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Vindication, Google, and Islam

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 26th, 2010 at 09:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Remember when I accused Google of censoring search hints? Some of the reactions were just hysterical. So many technically inclined people on the right have a reflexive desire to defend Google and make the kindest assumptions about the company. The company itself claimed that it was all coincidence.

Further research showed that Google was also censoring criticism of Islam, a claim that was met with the same incredulity.

Enter The Jawa Report. Their emailer noticed that hey, now suddenly Google comes up with the a whole list of negative description of Islam just like it does for Christianity, where before there was nothing. Is anyone going to claim that such a sudden, dramatic change is just the random fluctuation of an algorithm? I hope not.

Between Google standing up to China and Islam, I have to wonder if public scrutiny is making the company realize that they must actually be neutral if they want to expect others to be (net) neutral. That would be a benefit to us all given the firm’s market power. Time will tell.

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  • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

    Even though “Islam is…” showed no suggestions, though so did pretty much any other 5-letter word.

    “Muslim is…”, however, showed similar responses to those for Christianity.

    I’m still a little skeptical on this one.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Why do you stick up for political enemies who would shiv you without a thought?

  • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

    I’m just telling you what I found.

  • SteveLA

    Neil,

    So fine, I accept your assertion that Google is playing games here, no surprise. But if not Big G, what other search engine is not biased?

    Before you get too excited, I’m not asking the philosophical question, I’m asking what to reset my default search engine to based on being less biased.

  • penguin2

    Climategate yielded everything but, including climate guard windows x2 and climate ground zero…OTOH, typing in Amsterdam yielded me 10 places all within the country where I could pack today and be there tomorrow. :)

    It is clear to me there is manipulation going on greatly influenced by politics, or in the Islam example, political correctness.

  • tjexcite

    Try Obama is or Bush is or Beck is Limbaugh is

    They are good ones, almost every politician is the Antichrist

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    It works well for me for everything but highly technical topics. For those I fall back to google.

    I haven’t studied them for bias but I also haven’t heard of them donating tens of thousands of dollars to left wing ballot measure campaigns, either.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • SteveLA

    So Big G is the big gorilla, but one of the founders of Ask is a big time Democrat out here in CA.

    I’m not sure any Silicon Valley computer company of the last 20 years is not biased to some extent or the other to the Left. It’s the nature of the beast and the schools that produce them.

  • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

    And I’ve never commented before on any diary about Google, so I don’t know where you’d get that impression.

  • Scott Mustian

    After reading about this and watching how they censored Climategate, I decided it was time Google becomes the search engine of choice for the 20% of their audience who are avowed liberals.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Being owned by a Democrat doesn’t make something biased.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    I’m just telling you the impression I get when comment one on a diary of mine starts saying that I’m completely wrong.

  • RottDawg

    for representing that signature of his.

  • bs

    I get similar kinds of suggestions. If I type in “bread is”, I get all kinds of suggestions. The fact that “Islam is” all of a sudden works when it didn’t before (and yes, I tried it when this first came up) tells me there was something fishy going on.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    bunny

  • RottDawg

    that you are acting like this. Seriously? Someone tells you what they found to be true and you make out like it’s a personal attack and become defensive and rude.

    Then you take to calling me dumb when you represent your signature every time you post.

  • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

    I did say I was “skeptical”. That means I’m not convinced either way on this particular search.

    As for whether or not I think Google capable of it, absolutely I do. I will say if you carry this line of thinking to its logical conclusion, you’re going to be spending a great deal of time and effort making sure the companies you do business with aren’t supporting leftist causes. I mean, are you really sure the toothpaste you buy isn’t from a company that sends charitable donations to Planned Parenthood?

  • bs

    But I think the sheer bulk of evidence about Google’s actions in the “marketplace is starting to accumulate to a point where it’s no longer a “six degrees of Kevin Bacon” situation where we have to overreach to “connect the dots” (sorry to use an Obamism). It’s becoming pretty obvious that they’re getting too big for their britches.

    As much as I detest Microsoft, they may no longer be the Evil Empire. I’ve actually switched my search engine in Safari and FF over to Bing instead of Google. I never thought I’d say that.

  • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

    When they told me I had to boycott “Winnie the Pooh”.

    BTW, Steve Jobs is no less “lefty” than the Google founders (though not quite as far out as his original partner who I met & talked with for awhile years ago). Apple is just like Google & Microsoft. They just aren’t as good at it… ;-)

  • Old_Crow

    Nice try.

  • OccamsRazor

    Yang’s legacy will be forced out by market pressure.

    Google has a well founded (improved upon) algorithm for internet searches, and of recognizing what they had early whereby turning that into tech talent. But putting the burden of it’s founders’ liberal ideology upon the company’s revenue combined with actual competition makes the company redefine itself-it makes me chuckle to witness.

    I theorize that Google is only pissed at the Chinese government hacking their gmail accounts for dissidents because of their (Googles) strong belief in human rights, which will come at the expense of their bottom line. It’s like watching the upcoming superbowl. I don’t care who wins, but it’s entertaining to watch. I doubt this theory will go over well here, but Hahaha.

    Keep callin’ them out, Neil!

  • OccamsRazor

    The reason I’m amused about the Chinese Government (not the people) for the affront upon Google, is purely for the obvious conundrum.

  • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

    Perhaps not.

    Feel free to attach nefarious motives to my response if you like.

  • streiff

    but for anything other than images I think Bing sucks

  • http://dreamsfrommyforefathers.com RoguePolitics

    I am not saying spend your life trying to uncover everything on everybody.

    But when you KNOW they are spending your money to support Gore, ACORN, Klanned Parenthood or any other leftist cause, why do it?

    There are plenty of places to buy and plenty of brands of toothpaste.

    Oh now I remember why, it could be inconvenient.

  • http://dreamsfrommyforefathers.com RoguePolitics
  • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister
  • mustango

    I’ve recently noticed among some of the arcane symbols returned with Google results are a couple to either promote or suggest removal of a given search result. While we can debate the pros and cons of such a feature I think this could explain a thing or two…

  • zroxx

    Google sure seems to have it in for 44!

    But wait, what’s that at ask.com? “Obama is a hero”!?!?? Why, they simply must be cozy with 44, not even those mean boogeymen at Google had the temerity to slip one like that into their auto suggest results, did they?

  • zroxx

    Remember when I accused Google of censoring search hints?

    Yes, I remember when you posted a conspiracy theory based on the behavior of their auto suggest feature and then ignored the fact that Yahoo, Bing, and Ask had all exhibited similar behavior. I remember how you theorized that someone at Google saw your post and quickly changed the results. I also remember your inability to defend your position apart from non-responses and insulting retorts to those of us who pointed out the holes in your theory.

    So many technically inclined people on the right have a reflexive desire to defend Google and make the kindest assumptions about the company.

    Some of us aren’t interested in disparaging successful American companies with speculative conspiracy theories – that is an activity that liberals and socialists engage in.

    The company itself claimed that it was all coincidence.

    Actually they asserted that, “it’s totally normal for a suggestion to take time to appear consistently in our query suggestions (it’s even normal for it to appear in some but not all cases).“. Your theory is that they were lying then, as well as now, correct?

    And here we have yet another ill researched conspiracy theory.

    First, this dates back to December 18 or earlier, but that was when someone posted the issue on Google’s support area. So the idea that Google made a “sudden, dramatic change” a couple days ago is not accurate, it took them weeks to resolve the issue.

    Second, the implication that somehow, a lone coder or sleeper cell inside Google is manipulating this stuff does a not hold up when it’s clear that there has been and still is plenty of output from Google that casts Islam in a negative way:

    Google also makes suggestions which are in the future tense. Search for ‘Islam will’ and the results are very balanced, including suggestions such as ‘Islam will be destroyed’ and ‘Islam will take over the world’. [Jan 11, cite]

    Entering other search terms relating to Islam appears to support Google’s claim. “Islam must” generates the suggested searches “be destroyed”, “die”, “be stopped”, “end” and “go”. [Jan 11, cite]

    Interesting. islam bul.. Suggests “islam bulls**t,” so if they are editing things (which they typically deny), they’re not getting everything. “muslim” is brings up “muslim is wrong” “muhammad is” bring us things about him being satan, a false prophet and other negative comments. [Jan 5, cite]

    So much like your previous attempt, to believe your theory we have to buy into the ridiculous idea that some nefarious element inside Google was so clever and devious as to ‘censor’ some auto suggest results related to “islam” but they couldn’t be bothered to tidy up all these other obvious search terms or keywords? Not to mention, forgetting to actually remove sites from their search results that are critical of islam.

    Wow. Google sure is “censoring criticism of islam”! [rolls eyes]

    Third, the idea that Google is biased in favor of islam is further contradicted by the fact that they have been and continue to host, for free, a multitude of videos critical of islam, including the famous Fitna video by Geert Wilders.

    Fourth:

    Isn’t it astonishing that Bing only provides two auto suggests for “christianity is”, one of which disparages Christianity while the other actually includes the word “islam”? Gosh, that seems absurd, I don’t know how they could conclude that there are only two possible completions and one actually includes the word ‘islam’ – unless they’re doing it on purpose, right? Contrast with the results for “islam is”, there are many more suggestions and the first result is clearly pro-islam!

    Based on your current theory, Bing, or some nefarious element inside Bing, simply must be censoring their auto suggest results to the detriment of Christianity and the subtle promotion of islam. I hope you will vigorously research this stunning discovery and blow the lid off Bing and their apparently willful maniupation of their auto suggest feature!

    Based on your current theory, ask.com also shows an obvious bias toward islam and against Christianity, look at those strange results re: Christianity:

    By the way… ask.com is apparently still censoring their auto suggest results re: climategate the same way you alleged Google was, so based on your earlier theory, I’m sure you will call out ask.com for their obvious bias and censorship of their own auto suggest feature in an upcoming front page posting:

    You know, maybe ask.com has people watching RedState in the same way you’ve implied Google has been watching and changing their results based on your posts. A front page posting about their shenanigans is sure to force their hand, right?