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Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

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Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#11
post #8

Yeah also if you compare results from google vs duckduckgo for controversial search terms like "I don't care about gender identity" Google will return only content that tells you why that opinion is wrong e.g. "why you should care about gender identity" Whereas duckduckgo will return stuff that actually matches your search. Google always errs on the side of left wing political platform. Its actually really egregious…

Can you provide more examples of this?

Look up "proof the moon landing was fake". I have an aerospace degree and don't think it was fake, but I still find it strange that Google won't return any of the conspiracy pages I enjoyed reading about a decade ago.

Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#12

Yeah also if you compare results from google vs duckduckgo for controversial search terms like "I don't care about gender identity" Google will return only content that tells you why that opinion is wrong e.g. "why you should care about gender identity" Whereas duckduckgo will return stuff that actually matches your search. Google always errs on the side of left wing political platform. Its actually really egregious…

Damn. That is a controversial statement? I am a rebel again.

Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#13

Yeah also if you compare results from google vs duckduckgo for controversial search terms like "I don't care about gender identity" Google will return only content that tells you why that opinion is wrong e.g. "why you should care about gender identity" Whereas duckduckgo will return stuff that actually matches your search. Google always errs on the side of left wing political platform. Its actually really egregious…

Google is personalized to some extent.

I don't see what you are describing at all.

Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#14

...what? I've known of this for at least a decade. Do people expect Google to be some free-for-all of unmoderated knowledge that can be used to defame and degrade others?

The author of the tweet also wrote a major NYT story about the topic earlier this year:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25972121

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/30/technology/change-my-goog...

The story focuses on a software engineer who discovered that he was the slander target of someone who had been fired by his father 30 years ago. He found her identity and took her to court in 2018. But the libelous Google results didn't change. The NYT story even ends with this:

> Yet even that hasn’t solved the problem. See for yourself: Do a Google search for “Guy Babcock.”

A day after the NYT story, those results disappeared. Here's what they looked like: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25973045

If a software engineer with the resources to find and take an anonymous libeler didn't know that Google could manually intervene and remove results that listed him as a pedophile, I'm assuming the vast majority of people are equally unaware.

Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#17

Yeah also if you compare results from google vs duckduckgo for controversial search terms like "I don't care about gender identity" Google will return only content that tells you why that opinion is wrong e.g. "why you should care about gender identity" Whereas duckduckgo will return stuff that actually matches your search. Google always errs on the side of left wing political platform. Its actually really egregious…

Searched Google and DDG for "I don't care about gender identity"

google top: reddit post about "What are you if you just don't give a fuck about gender and you have no kind of dysphoria?"

DDG top: blog post titled "Don’t care about gender Self-ID? Here’s why you should"

Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#18

Yeah also if you compare results from google vs duckduckgo for controversial search terms like "I don't care about gender identity" Google will return only content that tells you why that opinion is wrong e.g. "why you should care about gender identity" Whereas duckduckgo will return stuff that actually matches your search. Google always errs on the side of left wing political platform. Its actually really egregious…

What are you even talking about?

I just Googled "I don't care about gender identity" and the top results are all agreeing with that statement.

The search is working perfectly. Google isn't inserting any kind of left-wing bias whatsoever. It's finding the same types of pages as DuckDuckGo does as well.

So why are you spreading this misinformation?

Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#19
This is an example of a large central authority censoring information.

How does the notion of a purely distributed, unregulated, uncensorable, blockchain-backed internet handle "revenge porn" or other genuinely harmful content?

An argument I hear from the crypto community is that blockchain is good because it enables freedom of speech that can't be banned by governments or other central authorities.

The crypto community needs to address the other side of that coin too. Are there circumstances when something should be banned, and how does that work on a blockchain?

Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#20
post #11
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide more examples of this?

Look up "proof the moon landing was fake". I have an aerospace degree and don't think it was fake, but I still find it strange that Google won't return any of the conspiracy pages I enjoyed reading about a decade ago.

Probably not strange since they probably have very low PageRank, visits, etc.

On the other hand, the top Google results go to The Guardian, Wikipedia, Time, the BBC, etc., discussing the topic -- hugely popular sites.

Google's meant to find popular relevant pages for your search terms. Remember, that's what PageRank was all about. So seems to be working as expected.

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