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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

#61

Post by danso »

deertick1 wrote: post #56
danso wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you start using Google in the first place? Their early papers on PageRank/BackRub describes how their algorithm filters for quality, and their most prominent example is explicitly political: http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html > As an example which illustrates the use of PageRank, anchor text, and proximity, Figure 4 shows Google's results for a search on "bill clinton". These results demonstrate…

Huh interesting. But lets be real asjing "why did you start using google anyway" is a preposterous question. You used to be able to find all kinds of weird ass fucked up shit on google but now its all internet based news media. I miss the raw shit.

To be fair, I asked the question because you made a sweeping assertion about others being "anti-truth/anti-science", which implies you'd be more cognizant and knowledgeable about the algorithms and mindset behind Google back "in the good ol days".

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

#62

Post by avianlyric »

dkokelley wrote: post #41
kypro wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO both of these options are terrible. I seem to lean quite far on the freedom side of most arguments, but I do acknowledge there are times when action may need to be taken in the interest of the public. My objection is that I neither want it to be impossible to take action or for a foreign company to unilaterally decide what action to take. What we need in situations like this is a legal process. If one doesn't exi…

I appreciate this response! I agree that a legal process seems to be the best solution (so far) to collectively deciding what is and isn't ok. The legal system has its own faults of course. It's administered by fallible governments and can have individual bad actors. But could a legal system expect to exert control over a decentralized system like a blockchain? Put another way, if there was a "crypto twitter" clone,…

It may not be able to remove it, but it certainly can make viewing, storing or disseminating it illegal and punish those that do.

Ultimately a legal system is how a society controls a governments monopoly on violence. A legal system can remove almost anything if it really want too, by virtue of the fact that it can send big men with guns to destroy whatever physical manifestations of the thing exists.

Of course there are practical limits to this power. But that’s never stopped a government before.

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

#64

Post by dkokelley »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #51
dkokelley wrote: post #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 commun…

I'd love to walk into a business without shoes or a shirt and demand service. For some crazy reason these businesses are allowed to restrict my liberty on their property.

I guess I'm thinking more about a "decentralized Google" where it's impossible to remove things like revenge porn. Is there anything we can/should do about that potential?

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

#65

Post by Rasta1s »

tyingq wrote: post #26
joshuamorton wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mugshot sites might be covered by https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9172218 , but it depends. [disclosure: I'm a googler, but no clue about this service]

I'm pretty sure the mugshot sites have adjusted their practices where it's much harder to prove what's really going on. Straight up blackmail payment pages are gone.

Aren't mugshots public records?

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

#66

Post by kypro »

slg wrote: post #43
kypro wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO both of these options are terrible. I seem to lean quite far on the freedom side of most arguments, but I do acknowledge there are times when action may need to be taken in the interest of the public. My objection is that I neither want it to be impossible to take action or for a foreign company to unilaterally decide what action to take. What we need in situations like this is a legal process. If one doesn't exi…

>I seem to lean quite far on the freedom side of most arguments, but I do acknowledge there are times when action may need to be taken in the interest of the public. My objection is that I neither want it to be impossible to take action or for a foreign company to unilaterally decide what action to take. >What we need in situations like this is a legal process. If one doesn't exist, it's not for companies to start de…

Personally I'm not convinced the rewards outweigh the risks in regards to encryption, at least not at this moment in time. But again, I'd much rather issues like these were debated democratically than some tech company deciding one day that they need to view my private messages to "protect the children".

But to your point, if the sharing of child porn or other illegal content ever got so bad that something urgently needed to be done I would personally be open to limiting the use E2EE (if there truly was no better option) and I'd assume most people here would agree, although I would argue in many cases it's E2EE that prevents you from becoming a victim of things like revenge porn in the first place.

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

#67

Post by sombremesa »

majormajor wrote: post #53
danso wrote: post #2

Couldn't fit the whole tweet, so just to be clear, she's talking about manual, non-legal requests: > One of the surprising things about working on the slander series is how few people in the field, even experts, know that Google voluntarily removes some search results. (No court order needed!) You have to visit this generic url: https://support.google.com/websearch/troubleshooter/3111061?... Down the thread, she adds…

> Because so few people know about it, "reputation managers" are charging people like $500 a pop to "remove damaging information from Google results." And ALL THEY DO is fill out that form for free. Someone tried to hawk this service to my husband after he came under attack. While that sounds like a high price, and you usually don't want to just hire the first person you see advertise a service, the concept of specia…

Electricity can kill you. Doesn't seem like a good comparison.

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

#68

Post by Blikkentrekker »

On a slightly unrelated but nevertheless interesting issue: a while back I wanted to find an “incel” board to see how discourse thereon actually was, and Google returned no direct results to any of them but DuckDuckGo immediately returned the results one might expect when searching “incel forum”.

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

#69

Post by jrockway »

Rasta1s wrote: post #65
tyingq wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the mugshot sites have adjusted their practices where it's much harder to prove what's really going on. Straight up blackmail payment pages are gone.

Aren't mugshots public records?

It's the great "public" vs. "publicized" debate.

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

#70

Post by theli0nheart »

majormajor wrote: post #53
danso wrote: post #2

Couldn't fit the whole tweet, so just to be clear, she's talking about manual, non-legal requests: > One of the surprising things about working on the slander series is how few people in the field, even experts, know that Google voluntarily removes some search results. (No court order needed!) You have to visit this generic url: https://support.google.com/websearch/troubleshooter/3111061?... Down the thread, she adds…

> Because so few people know about it, "reputation managers" are charging people like $500 a pop to "remove damaging information from Google results." And ALL THEY DO is fill out that form for free. Someone tried to hawk this service to my husband after he came under attack. While that sounds like a high price, and you usually don't want to just hire the first person you see advertise a service, the concept of specia…

> People often pay electricians even for tasks that are just "flip a switch and turn some screws," after all.

Not really.

People pay electricians for their experience and knowledge that give them the tools to solve complex problems, simply, without messing up your wiring, causing a fire, or blowing something up.

Removing a link on Google, on the other hand, involves clicking on a link and filling out a form. You don't need state licensing or problem solving abilities to fill out that form. Any "reputation managers" out there that are doing this are essentially defrauding people, and it's shameful.

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