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Google turned me into a serial killer

hristo-georgiev.com

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Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#101

Post by imperistan »

tytso wrote: post #88

I don't see what the big deal here. The serial killer really did exist, and has the same name as the author of the blog post. Searching for "Hristo Georgiev" using Bing and DuckDuckGo turns up the article about the serial killer as the first link. Why is this not "DuckDuckGo turned me into a serial killer", other than people hating on Google? Suppose his name was "Thomas Edison"; would the title of the article then r…

the big deal is that the author's photo is shown next to the information about the serial killer. If that wasn't the case, it wouldn't have been a problem of course.

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#102

Post by objectivetruth »

tytso wrote: post #88

I don't see what the big deal here. The serial killer really did exist, and has the same name as the author of the blog post. Searching for "Hristo Georgiev" using Bing and DuckDuckGo turns up the article about the serial killer as the first link. Why is this not "DuckDuckGo turned me into a serial killer", other than people hating on Google? Suppose his name was "Thomas Edison"; would the title of the article then r…

The photo that Google shows in the results is the problem, NOT a link to the Wiki article.

Google put a picture of Hristo-the-NON-serial-killer alongside a small article about Hristo-the-serial-killer. You really don't think that's a "big deal" to the Non-Serial-Killer?

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#103

Post by karamanolev »

ape4 wrote: post #73

Bing has also turned him into a serial killer. Its the unique name and a Wikipedia entry. https://www.bing.com/search?q=hristo+georgiev

Bing has definitely not turned him into a serial killer. The main issue is associating his photo (wrongly) with the serial killer Wikipedia article. Bing is not doing that and instead showing a box with the Wikipedia article (without a photo, as it is in Wikipedia) and, separately, other results.

The name is not unique - I personally know two people named that and in the whole country, there are probably hundreds. He has also stated that.

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#104

Post by TeeMassive »

elliotbnvl wrote: post #4

> Maybe letting a single internet company "organize the world's information" probably isn't such a great idea. Some food for thought. When put like this, the thought that one company controls virtually all information flow on the Internet is more than mildly terrifying.

Luckily for me, my name is the same as a formerly popular folk musician who lived near my hometown and made songs whose titles had my hometown's name in it.

And let's not forget credentials. How many accounts depend on your GMail address? I don't know for you, but for me it encompasses most of the aspect of my life from banking to video games.

Which reminds me of this story: https://archive.is/EVrDv

> In the space of one hour, my entire digital life was destroyed. First my Google account was taken over, then deleted. Next my Twitter account was compromised, and used as a platform to broadcast racist and homophobic messages. And worst of all, my AppleID account was broken into, and my hackers used it to remotely erase all of the data on my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook.

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#105

Post by varjag »

tytso wrote: post #88

I don't see what the big deal here. The serial killer really did exist, and has the same name as the author of the blog post. Searching for "Hristo Georgiev" using Bing and DuckDuckGo turns up the article about the serial killer as the first link. Why is this not "DuckDuckGo turned me into a serial killer", other than people hating on Google? Suppose his name was "Thomas Edison"; would the title of the article then r…

The photo in the Google summary card is that of the author, not of the serial killer.

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#107

Post by runawaybottle »

hpkuarg wrote: post #2

I'm glad this guy has a sense of humor about this, but I really hope that Google does right by him and that he doesn't get stuck in their Byzantine customer service process.

Lol what? They have customer service process? News to me, how to reach them?

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#108

Post by yongjik »

I think it was Rachel - many years ago, for a few days, when you search "Rachel" at Google it would show a snippet from Wikipedia:

> Rachel was a Biblical figure, the favorite of Jacob's two wives, and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, two of the twelve progenitors of the tribes of Israel ...

... along with a happy smiling face of some office worker somewhere, named Rachel, of course. It was glorious.

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#109

Post by inimino »

tzs wrote: post #91

> It turns out that Google's knowledge graph algorithm somehow falsely associated my photo with the Wikipedia article about the serial killer. Which is also surprisingly strange because my name isn't special or unique at all; there are literally hundreds of other people with my name, and despite of all that, my personal photo ended up being associated with a serial killer. I can't really explain to myself how this ha…

Yes, but: the text snippet is clearly labeled "Wikipedia" and is in the same box with the photo. Combined with the Wikipedia article being the first result, this would certainly give the average person casually searching the impression that the data in the box comes from Wikipedia, which tends to be a reasonably accurate, conservative source on living persons.

The idea of mashing up the first image search result with the wikipedia snippet with no indication they are from totally unrelated sources seems pretty careless and irresponsible.

Re: Google turned me into a serial killer

#110

Post by nomoreusernames »

blows my mind that people didnt see this coming. and these guys want self driving cars. and all i ever wanted was a hoverboard that can go over water AND land. maybe fly an x wing. already it in VR. so im pretty ok with that. pretty disappointed that the future isnt more like the jetsons. it should go flintstones -> looneytunes -> jetsons
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