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Google blocked every one of the WSWS’s 45 top search terms

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Re: Google blocked every one of the WSWS’s 45 top search terms

#101

Post by squarefoot »

rand_r wrote: post #96
squarefoot wrote: post #83

I have no way to tell if this was deliberate or not, but personally I lost any respect and trust in Google the day they removed the discussion search filter. Before that day I could find common people talking about a product or a political issue, now unless I'm prepared to jump dozens of pages I'm inundated by sites selling that product or affiliated with that political orientation.

> they removed the discussion search filter. Could you provide more detail on this search filter? I haven't heard about its removal before and it sounds interesting.

A search for "google discussion search" brings lots of results.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/websearch/Psb6O...

https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/2b54ux/google_compl...

http://www.realitymod.com/forum/f11-off-topic-discussion/130...

...etc.

Re: Google blocked every one of the WSWS’s 45 top search terms

#102

Post by mc32 »

ue_ wrote: post #76
aaron-lebo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not low quantity but it seems very filtered. Recently finished reading: https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Revolution-New-History-ebook/... The Russian revolution was co-opted by Lenin and the Bolsheviks who were funded by the German foreign office and more than anything else were unscrupulous about who they murdered. 25 million people were dead by the end of the revolution (early 20s). There's not so much as a hint…

Interesting, is there anywhere I can read about this aside from the book you've linked? Although I am a Communist, I am critical of the Bolsheviks and I have an open mind.

I think there's a documentary on Neflix UK. The cover some of it. I would suggest looking at Ukrainian sources --but generally speaking, my understanding is you can find much of the information in Russian archives as the Soviets kept good records thinking those would never see the light of day.

Re: Google blocked every one of the WSWS’s 45 top search terms

#103

Post by rodgerd »

mhermher wrote: post #98
CurtMonash wrote: post #75

I'm an anti-censorship extremist, but this doesn't feel to me like censorship. After all, the site is being discussed here on HN, and I'm sure it could also be found through many other search engines, portals, or whatever. Even if we get to the point that certain pages are only likely to be found via 10-20 year old technologies, so what? Those technologies were invented for text articles and still work well for them,…

Then you're probably not an anti-censorship extremist. If (big if) what the post is alleging is true, then it is pretty egregious.

So not getting #1 is search results is censorship?

The word is becoming meaningless dribble in the hands of axe-grinding cretins who believe that everyone must be forced to read their material.

Re: Google blocked every one of the WSWS’s 45 top search terms

#104

Post by [deleted] »

thesmallestcat wrote: post #60
markbnj wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not be but if Google's goal is to promote authoritative sources there's no reason to consider WSWS to be authoritative for those search terms, imo. I'm not saying I agree with their goal, just that this seems consistent with it, and I imagine that's what the reply was getting at.

What does "authoritative" mean anyway? I don't want my search results to be authoritative, I want them to be relevant, varied, and interesting. Google is not an encyclopedia. Google fails recently at providing varied results, on any topic you get a Wikipedia article, a load of the same blogspam from sites like Guardian, Atlantic, or Daily Mail, and then the same 1-2 paragraph article repeated 15 times on content farm…

[deleted]

Re: Google blocked every one of the WSWS’s 45 top search terms

#105

Post by captainlego »

squarefoot wrote: post #101
rand_r wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they removed the discussion search filter. Could you provide more detail on this search filter? I haven't heard about its removal before and it sounds interesting.

A search for "google discussion search" brings lots of results. https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/websearch/Psb6O... https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/2b54ux/google_compl... http://www.realitymod.com/forum/f11-off-topic-discussion/130... ...etc.

For now...

Re: Google blocked every one of the WSWS’s 45 top search terms

#107

Post by Steko »

ReadEvalPost wrote: post #8
macspoofing wrote: post #2

>The WSWS has been blacklisted in searches dealing with history, and in particular historical topics related to the revolutionary struggles of the 20th century. These include the terms “Russian revolution,” “Bolshevik revolution” and “October revolution,” all of which returned results in the top 50 in April That's probably ... correct.

Why is that correct? Looking at their website they're currently running a lecture series/look back at the Russian revolution: http://www.wsws.org/en/special/1917/chronology.html None of it seems to be conspiracy theory or low-quality material.

Fox News, Russia Today, et al also feature no small amount of real news that provides a strong foundation to build their whole propaganda operation on. The SEP/WSWS are frequently described as a cult-like organization within the left, I have no problem with google penalizing them as a reliable source.

Re: Google blocked every one of the WSWS’s 45 top search terms

#108

Post by EvanDotPro »

squarefoot wrote: post #83

I have no way to tell if this was deliberate or not, but personally I lost any respect and trust in Google the day they removed the discussion search filter. Before that day I could find common people talking about a product or a political issue, now unless I'm prepared to jump dozens of pages I'm inundated by sites selling that product or affiliated with that political orientation.

I had actually forgotten all about the discussion filter and hadn't noticed it was even removed until reading this comment. I never utilized it much back when it was available but in retrospect can definitely think of cases where this would've come in handy if I had thought to use it.

I immediately thought there must be some clever combination of query modifiers that could roughly reproduce the discussion filter behavior... Of course I'm not the first one with this idea— there seems to be browser extensions[1][2] that accomplish this by appending your search query with:

  intext:forum "post"|inurl:forum|"posts:"|inurl:viewtopic
It seems to work reasonably well after a couple tests and could probably be improved to catch more discussion sites with some additional piped modifiers if necessary. Anyway, just thought I'd share my findings.

[1]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/discussions-button...

[2]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-forum-...

Re: Google blocked every one of the WSWS’s 45 top search terms

#109

Post by [deleted] »

LamaOfRuin wrote: post #47
ReadEvalPost wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that correct? Looking at their website they're currently running a lecture series/look back at the Russian revolution: http://www.wsws.org/en/special/1917/chronology.html None of it seems to be conspiracy theory or low-quality material.

"...what Google, working with the highest levels of the state intelligence apparatus, does not want them to find." I'd classify that as conspiracy theory.

[deleted]

Re: Google blocked every one of the WSWS’s 45 top search terms

#110

Post by codedokode »

diogenescynic wrote: post #9

Meh, I have a hard time caring about this because I want Google to block propaganda and misinformation. From my experience, socialist websites and forums tend to ignore, rewrite, or white wash the history of communism in Russia/USSR, Venezuela, and even North Korea. So much so that the No True Scotsman fallacy should just be the No True Socialist fallacy. Go check out /r/socialism if you want your head to spin. Accor…

Would not it be better to explain why something is a propaganda and what is its purpose rather than block it?
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