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Google won't make search recommendations for "Islam is"

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Re: Google won't make search recommendations for "Islam is"

#72
Top results from "Islam is *":

"Islam is both a religion and a complete way of life"

"Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs"

"Islam is violent"

"Islam is spreading among Thousands black South Africans"

"Islam is spreading across Europe among descendants of Muslim immigrants" (The preceding word is "Radical")

"Islam is intolerant, militant, supports terrorism" (This is from a site discussing contrasting viewpoints of Islam)

"Islam is your birthright"

"Islam is not a barrier to democracy as is often perceived by Western nations"

Re: Google won't make search recommendations for "Islam is"

#73

Top results from "Islam is *": "Islam is both a religion and a complete way of life" "Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs" "Islam is violent" "Islam is spreading among Thousands black South Africans" "Islam is spreading across Europe among descendants of Muslim immigrants" (The preceding word is "Radical") "Islam is intolerant, militant, supports terrorism" (This is from a site discussing contrasting vi…

Not for me. I see the behavior mentioned in the article.

Re: Google won't make search recommendations for "Islam is"

#76

Everyone knows exactly why they don't make search recommendations, and is there really anything we can say about it that won't devolve into trolling, flaming, and deliberate misunderstanding?

Yes, everyone knows exactly why they're doing it but:

a) By censoring some terms they open themselves up to more criticism, they can no longer point out that everything is done algorithmically; and

b) It's still possible to get offensive search suggestions out of Google, try typing 'Allah is'

Re: Google won't make search recommendations for "Islam is"

#77
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does a frequency cutoff filter out racist suggestions? Or were you referring to another sort of automatic cutoff? NB. Interestingly, "christians are" and "atheists are" don't return any results either.

I suspect it would filter out much of what is offensive. But you need to try it and see.

"white people are stupid" (without quotes) has 218 million results. It's one of the suggestions that google (presumably) blocks. That's many more results than a lot of useful suggestions ("michael jackson songs" has 88 million).

It turns out "(race or religion or nationality) are" is blocked for most races, religions, and nationalities.

Re: Google won't make search recommendations for "Islam is"

#79
post #51

This is rather disturbing. I didn't live through a dictatorial government in my country, but 30 years or so one that was ruling for about 50 years was put down. The worst thing about a dictatorship is not the censorship itself that will cut the parts that they don't want to be read from a text or a poem, it is when the author himself limits its expressiveness and freewill to the walls built by the fear of the censors…

Aren't they simply withholding phrase suggestions which they deem wrong? I.e. you can still search for anything ranging from the angelic to the vile, and they probably don't censor (but of course, there's no way for an outsider to ever know). What I do wonder is whether Google, for example, actually filters out from its search results websites that are blacklisted by the Australian government, when people down under…

If that is the case, why are they not being consistent? Why withhold suggestions only in the case of "Islam"?

Re: Google won't make search recommendations for "Islam is"

#80
post #20
post #12

So much for letting the algorithms rule their results. They could at least be somewhat equal about it and do the same thing about christianity and judaism, but then again, they know that nobody is going to chop someone's head off when they see that the first result for "christianity is" is "christianity is bullshit ". How long is the civilized world going submit to this insanity? When is enough, enough?

Let's hope someone at Google is reading this and gets this fixed PRONTO. It is grounds for boycotting the service IMHO.

Google is probably the hardest company in the world to boycott successfully.
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