4 ms·

I'm surprised at the cataclysmic response here. I do hate puritanical stuff, but this doesn't seem that bad. I do worry that eventually they'll force people to

by jchw 4y ago

I'm surprised at the cataclysmic response here. I do hate puritanical stuff, but this doesn't seem that bad. I do worry that eventually they'll force people to log in to even see this content eventually, and that'll just be a sad day for the Internet. But just blurring it seems... ok? For me it's a far better setting than "On" even though I'd greatly prefer "Off". Well, I guess it would be annoying if you were browsing only explicit images, like porn. But, at the risk of sounding crazy, I figured people had moved onto topic-specific sites for that kind of thing.

Zak 4y ago
When people are browsing explicit images, whether medical or pornographic is often when they most want to be anonymous online.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Interesting how so many people can do it, and yet there's still a very strong stigma. You'll find more people saying they are LGBTQ+ than proud porn users.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    The term you're looking for is sex positive and plenty of people self-identify that way.
danjoredd 4y ago
I don't mind them blurring it. Its not really a problem. Heaven knows how many kids ended up with a porn addiction because Google displayed something that lead them down a rabbit hole. If that sort of addiction can be lessened by blurring images so they don't see them right away, I view it as a good thing. Of course, all the kid has to do is click on it then unblur it so its effectiveness is in question. Not to mention it does nothing to reduce the other routes porn addiction can be introduced. However, despite all that, I DO have a problem with them requiring a login to disable the feature. It feels like a grab for more data. A way to get people to log in and let them attribute NSFW searches to an account. Google wants to know pretty much every part of you so they can sell you things...that includes adult services and objects. If they can nail what your fetish is, they can advertise to you stuff related to it.
- LorenPechtel 4y ago
  Porn addiction?? Basically a made-up issues by the puritans.
  - danjoredd 4y ago
    I disagree. There is a lot of evidence that pornography causes real harm to both men and women. It can cause relationship problems, erectile disfunction, and can increase feelings of depression. I can provide official sources for this. While addiction is a very specific term and "porn addiction" technically doesn't exist if you want to be pedantic, I know many many people who want to give it up but struggle with doing that. Here are the sources I got my information from. I sincerely hope that you read them. Being against porn does not necessarily mean being puritanical, as it has legitimate health risks that are legitimately concerning: https://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/rubriche/english/2011/02/24/visualizza_new.html_1583160579.html https://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/rubriche/english/2011/02/24/... https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/brain-activity-in-sex-addiction-mirrors-that-of-drug-addiction https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/brain-activity-in-sex-ad... https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-012-0164-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-012-0164-0?
    - LorenPechtel 4y ago
      Your second link doesn't even address porn addiction at all. And I think your third has the cart before the horse--porn use is a symptom of relationship problems far more than it is a cause of them.
      - danjoredd 4y ago
        [dead]
    - jchw 4y ago
      I wouldn't call it pedantic. Addiction is just the wrong word, because health issues related to habitual porn usage is not always a kind of addiction, and what most people seem to think constitutes addiction is completely off. No doubt there are health issues that can happen with habitual porn use, but that's mostly not even specific to porn. A much bigger issue is the misunderstanding that people seem to have with what constitutes an addiction. Having a routine is not an addiction. Having hobbies, even if they are crude or not socially acceptable, is not an addiction. If it's not really negatively impacting your life and it's under control, you are fine. I have a feeling depending on what circles you are adjacent to will impact your opinions on which misconception is worse, but there has got to be roughly no people who truly believe you couldn't have an unhealthy obsession with porn. That's ridiculous.
prepend 4y ago
It’s not the blurring, it’s the logging in. I don’t want to log into Google. They could have had a setting, but this way makes them more money. They already default to “safe search” or whatever. Making people log in does nothing to protect children and just lets them gather more data. They’ve been doing this on YouTube for years with nsfw stuff.
- skybrian 4y ago
  Will users be able to click through to the original website instead of logging in?
  - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
    Yes, users can click through to the original website. They'll just be clicking through on a blurred image. This point is made in a single, short sentence of the original article that is easy to miss: "If you click "View image," you see life's frail nature."
    - skybrian 4y ago
      It reminds me of how they do it on Mastodon.
- LorenPechtel 4y ago
  Yeah--I have no problem with the existence of Safe Search. It's a good idea for the internet naive who can innocently get some shocking material. However, it should be under more user control. Hey, Google Translate, please interpret this in it's sexual sense, not it's innocent sense! I haven't figured out any way to do this. (I wanted it to translate the dirty word for penis--and I never figured out how to do it. It will translate dirty words if it doesn't have a choice.) And it shouldn't require logging in!
  - iggldiggl 4y ago
    Google Translate generally seems to fare badly if you want to fine-tweak the translation or explore alternative meanings and things like that – at most it seems to usually offer a single alternative translation per sentence, and that's that. If your language pair is supported by deepl.com, give that one a try – it offers alternative translations at a much more fine-grained level, down to individual words, and usually offers much more than just one single alternative.
groestl 4y ago
Collecting personally identifiable logs of all the people browsing explicit images. What could go wrong.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Historically, pornography always fell under US law as obscenity, meaning that it was actually not protected by the First Amendment. The Miller Test for obscenity, arguably, still considers pornography to be obscene and therefore not legally protected, but is unenforceable because of how widespread pornography is and how widely accepted it has become. From a legal perspective, I think the case for requiring age verification, or actually even banning or criminalizing pornographic distribution or use, is very strong from previous case law - and it would only take a SCOTUS ruling to bring it back. We can argue about whether that is good or bad for society - but, legally speaking, the US seems to be in the clear to control pornography (or, criminalize it) however it likes. The First Amendment is not an obstruction.
  - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
    The last sentence of the article makes me wonder if this is more Google making a data grab, or more Google trying to get out in front of government requirements (see, we can self regulate, no need for additional regulations). > "Google turned on SafeSearch as its default for under-18 users in August 2021, having been pressured by Congress to better protect children across its services, including search and YouTube."
    - LorenPechtel 4y ago
      Yeah, I think this is trying to head off government stupidity. Governments tend to have little concept of what is feasible and don't care if their puritan crusade has privacy holes you can drive a 747 through.
knaik94 4y ago
In most situations the setting is already on. Right now, the experience when you're not logged in, is that it takes some very aggressive search for pictures to even show up. It's already very conservative, and hides things that fall in a gray area. Suggestive pictures are filtered and gated, even content that would just barely be pg 13. There are certain phrases or words that should produce explicit images but don't. And, from my experience, you have to append a sexually explicit word at the end for relevant images/results to show up. I have been noticing it more with Adult film actors' names. There absolutely should be filtering and Google has gotten better are figuring out the gray area pictures. But it's not perfect at drawing that line. And the other issue with this policy is that these searches get tied to your account. It's not a matter of being annoying. The filter being unintentionally off was never an option.

by jchw 4y ago

Zak 4y ago

When people are browsing explicit images, whether medical or pornographic is often when they most want to be anonymous online.

gjsman-1000 4y ago
Interesting how so many people can do it, and yet there's still a very strong stigma. You'll find more people saying they are LGBTQ+ than proud porn users.
- Spivak 4y ago
  The term you're looking for is sex positive and plenty of people self-identify that way.

danjoredd 4y ago

I don't mind them blurring it. Its not really a problem. Heaven knows how many kids ended up with a porn addiction because Google displayed something that lead them down a rabbit hole. If that sort of addiction can be lessened by blurring images so they don't see them right away, I view it as a good thing. Of course, all the kid has to do is click on it then unblur it so its effectiveness is in question. Not to mention it does nothing to reduce the other routes porn addiction can be introduced. However, despite all that, I DO have a problem with them requiring a login to disable the feature. It feels like a grab for more data. A way to get people to log in and let them attribute NSFW searches to an account. Google wants to know pretty much every part of you so they can sell you things...that includes adult services and objects. If they can nail what your fetish is, they can advertise to you stuff related to it.

LorenPechtel 4y ago
Porn addiction?? Basically a made-up issues by the puritans.
- danjoredd 4y ago
  I disagree. There is a lot of evidence that pornography causes real harm to both men and women. It can cause relationship problems, erectile disfunction, and can increase feelings of depression. I can provide official sources for this. While addiction is a very specific term and "porn addiction" technically doesn't exist if you want to be pedantic, I know many many people who want to give it up but struggle with doing that. Here are the sources I got my information from. I sincerely hope that you read them. Being against porn does not necessarily mean being puritanical, as it has legitimate health risks that are legitimately concerning: https://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/rubriche/english/2011/02/24/visualizza_new.html_1583160579.html https://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/rubriche/english/2011/02/24/... https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/brain-activity-in-sex-addiction-mirrors-that-of-drug-addiction https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/brain-activity-in-sex-ad... https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-012-0164-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-012-0164-0?
  - LorenPechtel 4y ago
    Your second link doesn't even address porn addiction at all. And I think your third has the cart before the horse--porn use is a symptom of relationship problems far more than it is a cause of them.
    - danjoredd 4y ago
      [dead]
  - jchw 4y ago
    I wouldn't call it pedantic. Addiction is just the wrong word, because health issues related to habitual porn usage is not always a kind of addiction, and what most people seem to think constitutes addiction is completely off. No doubt there are health issues that can happen with habitual porn use, but that's mostly not even specific to porn. A much bigger issue is the misunderstanding that people seem to have with what constitutes an addiction. Having a routine is not an addiction. Having hobbies, even if they are crude or not socially acceptable, is not an addiction. If it's not really negatively impacting your life and it's under control, you are fine. I have a feeling depending on what circles you are adjacent to will impact your opinions on which misconception is worse, but there has got to be roughly no people who truly believe you couldn't have an unhealthy obsession with porn. That's ridiculous.

prepend 4y ago

It’s not the blurring, it’s the logging in. I don’t want to log into Google. They could have had a setting, but this way makes them more money. They already default to “safe search” or whatever. Making people log in does nothing to protect children and just lets them gather more data. They’ve been doing this on YouTube for years with nsfw stuff.

skybrian 4y ago
Will users be able to click through to the original website instead of logging in?
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  Yes, users can click through to the original website. They'll just be clicking through on a blurred image. This point is made in a single, short sentence of the original article that is easy to miss: "If you click "View image," you see life's frail nature."
  - skybrian 4y ago
    It reminds me of how they do it on Mastodon.
LorenPechtel 4y ago
Yeah--I have no problem with the existence of Safe Search. It's a good idea for the internet naive who can innocently get some shocking material. However, it should be under more user control. Hey, Google Translate, please interpret this in it's sexual sense, not it's innocent sense! I haven't figured out any way to do this. (I wanted it to translate the dirty word for penis--and I never figured out how to do it. It will translate dirty words if it doesn't have a choice.) And it shouldn't require logging in!
- iggldiggl 4y ago
  Google Translate generally seems to fare badly if you want to fine-tweak the translation or explore alternative meanings and things like that – at most it seems to usually offer a single alternative translation per sentence, and that's that. If your language pair is supported by deepl.com, give that one a try – it offers alternative translations at a much more fine-grained level, down to individual words, and usually offers much more than just one single alternative.

groestl 4y ago

Collecting personally identifiable logs of all the people browsing explicit images. What could go wrong.

gjsman-1000 4y ago
Historically, pornography always fell under US law as obscenity, meaning that it was actually not protected by the First Amendment. The Miller Test for obscenity, arguably, still considers pornography to be obscene and therefore not legally protected, but is unenforceable because of how widespread pornography is and how widely accepted it has become. From a legal perspective, I think the case for requiring age verification, or actually even banning or criminalizing pornographic distribution or use, is very strong from previous case law - and it would only take a SCOTUS ruling to bring it back. We can argue about whether that is good or bad for society - but, legally speaking, the US seems to be in the clear to control pornography (or, criminalize it) however it likes. The First Amendment is not an obstruction.
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  The last sentence of the article makes me wonder if this is more Google making a data grab, or more Google trying to get out in front of government requirements (see, we can self regulate, no need for additional regulations). > "Google turned on SafeSearch as its default for under-18 users in August 2021, having been pressured by Congress to better protect children across its services, including search and YouTube."
  - LorenPechtel 4y ago
    Yeah, I think this is trying to head off government stupidity. Governments tend to have little concept of what is feasible and don't care if their puritan crusade has privacy holes you can drive a 747 through.

knaik94 4y ago

In most situations the setting is already on. Right now, the experience when you're not logged in, is that it takes some very aggressive search for pictures to even show up. It's already very conservative, and hides things that fall in a gray area. Suggestive pictures are filtered and gated, even content that would just barely be pg 13. There are certain phrases or words that should produce explicit images but don't. And, from my experience, you have to append a sexually explicit word at the end for relevant images/results to show up. I have been noticing it more with Adult film actors' names. There absolutely should be filtering and Google has gotten better are figuring out the gray area pictures. But it's not perfect at drawing that line. And the other issue with this policy is that these searches get tied to your account. It's not a matter of being annoying. The filter being unintentionally off was never an option.