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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

#21
To Google's credit, it's literally the first search results for "how do I remove myself from Google". It is a bit ironic that people looking to remove something for being too easy to find via search are being stymied by a simple search.

Still, good to provide some visibility about it. I certainly never knew this was a thing.

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

#22
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…

They are fairly narrow categories though, and don't handle things like mugshot sites, even if it's something you were arrested...but not convicted for. Still useful to know for sure.

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

#23

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…

I'd ask if that error might be better understood as downranking of two things that seem very reasonable to downrank in a search engine (something designed to return accessible and useful information): - bigots motivated by animosity towards minorities - open contempt for the truth

Hard to feel there's a compelling interest in supporting bigotry when knowledge is best advanced by open inquiry and the net result of bigotry is a suppression of voices which will lead to less knowledge.

As to conspiracies and lies? Very little truth value there, unclear why Google would want to uprank that kind of content.

Were there real debates about truth with actors in good faith on both sides, I might be more open to your framing of the problem as left wing vs right wing.

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

#24
post #22
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…

They are fairly narrow categories though, and don't handle things like mugshot sites, even if it's something you were arrested...but not convicted for. Still useful to know for sure.

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]

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

#25

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 vaccines.

I don't think you can call that behaviour favouring left. It feels as though they're creating vaccine hesitancy.

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

#26
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are fairly narrow categories though, and don't handle things like mugshot sites, even if it's something you were arrested...but not convicted for. Still useful to know for sure.

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.

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

#27

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…

So, like, I get what you're saying, but I feel like you didn't actually look past the title of the post. This isn't governments censoring information or whatever, it's a form you can fill out to request removal of coerced personal information like revenge porn or doxxing.

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

#28

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…

When talking about the blockchain and other voluntary systems, I tend to look at these things from a "what if there was no government that could just use physical coercion to implement its laws, how would you get people to voluntarily sign up for this?" perspective for these kinds of problems.

You would get users to sign the social contract with some online entity and that entity would censor the blockchain for their ideological/legal jurisdiction. For example, you could sign the Christian fundamentalist social contract and have all blasphemy removed from your search results. In exchange, you would receive community support, access to their content, etc. If they found out you were browsing blasphemous material they would revoke the particular social contract you signed.

Just spitballing here, but I wonder if the nofap guys could start something like this to block all nsfw content on whatever distributed blockchain thing was out there. Then they could offer some special forum as a benefit. You could use a DAO for governance conflicts, etc.

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

#29

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…

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 shitty the thing he said was whereas on DDG youd have a greater probability of actually getting some context.

Like when pandemic was in full swing trying to get information that was against the mainstream narrative was impossible on google but was doable on ddg.

This might not be like an active decision by google but their results do skew really heavy left. It might just be a function of popularity rankings. But id imagine ddg uses a similar ranming system so not sure what makes the difference.

There are times tho when ive searched for something I know exists like word for word and it still wont come up on google but will on ddg so, go figure.

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

#30
What's also surprising is how bad Google is at processing these requests. It’s almost like a PR stunt. I’ve had to use their EU Privacy Removal form in the past and a single response can take anything from a few days to several weeks to no response at all. Half the time it seems like you’re emailing a bot as I’ve received the same canned reply to simple inquiries. In the end I just gave up.
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