. "Chinese people are aliens" is still a google-endorsed suggestion though. WHAT DO THEY KNOW?
- marshray 16y agoIt's one thing for them to refrain from auto-completing the users' first few letters with suggestions including the filthiest words in the language. That's quite understandable to me. After all, it seems unlikely that those results are what users ordinarily want and there is a very high attentional cost to offering them wrongly (from the UI perspective). But in this case, they're filtering out perfectly ordinary words for perfectly legitimate network protocols and actual products. If I type "utorren" there's no reason Google should withhold the "t" other that pure evil search-term engineering. It's incomprehensible to me that a company that refused to filter "democracy" in China will agree to demote "utorrent" in America.
- radicaldreamer 16y agoAgreed, it's definitely hypocritical of Google. The whole "don't be evil" ideal has a two big caveats these days: 1) as long as it doesn't interfere with profits 2) or google's corporate interests.
- jcr 16y agoYour claim that Google is not censoring search results is entirely unfounded. You are correct about filtering being done on auto-complete, but Google also filters the living snot out of results. They have always filtered results, and providing "relevant" pages for the given search terms is only one of their goals.
- bigfudge 16y agoIt strikes me this could be a clever flack reducing measure. Censoring from autocomplete would be a good way of reducing the annoyance felt by content creators as they google their own title.
- jeza 16y agoThe thin edge of the wedge, perhaps?
- marshray 16y agoCould this be anything but a precursor to trying to filter out of the main search results?
- smokeyj 16y agoSo they censoring their auto-complete list, isn't that still censoring?
- moultano 16y agoCensoring whom?
- harrybr 16y agoExactly. There's obviously a difference between Google actively suggesting a term that could encourage piracy, versus providing the results for people who already have that query in their mind and choose to submit it as a search.
- amadvance 16y ago"kill o" suggests "kill obama". Is Google encouraging to kill Obama ? "kill osama bin laden" appears only with "kill os". Is this an hint of the Google priorities ? These are obviously rhetorical questions.