4 ms·

At Google around 2008-2009 we had a similar issue with the word "lesbian"... it was basically impossible to get Google Suggest to suggest anything non-adult whe

by lacker 6y ago

At Google around 2008-2009 we had a similar issue with the word "lesbian"... it was basically impossible to get Google Suggest to suggest anything non-adult when you started typing in "lesbian", despite trying hard to filter out all adult suggestions, because even a tiny false negative rate in the adult content filter still wasn't enough. I think someone ended up just hardcoding the Google Suggest behavior for this query. I wouldn't be surprised if it still works that way now....

salamandersauce 6y ago
I remember the first time I tried DuckDuckGo I searched the word "breast" as a test. Not a single search result with the adult filter. Not even chicken breast recipes. They seemed to have improved it since then.
- Semaphor 6y ago
  I had an amazing search result with ddg: I searched "forced parameterization" and all the images of SQL execution plans were censored :D
- KMag 6y ago
  So, back when I worked on the Google indexing team, Bing had some Flash games that would automatically fire off Bing searches in an iframe for every puzzle guess you made. They'd give you some points that you could redeem for prizes. I suspected a major goal for the games was to artificially inflate Bing's search market share numbers, but maybe also to gather data for machine learning and/or old-fashioned statistical analysis. I was curious... and we at Google were careful about machine learning because we knew that, for instance, if you had an algorithm that internally rewrote every query by appending "breast", it would almost certainly cause the click-through rates to skyrocket while harming search quality. So, on my own time on my own computer, I used these Flash games as a typing tutor to re-learn QWERTY keyboard layout, and would often append "breast" to the in-game searches. I didn't learning anything from my poking around, though I did get enough points to get 2 Coleman tents, a mult-tool, a external hard disk, a record player, a bunch of DVDs, and a few other freebies from Bing with all of my game points.
lupire 6y ago
> non-adult You mean "non-sexual"? Or "non-pornographic"? I doubt the results were full of gore or tobacco.

by lacker 6y ago

salamandersauce 6y ago

I remember the first time I tried DuckDuckGo I searched the word "breast" as a test. Not a single search result with the adult filter. Not even chicken breast recipes. They seemed to have improved it since then.

Semaphor 6y ago
I had an amazing search result with ddg: I searched "forced parameterization" and all the images of SQL execution plans were censored :D
KMag 6y ago
So, back when I worked on the Google indexing team, Bing had some Flash games that would automatically fire off Bing searches in an iframe for every puzzle guess you made. They'd give you some points that you could redeem for prizes. I suspected a major goal for the games was to artificially inflate Bing's search market share numbers, but maybe also to gather data for machine learning and/or old-fashioned statistical analysis. I was curious... and we at Google were careful about machine learning because we knew that, for instance, if you had an algorithm that internally rewrote every query by appending "breast", it would almost certainly cause the click-through rates to skyrocket while harming search quality. So, on my own time on my own computer, I used these Flash games as a typing tutor to re-learn QWERTY keyboard layout, and would often append "breast" to the in-game searches. I didn't learning anything from my poking around, though I did get enough points to get 2 Coleman tents, a mult-tool, a external hard disk, a record player, a bunch of DVDs, and a few other freebies from Bing with all of my game points.

lupire 6y ago

> non-adult You mean "non-sexual"? Or "non-pornographic"? I doubt the results were full of gore or tobacco.