Google is manipulating search results in favor of Hillary Clinton • Hacker News Board

Re: Google is manipulating search results in favor of Hillary Clinton

#11

Post by burkaman » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 2:06 PM UTC

airza wrote: post #7

Is there someone that google WILL autocomplete "criminal" for? I tried a lot of people, including those who have been convicted of crimes, and it seems to refuse to do so. (E.G Mike Tyson, John Gotti, as well as politicians like Nixon, George W Bush, and even hitler.)

Yeah, this is a garbage article, "criminal" and "indictment" don't autocomplete for anyone. Probably so Google doesn't get sued for accusing an innocent person of being a criminal with autocomplete.

Re: Google is manipulating search results in favor of Hillary Clinton

#12

Post by Torgo » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 2:07 PM UTC

dandelion_lover wrote: post #10

ccvannorman wrote: post #2

Just tested this and the article is on point, at least about "Hillary Clinton cri" search autocompletes. I took some screenshots for proof: http://imgur.com/R2uqYlL If we can't trust Google, who can we trust? Bing? I don't want to live in that world.

It's called "filter bubble", see http://dontbubble.us

They filter lots of stuff in their autocomplete, people have observed for years that "embarrassing" questions work for a while, then disappear. You used to be able to measure how many people "wondered" if a particular celebrity was gay, e.g. "$CELEBRITY g"...[autocompletes to gay, because a lot of people typed it] because of autocompletion, that's now vanished. It's not got to do with the bubble.

Re: Google is manipulating search results in favor of Hillary Clinton

#13

Post by kauffj » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 2:09 PM UTC

airza wrote: post #7

Is there someone that google WILL autocomplete "criminal" for? I tried a lot of people, including those who have been convicted of crimes, and it seems to refuse to do so. (E.G Mike Tyson, John Gotti, as well as politicians like Nixon, George W Bush, and even hitler.)

Interesting. It did seem a bit heavy handed, which made me wonder if something else was going on (and I figured by posting here I'd find out :).

For what it's worth, I _can_ get indictment to autocomplete for others (e.g. try "vick indi").

Also, I'm guessing this whole story would have gone nowhere if Google had just said "we filter labels like criminal" rather than claiming they only filter "offensive or inappropriate content".

Re: Google is manipulating search results in favor of Hillary Clinton

#14

Post by flurben » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 2:10 PM UTC

airza wrote: post #7

Is there someone that google WILL autocomplete "criminal" for? I tried a lot of people, including those who have been convicted of crimes, and it seems to refuse to do so. (E.G Mike Tyson, John Gotti, as well as politicians like Nixon, George W Bush, and even hitler.)

Pee Wee Gaskins

Re: Google is manipulating search results in favor of Hillary Clinton

#15

Post by jasonkostempski » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 2:13 PM UTC

airza wrote: post #7

Is there someone that google WILL autocomplete "criminal" for? I tried a lot of people, including those who have been convicted of crimes, and it seems to refuse to do so. (E.G Mike Tyson, John Gotti, as well as politicians like Nixon, George W Bush, and even hitler.)

That should have been Google's only comment on the matter. I wonder if they didn't even think to try such a simple test.

Re: Google is manipulating search results in favor of Hillary Clinton

#16

Post by gavin_belson » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 2:14 PM UTC

airza wrote: post #7

Is there someone that google WILL autocomplete "criminal" for? I tried a lot of people, including those who have been convicted of crimes, and it seems to refuse to do so. (E.G Mike Tyson, John Gotti, as well as politicians like Nixon, George W Bush, and even hitler.)

Life imitates art. Hooli Scrub.

Re: Google is manipulating search results in favor of Hillary Clinton

#17

Post by airza » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 2:14 PM UTC

kauffj wrote: post #13

airza wrote: post #7

Is there someone that google WILL autocomplete "criminal" for? I tried a lot of people, including those who have been convicted of crimes, and it seems to refuse to do so. (E.G Mike Tyson, John Gotti, as well as politicians like Nixon, George W Bush, and even hitler.)

Interesting. It did seem a bit heavy handed, which made me wonder if something else was going on (and I figured by posting here I'd find out :). For what it's worth, I _can_ get indictment to autocomplete for others (e.g. try "vick indi"). Also, I'm guessing this whole story would have gone nowhere if Google had just said "we filter labels like criminal" rather than claiming they only filter "offensive or inappropria…

Hmm, vick indi works but michael vick indi doesn't. Maybe it's doing it based on a name detecting NLP component.

Re: Google is manipulating search results in favor of Hillary Clinton

#18

Post by tdb7893 » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 2:18 PM UTC

You see similar behaviour with trump and bernie. Also the stanford rapist dude and martin shkreli. This isn't a story until they have evidence that it is significantly different than many other famous people on google. People keep comparing google results to bing but they are different engines

Re: Google is manipulating search results in favor of Hillary Clinton

#19

Post by burkaman » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 2:26 PM UTC

kauffj wrote: post #13

airza wrote: post #7

Is there someone that google WILL autocomplete "criminal" for? I tried a lot of people, including those who have been convicted of crimes, and it seems to refuse to do so. (E.G Mike Tyson, John Gotti, as well as politicians like Nixon, George W Bush, and even hitler.)

Interesting. It did seem a bit heavy handed, which made me wonder if something else was going on (and I figured by posting here I'd find out :). For what it's worth, I _can_ get indictment to autocomplete for others (e.g. try "vick indi"). Also, I'm guessing this whole story would have gone nowhere if Google had just said "we filter labels like criminal" rather than claiming they only filter "offensive or inappropria…

"Clinton cri" and "Clinton indic" work too. Looks like this is a really basic filter that doesn't allow criminalish words to be added to full names.

Re: Google is manipulating search results in favor of Hillary Clinton

#20

Post by sickbeard » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 2:27 PM UTC

So we are upset over autocomplete now? Why not type in the word criminal yourself you lazy bums. If it wouldn't show any results for that then maybe the rest of us would care but google not autocompleting your bias is actually quite refreshing.