Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

torrentfreak.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 88 posts

Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#71

Post by bad_user »

Confusion wrote: post #64
bad_user wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I search for "torrent" on Google, the third result is The Pirate Bay, and when I search for "torren" The Pirate Bay is the first result, with a suggestion to correct the word to "torrent". Of course, as you may know, results are relative to the user profile Google builds about you. Throughout history, all episodes of censorship have been met with the response that the material isn't REALLY censored Citation need…

You really want a citation for something that is obviously true? Of course in any censorship debate, there is someone that says "you can always get it through the underground, the black market, the fact that the ban isn't actively upheld, insert other similar reason". These folks are always around. Asking a citation to support that assertion is silly. Otherwise I ask you to cite support for your assertion that "a mat…

If it's so obviously true, then you should have no problem providing a citation, right? I wouldn't mind if you violated Godwin's law either :)

The reason why I'm asking for a citation is that I live in an ex-Communist country. I know how censorship looks like and it ain't nothing like what you describe.

    Otherwise I ask you to cite support for your assertion 
    that "a material is either forbidden or not forbidden"
Providing a citation for a personal opinion which I marked as such? Fine, I'll give you a famous example of real censorship: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_19...

Related to that event, over a period of 15 years more than 130 journalists and Internet users have been jailed, including Internet webmaster Huang Qi that has been in jail since 3 June 2000 for having allowed articles about the Tiananmen Square massacre to be posted on his website, which was hosted in the United States after being initially banned in China.

    I'd like to point out we have courts deciding 
    whether laws apply and whether something is forbidden 
    or isn't covered by a specific law.
I also like to point out that your First Amendment does not refer to Google, being applicable only to the actions of your government. It's not within your right to distribute whatever information you want through a private media outlet. It is in your right however to distribute that information by yourself, as only the law can stop you.

So yes, thanks for pointing out the obvious - content is either forbidden or not forbidden.

Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#72

Post by richardw »

yohui wrote: post #70
richardw wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might feel differently if your kid had been raped, say. When you only have one principle to deal with, life is simple, but I think there are grey areas in all these issues. Similarly, the argument to legalise drugs. Personally, I agree with the argument, but a similar demand-supply problem exists in human trafficking (e.g. child sex slavery), but there I think the laws should continue to keep the latter illegal e…

All else equal, the difference is that taking drugs (may) harm the user, and only the user, while taking a slave obviously involves another person.

Good point. So there would be a set of things that infringe on others' rights, are therefore illegal and therefore support high profits, separate from those that don't infringe and could therefore be legalised.

Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#74

Post by nkassis »

bad_user wrote: post #71
Confusion wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really want a citation for something that is obviously true? Of course in any censorship debate, there is someone that says "you can always get it through the underground, the black market, the fact that the ban isn't actively upheld, insert other similar reason". These folks are always around. Asking a citation to support that assertion is silly. Otherwise I ask you to cite support for your assertion that "a mat…

If it's so obviously true, then you should have no problem providing a citation, right? I wouldn't mind if you violated Godwin's law either :) The reason why I'm asking for a citation is that I live in an ex-Communist country. I know how censorship looks like and it ain't nothing like what you describe. Otherwise I ask you to cite support for your assertion that "a material is either forbidden or not forbidden" Provi…

"Censorship is the suppression of speech or other public communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship

I think the key word here is Suppression which doesn't have to be as extreme as in your example. Censorship is not a binary thing, it's on a scale. Simply using tactics to discourage something can be considered suppression in my view.

Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#75

Post by nkassis »

richardw wrote: post #54
jellicle wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of all those users typing "torren" in Google's search bar, what percentage are trying to reach "torrent" and what percentage are trying to reach the Torrens land title system? Because right now Google is only showing me Torrens, and I suspect 99.99%+ of all users typing "torren" want torrents. Just so you know, the lame arguments you are making are not new or novel. Throughout history, all episodes of censorship…

So if someone types "child por" in, should Google autocomplete if a common request is "child porn"? Also, don't call the guy's argument lame, just answer it. Be civil.

What if the first returned thing is the child pornography page on wikipedia and other news and resources on the subject? Doesn't have to return actual pics and videos. Yes it's still censorship of something but in this case instant search just doesn't auto complete to anything yet if you search for the term it will return the result list un filtered.

Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#76

Post by DanBC »

Confusion wrote: post #64
bad_user wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I search for "torrent" on Google, the third result is The Pirate Bay, and when I search for "torren" The Pirate Bay is the first result, with a suggestion to correct the word to "torrent". Of course, as you may know, results are relative to the user profile Google builds about you. Throughout history, all episodes of censorship have been met with the response that the material isn't REALLY censored Citation need…

You really want a citation for something that is obviously true? Of course in any censorship debate, there is someone that says "you can always get it through the underground, the black market, the fact that the ban isn't actively upheld, insert other similar reason". These folks are always around. Asking a citation to support that assertion is silly. Otherwise I ask you to cite support for your assertion that "a mat…

> Of course in any censorship debate, there is someone that says "you can always get it through the underground, the black market, the fact that the ban isn't actively upheld, insert other similar reason".

What? In this discussion people said that Google is censoring information about torrents; but no-one has said "use a different search engine" because Google will return results about torrents, they just don't return the results using Google Instant.

"torrents" is just eight characters; even for a hunt'n'peck typist that's a few seconds before they hit [search].

Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#77

Post by bad_user »

nkassis wrote: post #74
bad_user wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's so obviously true, then you should have no problem providing a citation, right? I wouldn't mind if you violated Godwin's law either :) The reason why I'm asking for a citation is that I live in an ex-Communist country. I know how censorship looks like and it ain't nothing like what you describe. Otherwise I ask you to cite support for your assertion that "a material is either forbidden or not forbidden" Provi…

"Censorship is the suppression of speech or other public communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship I think the key word here is Suppression which doesn't have to be as extreme as in your example. Censorship is not a binary thing,…

When a government institution or another controlling body yielding great influence coerces a media outlet into censoring something, even though that's not required by law, then I also consider that censorship. As such, I clearly consider the case of Wikileaks to be an example of a modern censorship attempt.

However, I also believe that the liberty of the press has to go both ways. A company should be free to deny the publishing of something, after all you can just start your own newspaper, or your own web engine that indexes content in this case, or whatever. It's not like your life is threatened, you just have to move your ass off your couch.

Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#78

Post by pyre »

bad_user wrote: post #77
nkassis wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Censorship is the suppression of speech or other public communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship I think the key word here is Suppression which doesn't have to be as extreme as in your example. Censorship is not a binary thing,…

When a government institution or another controlling body yielding great influence coerces a media outlet into censoring something, even though that's not required by law, then I also consider that censorship. As such, I clearly consider the case of Wikileaks to be an example of a modern censorship attempt. However, I also believe that the liberty of the press has to go both ways. A company should be free to deny the…

I think the issue in this thread is that you seem to only view something as censorship if the law/influence/whatever comes from the government.

Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#79

Post by [deleted] »

ordinary wrote: post #65
bandushrew wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hmm? 'Rape' has auto suggestions. In general I dont think that consumption of child pornography is much of a crime, the harm has been done by then, and some poor sad git masturbating over a 3 year old isn't going to make it any worse. Personally I would rather they put significant resources into catching those people who create it, than into changing search engines and blocking dns addresses so that everyone can pret…

Demand encourages supply.

[deleted]

Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#80

Post by quadhome »

JonnieCache wrote: post #23

I said this before last time around on this non-issue: Google are not preventing people reaching tpb results. They are declining to actively push these results unbidden upon people. The massive, fundamental difference between these two things should be obvious. Do we really think it's unreasonable for google to decline to actively point it's users towards largely illegal material which they had not explicitly request…

Where is there a public domain index?
Post reply on HN