🐱 Google alters algorithm to remove Holocaust denial search results

http://indianexpress.com/article/te...move-holocaust-denial-search-results-4446974/

Google has changed its algorithm to completely remove Holocaust denial results for the query ‘Did the Holocaust happen?’. Google Search, which earlier showed link to a Stormfront’s article on 10 reasons why the Holocaust didn’t happen, has removed that result and other similar Holocaust denial sites. Stormfront is a neo-Nazi, white supremacist website. Digital Trends quoted a spokesperson from Google, who said, “Judging which pages on the web best answer a query is a challenging problem and we don’t always get it right.”
Google’s u-turn comes after it had earlier said it won’t be removing the result. In an earlier comment to Fortune magazine, Google has said it does “not remove content from search results, except in very limited cases such as illegal content, malware and violations of our webmaster guidelines.” But now it looks like Google is cracking down on this sort of content, which spreads false information.

Google has altered its search results in the past as well. The search giant removed phrases like ‘are jews evil’, ‘are muslims bad’ and ‘are women evil’ from the autocomplete feature in the search box after a Guardian report had highlighted these. However search results from websites around topics like these still continue to figure in Google search results. Many of these are from white-supremacist websites, which spew racial, religious hatred against minority communities, women.

In fact as the Gizmodo reports points out if you search on phrases like ‘are jews evil’ etc, results from Stormfront still appear in the first page. A query on ‘Are Muslims evil’ also include anti-Muslim articles in the first page of results itself.

However, a Google spokesperson in a statement to Gizmodo said the company will continue to make changes to its algorithm over time to ‘tackle such challenges’. Whether this means that in future misleading websites with false information get removed altogether from results remains to be seen.

 

[AnOminous]

Google monitors your life.

For your own good.

That's how it goes from now on.

 

[Male Idiot]

Google is with the googles!

 

[Brandobaris]

I like how its holocaust denial first, not anti-vaxxers, or flat earthers, or "pedophilia is just an orientation"

 

[vertexwindi]

I like how its holocaust denial first, not anti-vaxxers, or flat earthers, or "pedophilia is just an orientation"

Guess what race the current CEO of Google is.

Spoiler

Indian, you racist bastard

 

[John Titor]

This is an exercise in futility because you can't cure stupid.

 

[Coldgrip]

This is an exercise in futility because you can't cure stupid.

This right goddamn here. The idiots that believe it never happened aren't going to suddenly stop believing that because google removed shit, instead they'll now scream about how their opinions are being censored for speaking the "truth".

 

[Munchingonfish]

I like how its holocaust denial first, not anti-vaxxers, or flat earthers, or "pedophilia is just an orientation"

Google has played the social justice card too often for them to do that.

 

[Marvin]

Google didn't really alter their algorithm.

They created an EXCEPTION to it to censor a specific viewpoint. An algorithm can't do that automatically, so they actually had to tailor something specifically to the disfavored content and censor it specifically.

They BROKE their algorithm.

Are we sure that's what happened? Reading the article, I can't actually see any specifics on how they implemented this. The only evidence the article references that suggest it even happened are external tracking of google results, which naturally will shift over time anyway.

There are a bajillion variables that factor into how a search ranking is calculated. If they did do something actively, they could've tweaked the weights of some of them to shift holocaust denial sperging further down.

I mean, don't get me wrong: intentionally fiddling with search results for purposes of censorship is pretty shitty. But still, there's a big difference between changes in algorithm constants and actually intentionally introducing a filter on specific keywords.

 

[Kundalini Mystic]

Holocaust Revisionism

http://www.wanttoknow.nl/wp-content/uploads/HolocaustRevisionism.pdf

 

[MMMMMM]

Literally all the organizations doing the fact checking are left wing

Or to put it another way, no right-wing organisation is interested in checking facts. How can you call these tech companies left-wing anyway? They're all American.

If anything this is good news for conservatives, isn't it the right-wing that likes to hand over more power to corporations? True, the people who make up these tech companies usually tend to be fairly liberal types, but that's just because the technology is new and was shunned by people who aren't about taking risks and changing things up. It'll balance out eventually.

Anyway, Google isn't obligated to allow neonazis to use its resources to further their demented memes. Same goes for climate change denialists, I'd argue that the latter is more important given what's at stake.

 

[Tranhuviya]

Anyway, Google isn't obligated to allow neonazis to use its resources to further their demented memes. Same goes for climate change denialists, I'd argue that the latter is more important given what's at stake.

So regulating speech is okay if you deem it "dangerous"? God, you're retarded.

 

[MMMMMM]

So regulating speech is okay if you deem it "dangerous"? God, you're exceptional.

It doesn't qualify as "regulating speech".
Are you being censored just because the radio stations won't play your music? No, they get to pick what they broadcast.

 

[Tranhuviya]

Are you being censored just because the radio stations won't play your music? No, they get to pick what they broadcast.

So that's alright when it's ALT-RIGHT NAZIS but someone invokes that same principle with fag weddings, it's not alright?

 

[John Furrman]

Anyway, Google isn't obligated to allow neonazis to use its resources to further their demented memes. Same goes for climate change denialists, I'd argue that the latter is more important given what's at stake.

I think you're missing the joke that those "neo-nazi ... memes" are a massive misinformation campaign orchestrated by /pol/ to fuck with the mainstream media and other public entities because the MSM are tools that will report obvious bullshit as facts.

 

[Grog]

Guess what race the current CEO of Google is.

Spoiler

Indian, you racist bastard

That's one of them.

But then there's

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin

Brin was born in Moscow in the Soviet Union, to Russian Jewish parents

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[BadaBadaBoom]

I think you're missing the joke that those "neo-nazi ... memes" are a massive misinformation campaign orchestrated by /pol/ to fuck with the mainstream media and other public entities because the MSM are tools that will report obvious bullshit as facts.

The sad thing is though the MSM aren't fools, but they know their audience is; so that campaign just created a boogeyman which is exactly what the news loves.

This Google thing is analogous to that sad reality - that you must pander to the idea that the average citizen can actually be swayed by a single search result leading to a biased website. Google thought maybe a resounding NO wasn't the best top-result for the question "Did the Holocaust happen?" which, I guess isn't the worst thing, but it does create a terrible precedent at deciding what facts are actually facts.

 

[John Furrman]

The sad thing is though the MSM aren't fools, but they know their audience is; so that campaign just created a boogeyman which is exactly what the news loves

Very true. It's fascinating to see people accept it unquestioningly, really. 4chan and its users have been the MSM's favorite internet boogeymen for years. 4chan uses the MSM vicariously to fuck with normies, as they did with the reclamation of Pepe last year.

 

[MMMMMM]

So that's alright when it's ALT-RIGHT NAZIS but someone invokes that same principle with fag weddings, it's not alright?

I think comparing actual holocaust deniers and men marrying men is a little bit silly, but if Google wanted to hide search results for either, freedom of speech still hasn't been compromised. The sites are still up for anybody to go look at.

I think you're missing the joke that those "neo-nazi ... memes" are a massive misinformation campaign

Oh I know, I'm using the word in the other way. Holocaust denial is just an idea some butthurt nazi came up with, and it spread in the usual memetic way.