4 ms·

According to a comment on Reddit, search problems have been existing for some time - they did not just appear after the DNS issue [1]. Also, I just searched fo

According to a comment on Reddit, search problems have been existing for some time - they did not just appear after the DNS issue [1]. Also, I just searched for "transgender" on nih.gov, and got lots of hits [2], the first one being a publication on PubMed [3]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/NIH/comments/1j28ytk/comment/mfs14di/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NIH/comments/1j28ytk/comment/mfs14d... [2] https://search.nih.gov/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&affiliate=nih&query=trangender&commit=Search https://search.nih.gov/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&affiliate=nih&q... [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34993517/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34993517/

wadadadad 2y ago
I appreciate your attempt to clarify here, but your citation link above in 2) is for 'trangender', a misspelling (but it does search successfully). This isn't a 'search problem'; searching for 'gender' and 'transgender' always and immediately redirects back to the main page. I also tested several unrelated searches without any issues (HIV, genome, public, potato).
- directevolve 2y ago
  Good catch, I hadn’t realized they have a misspelling.
- raphman 2y ago
  Thanks, you are right!
directevolve 2y ago
Edit: as another commenter pointed out, you have a misspelling which is why your search works. This link is correct and demonstrates the censorship: https://search.nih.gov/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&affiliate=nih&query=transgender&commit=Search https://search.nih.gov/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&affiliate=nih&q... Adding an extra word to censored searches appears to defeat the effect for now. For example, “diversity” is censored but “diversity a” works.
- raphman 2y ago
  Ooops, yes - I misspellt my search query. The transgender censor seems to be simple string matching (if query == "transgender"). Just putting the forbidden word in quotation marks makes it searchable, too [1]. I wonder if the filter was intentionally implemented in a shitty way by NIH staff so that they formally comply with an internal order but offer easy ways to circumvent it. [1] https://search.nih.gov/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&affiliate=nih&query=%22transgender%22&commit=Search https://search.nih.gov/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&affiliate=nih&q...

wadadadad 2y ago

I appreciate your attempt to clarify here, but your citation link above in 2) is for 'trangender', a misspelling (but it does search successfully). This isn't a 'search problem'; searching for 'gender' and 'transgender' always and immediately redirects back to the main page. I also tested several unrelated searches without any issues (HIV, genome, public, potato).

directevolve 2y ago
Good catch, I hadn’t realized they have a misspelling.
raphman 2y ago
Thanks, you are right!

directevolve 2y ago

Edit: as another commenter pointed out, you have a misspelling which is why your search works. This link is correct and demonstrates the censorship: https://search.nih.gov/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&affiliate=nih&query=transgender&commit=Search https://search.nih.gov/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&affiliate=nih&q... Adding an extra word to censored searches appears to defeat the effect for now. For example, “diversity” is censored but “diversity a” works.

raphman 2y ago
Ooops, yes - I misspellt my search query. The transgender censor seems to be simple string matching (if query == "transgender"). Just putting the forbidden word in quotation marks makes it searchable, too [1]. I wonder if the filter was intentionally implemented in a shitty way by NIH staff so that they formally comply with an internal order but offer easy ways to circumvent it. [1] https://search.nih.gov/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&affiliate=nih&query=%22transgender%22&commit=Search https://search.nih.gov/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&affiliate=nih&q...