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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

#131

Post by mythrwy »

deertick1 wrote: post #29
crazygringo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I hadn't tried that particular search. Heres on I have tried and just double checked it : "I don't care about transgender rights" The example further down about the moon landing is a much better example though. Its a lot worse right when some political event happens. Like if trump said sonething really controversial and you search for more context around it, on google top results would all be articles about how shitt…

Yandex works even better for stuff like that.

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

#132

Post by dkokelley »

kr99x wrote: post #57
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…

No, no information should ever be banned from any public/commons - the end. You want to ban certain information from a particular place you control? Go nuts. The wider public? No. The power to ban information is too great to be entrusted to any authority at all. Depending on how thorough the "ban" (web text filter at the ISP level? mandatory AR implants at birth filtering banned content? worse?), it's anywhere from a…

Thanks for sharing. Do you think there is ever a scenario where information should be censored from the public at large? (Child porn, or you or your family getting ‘doxxed’, for example)

I appreciate the take that the future harm isn’t worth the benefit today, since we’d enable future arbiters to control what is available.

There’s nuance in determining what is a public sphere vs. a privately controlled platform. The places with the most distribution are currently private, but crypto could change that to where we collectively own the platform, effectively making it publicly owned. Does that change your thoughts on when censorship is appropriate?

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

#134

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

deertick1 wrote: post #7

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…

You're making a huge leap by assuming this is because such a subject isn't politically correct or whatever. There's many more likely explanations:

• You have phrased the search in a way that people expressing that view wouldn't be likely to use, yet is similar to how people holding contrary views would express theirs. I think that's the case here. If you search for “gender does not exist” or so, you may get the results you want.

• Google's results are customised based on what they think you would be interested in.

• Content from one side of a contentious topic may be less popular online and/or not linked to as many authoritative sites, and thus have a lower PageRank.

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

#135

Post by version_five »

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…

I think you meant that although it's easy to trivialize what an electrician does, in practice there's actually a lot of skill and experience in it. (I could be wrong, although it's always funny to see how what was probably an off-hand comment causes people to go down such a rabbit hole).

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

#137

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

jfoster wrote: post #25
deertick1 wrote: post #7

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 always errs on the side of left wing political platform Reminds me that yesterday I tried googling around the topic of how covid affects fertility (eg. "covid fertility") and nearly every result that comes back is about vaccines not affecting fertility. Okay, thanks Google, but how about the actual disease? Results were a fair bit more relevant by adding "disease" to the query, but still got one or two about…

COVID-19 is a special case. I think Google has intervened there to ensure that official sources are favoured due to concerns about the impact of misinformation in a pandemic specifically. This is not a common Google practice so far as I know.

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

#138

Post by version_five »

akiselev wrote: post #111
majormajor wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The ultimate reason people pay electricians is liability. Unlicensed work is an easy way to invalidate your homeowner's insurance, lose everything, and get sued for any damage to your neighbors' property (by their insurance company, no less).

My view is that if the only reason you are doing something is because of the insurance implications, then you've surely made the wrong decision.

Nobody's interests are less aligned with your own than an insurance company's. There are lots of legitimate reasons to hire an electrician, but making decisions solely based on what someone who wants you to perpetually give them money whole finding reasons to never give it back is never good practice.

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

#139

Post by tialaramex »

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…

I paid a gas plumber full rates to in effect remind me where the tap is for the fill line for my boiler.

Over time a boiler that isn't meaningfully "leaking" will still gradually lose internal pressure. Once the pressure inside the boiler is less than outside the boiler even when the water inside is hotter, that's not good. Eventually the system won't work and shuts down for safety, but before that it'll make a lot of noise while running. There's a pressure meter so you can see what's wrong if you don't understand boilers. My meter said about 0.4 bar. So that's too low, now I just needed to re-pressurize it.

The regulations here say that, to avoid mistakes resulting in stagnant water flowing back from a boiler tank into the fresh water system, the two mustn't be permanently connected. So there'd logically be an input, you connect a temporary hose, re-pressurize.

In practice, nobody does that, the installers will run a permanent line, in defiance of the rules, and use a tap, now you can re-pressurize by turning the tap.

Except, many years after moving in and setting up I'd forgotten where that tap could be. It wasn't where I expected to find it, and I could not think there else they'd have put it. So after sleeping on it and still not remembering I called a plumber. Not an emergency plumber, but still plumbers aren't cheap.

The plumber also couldn't immediately find it, it wasn't where he first looked either. But I can't actually tell how much time he spent "pretending" to look versus how long it really took him to discover it. Because it's embarrassing right? Even if the customer is up-front about the nature of the task, "It's under the kitchen sink - behind this panel, here" (yes, that's where it actually is) doesn't feel like a real job worth £80 or whatever it was.

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

#140

Post by mackman »

tialaramex wrote: post #139
majormajor wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I paid a gas plumber full rates to in effect remind me where the tap is for the fill line for my boiler. Over time a boiler that isn't meaningfully "leaking" will still gradually lose internal pressure. Once the pressure inside the boiler is less than outside the boiler even when the water inside is hotter, that's not good. Eventually the system won't work and shuts down for safety, but before that it'll make a lot o…

Huh, never heard of a manual one of those. I have some little widget that automatically refills the boiler when there's a pressure difference in the wrong direction I guess.
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