9 ms·

Regardless of your opinion on piracy, I think Google (and ISPs) should not moderate search results. Basically, search engines are used to find things publicly

Regardless of your opinion on piracy, I think Google (and ISPs) should not moderate search results. Basically, search engines are used to find things publicly available on the internet, policing should be done on the actual hosts of the content. Same goes for ISPs, they are here to provide access to publicly available computers, without interfering with the content or accessibility.

londons_explore 5y ago
I would like to see Google highlight legally removed search results. For example, leave a gap in the search results where the missing one would have been, perhaps with some details of the result which do not fall under the removal request (for example, the title of the page, even if the URL must be removed).
- taneq 5y ago
  Add this to the long list of things that Google won't do for the exact reason that you want them to do it. They're not on your side any more and haven't been for a decade now.
briga 5y ago
In principle I agree but in this case I think Google is trying to protect itself from lawsuits. Which seems like a reasonable thing to do from their perspective. Any search engine that gets big enough will eventually have a target on its back for DMCA trolls
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > I think Google is trying to protect itself from lawsuits That is unlikely. Google breaks many privacy-related laws across the globe and deals with billions of euros of fines regularly. They have an unlimited wallet and couldn't care less about spending a few billions to extend their dominance over the Internet.
  - Pyramus 5y ago
    That's a logical fallacy - just because Google lost money in the past doesn't mean they want to lose money in the future. We don't know what Google's utility function was in the past, and certainly can't extrapolate to this case.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      I'll concede that we can't know for sure. But given their vast legal spendings and huge profit margins, i'd argue that whatever their strategy is, legal threats from BREIN is a drop in the ocean for them.
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      Google search prints a ridiculous amount of money. I think the lawsuit costs do pale in comparison to keeping their dominance. If Google is doing this voluntarily, they must see an upside that helps maintain that dominance.
antiterra 5y ago
Why wouldn’t this result in absolutely horrible search results? Any sort of algorithmic tweak to prevent confusing, misleading or low quality results could be counted as moderation.
- sysOpOpPERAND 5y ago
  agreed. it actually might be used in court someday. considering they were under microscope and have said that they do not manipulate search results. this could be proof enough for a further investigation into google. i know some people who work for google may not want to hear that but, it's not gonna be ignored if the right people investigate google again
- nyuszika7h 5y ago
  So maybe hide them behind "show more results" or something. That's still better than removing them outright. But of course, copyright holders wouldn't be happy with that.
Vinnl 5y ago
But Google moderates search results by definition. As in, it's not like there's an objective external measure of what the results for a given search term should look like - it's all Google that determines what to show you in what order.
- vadfa 5y ago
  There is a difference between having a set of rules and doing ad hoc moderation.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    The set of rules includes "results that are illegal to divulge in a jurisdiction will not be shown."
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      Since Google is doing this voluntarily, many of the blocked results were legal to divulge but Google is choosing not to, which does make it ad hoc.
      - axutio 5y ago
        This just becomes a question of pragmatism at that point - Google lacks the capacity to determine which of the blocked results are legal versus are not without incurring cost, so the most realistic approach is to recognize that a majority of results from that domain are illegal and block the domain. This is just the simplest way to enforce a particular rule in a particular case that can't otherwise be cheaply codified programatically.
        shkkmo 5y ago
        Yet Google doesn't generally block most content that is illegal in one jurisdiction in all others where it is not illegal. If Google is deciding to do that just with TPB, then that is indeed an adhoc decision.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
I don't think anyone actually thinks in these absolutist terms. I mean, it's an oft-cited whataboutism, but what about CP? Terrorist propaganda? Insert your own list of abhorrent content here. I mean, zero moderation is some kind of internet libertarian ideal, but there's plenty of examples out there what that looks like - 4chan, 'old' reddit, parler & co (which ironically censor a lot of stuff), all of the dark web, etc. You state "policing should be done on the actual hosts of the content", but what if the host says "lol no"? That's what's happening here; BREIN demanded (and has done so for at least the past 10 years, probably longer) that since the hosts are untouchable and not legally required to comply (these things get complicated once you go abroad), they went for the ISP's and search engines instead. If something is deemed illegal, and the source is untouchable, you have to go for whatever passes it on. I mean hard drugs are illegal, they are shipped across the world, and only when they arrive at a port is there something that can be done to stop it.
- Pyramus 5y ago
  I absolutely agree with you - we don't live in a black and white world, and black and white measures rarely work in practice. Should Google de-list Pirate Bay? In my opinion no. Should Google de-list some things? No doubt yes. That is how society works - your rights end where somebody else's start. As the down-voting of parent shows, HN gets defensive when this is pointed out.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - lovelyviking 5y ago
    >we don't live in a black and white world you say that and then I see this: >Should Google de-list Pirate Bay? In my opinion no. Looks like pretty black in white about Pirate Bay here. Also doesn't look like you are too much against censorship. You do not even discuss whether it should be or not. I sense it is pretty white there for you too. It reminds me how russia controlled media spread idea that not everything is black and white but when they decided to attack Ukraine using military and took Crimea and parts of other two regions with force it suddenly became black and white for the moment of attack and then again coming back to 'oh it's not black and white we didn't took anything' I personally love how "everything is not black and white" concept is used to justify censorship and promote everything that serves totalitarian dreams.
visarga 5y ago
If you take ranking/filtering criteria away from Google and social networks they lose a lot of power but we gain a lot of freedom. They should be forced to open the filtering part of the stack, allow more competition and user input in that space.
notyourwork 5y ago
> search engines are used to find things publicly available on the internet This used to be the case. As the internet grew in size search providers felt it was in best interest in general user to cull these results and present their definition of best at the top. They wanted to solve the needle in the hay-stack problem by taking all the noise out and funneling the best result to the top. Best is a subjective term and I don't think I agree with it. However, your definition is not the same as Googles. Search providers can define what their search engine does the same way a restaurant gets to decide what's on its menu even though all restaurants serve food.
- 8note 5y ago
  Alternative take: SEO became a thing, and the initial search algorithms were not designed for an adversarial game
adolph 5y ago
Is not indexing certain things the same as moderating search results? Is default but optional moderation a bad thing?
Rebelgecko 5y ago
(full disclosure, I work for Google) I think it's easy to take an absolutist approach when it's somebody else who faces the consequences. In some ways it's a rehash of the arguments when the Navalny app was delisted. In a vacuum, "should someone follow politically motivated requests to take down content?" is an easy question to answer. But when you have to worry about consequences like giving up your freedom, I can't say that I'd have the courage to follow through. The Dutch prisons might be nicer than Russia's, but asking someone else to give up their freedom for ideals is still a tall order.
- aaron_m04 5y ago
  It seems to me that the right (if unrealistic) way to address this is to make searching P2P so there is no small number of people to arrest for this. Governments can't arrest double digit percentages of their citizens... that looks really bad.
janaagaard 5y ago
Who should, I your opinion, be responsible for applying the moderation?
- bozhark 5y ago
  the user

londons_explore 5y ago

I would like to see Google highlight legally removed search results. For example, leave a gap in the search results where the missing one would have been, perhaps with some details of the result which do not fall under the removal request (for example, the title of the page, even if the URL must be removed).

taneq 5y ago
Add this to the long list of things that Google won't do for the exact reason that you want them to do it. They're not on your side any more and haven't been for a decade now.

briga 5y ago

In principle I agree but in this case I think Google is trying to protect itself from lawsuits. Which seems like a reasonable thing to do from their perspective. Any search engine that gets big enough will eventually have a target on its back for DMCA trolls

southerntofu 5y ago
> I think Google is trying to protect itself from lawsuits That is unlikely. Google breaks many privacy-related laws across the globe and deals with billions of euros of fines regularly. They have an unlimited wallet and couldn't care less about spending a few billions to extend their dominance over the Internet.
- Pyramus 5y ago
  That's a logical fallacy - just because Google lost money in the past doesn't mean they want to lose money in the future. We don't know what Google's utility function was in the past, and certainly can't extrapolate to this case.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    I'll concede that we can't know for sure. But given their vast legal spendings and huge profit margins, i'd argue that whatever their strategy is, legal threats from BREIN is a drop in the ocean for them.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    Google search prints a ridiculous amount of money. I think the lawsuit costs do pale in comparison to keeping their dominance. If Google is doing this voluntarily, they must see an upside that helps maintain that dominance.

antiterra 5y ago

Why wouldn’t this result in absolutely horrible search results? Any sort of algorithmic tweak to prevent confusing, misleading or low quality results could be counted as moderation.

sysOpOpPERAND 5y ago
agreed. it actually might be used in court someday. considering they were under microscope and have said that they do not manipulate search results. this could be proof enough for a further investigation into google. i know some people who work for google may not want to hear that but, it's not gonna be ignored if the right people investigate google again
nyuszika7h 5y ago
So maybe hide them behind "show more results" or something. That's still better than removing them outright. But of course, copyright holders wouldn't be happy with that.

Vinnl 5y ago

But Google moderates search results by definition. As in, it's not like there's an objective external measure of what the results for a given search term should look like - it's all Google that determines what to show you in what order.

vadfa 5y ago
There is a difference between having a set of rules and doing ad hoc moderation.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  The set of rules includes "results that are illegal to divulge in a jurisdiction will not be shown."
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    Since Google is doing this voluntarily, many of the blocked results were legal to divulge but Google is choosing not to, which does make it ad hoc.
    - axutio 5y ago
      This just becomes a question of pragmatism at that point - Google lacks the capacity to determine which of the blocked results are legal versus are not without incurring cost, so the most realistic approach is to recognize that a majority of results from that domain are illegal and block the domain. This is just the simplest way to enforce a particular rule in a particular case that can't otherwise be cheaply codified programatically.
      - shkkmo 5y ago
        Yet Google doesn't generally block most content that is illegal in one jurisdiction in all others where it is not illegal. If Google is deciding to do that just with TPB, then that is indeed an adhoc decision.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

I don't think anyone actually thinks in these absolutist terms. I mean, it's an oft-cited whataboutism, but what about CP? Terrorist propaganda? Insert your own list of abhorrent content here. I mean, zero moderation is some kind of internet libertarian ideal, but there's plenty of examples out there what that looks like - 4chan, 'old' reddit, parler & co (which ironically censor a lot of stuff), all of the dark web, etc. You state "policing should be done on the actual hosts of the content", but what if the host says "lol no"? That's what's happening here; BREIN demanded (and has done so for at least the past 10 years, probably longer) that since the hosts are untouchable and not legally required to comply (these things get complicated once you go abroad), they went for the ISP's and search engines instead. If something is deemed illegal, and the source is untouchable, you have to go for whatever passes it on. I mean hard drugs are illegal, they are shipped across the world, and only when they arrive at a port is there something that can be done to stop it.

Pyramus 5y ago
I absolutely agree with you - we don't live in a black and white world, and black and white measures rarely work in practice. Should Google de-list Pirate Bay? In my opinion no. Should Google de-list some things? No doubt yes. That is how society works - your rights end where somebody else's start. As the down-voting of parent shows, HN gets defensive when this is pointed out.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- lovelyviking 5y ago
  >we don't live in a black and white world you say that and then I see this: >Should Google de-list Pirate Bay? In my opinion no. Looks like pretty black in white about Pirate Bay here. Also doesn't look like you are too much against censorship. You do not even discuss whether it should be or not. I sense it is pretty white there for you too. It reminds me how russia controlled media spread idea that not everything is black and white but when they decided to attack Ukraine using military and took Crimea and parts of other two regions with force it suddenly became black and white for the moment of attack and then again coming back to 'oh it's not black and white we didn't took anything' I personally love how "everything is not black and white" concept is used to justify censorship and promote everything that serves totalitarian dreams.

visarga 5y ago

If you take ranking/filtering criteria away from Google and social networks they lose a lot of power but we gain a lot of freedom. They should be forced to open the filtering part of the stack, allow more competition and user input in that space.

notyourwork 5y ago

> search engines are used to find things publicly available on the internet This used to be the case. As the internet grew in size search providers felt it was in best interest in general user to cull these results and present their definition of best at the top. They wanted to solve the needle in the hay-stack problem by taking all the noise out and funneling the best result to the top. Best is a subjective term and I don't think I agree with it. However, your definition is not the same as Googles. Search providers can define what their search engine does the same way a restaurant gets to decide what's on its menu even though all restaurants serve food.

8note 5y ago
Alternative take: SEO became a thing, and the initial search algorithms were not designed for an adversarial game

adolph 5y ago

Is not indexing certain things the same as moderating search results? Is default but optional moderation a bad thing?

Rebelgecko 5y ago

(full disclosure, I work for Google) I think it's easy to take an absolutist approach when it's somebody else who faces the consequences. In some ways it's a rehash of the arguments when the Navalny app was delisted. In a vacuum, "should someone follow politically motivated requests to take down content?" is an easy question to answer. But when you have to worry about consequences like giving up your freedom, I can't say that I'd have the courage to follow through. The Dutch prisons might be nicer than Russia's, but asking someone else to give up their freedom for ideals is still a tall order.

aaron_m04 5y ago
It seems to me that the right (if unrealistic) way to address this is to make searching P2P so there is no small number of people to arrest for this. Governments can't arrest double digit percentages of their citizens... that looks really bad.

janaagaard 5y ago

Who should, I your opinion, be responsible for applying the moderation?

bozhark 5y ago
the user