Google Image Index Just Not Updated

We ran a story earlier today about the lack of Abu Ghraib photos in Google's image index. We now have a response from Google stating that the image index simply hasn't been updated recently, as well as a fairly convincing demonstration from a Slashdot reader: Rahga writes "I put together a page that counters the 'Google Censors Abu Ghraib Images' story. It is the tale of a Morgan Webb picture on images.google.com that's been driving a ton of traffic to my webserver 7 months after it was removed." The Abu Ghraib story broke in April 2004 (and officially became a non-story on November 2, 2004), so Google's index is indeed quite far behind.

Comments

Just because Slashdot says it doesn't make it true

[LostCluster]

This just goes to show that /. groupthink isn't always on target, and Google isn't the all-spidering oracle we think it is either.

Google's image search is not to be confused with Google's news search. If you search for Lyndie England against the news search, one of the pictures in question comes up in a thumbnail next to the first set of results. Google had plently of coverage of the Abu Ghraib story on its news pages, and its web search also has plenty of coverage of the topic. If Google was intentionally censoring, you think they woulda tagged all their search engines in the process.

For Google to be 6-months or more behind on reindexing their image storage to me seems about right. The link rot on the image search is starting to get annoying, but we've seen worse from the likes of Alta Vista in the past. Webcrawling seems simple but it's a very bandwidth intense process, and that means it costs money. Image spidering is even more expensive because pictures take up a whole lot more bitspace than HTML docs.

So, move that Slashdot story from earlier today from the Censorship category to the Almighty Buck category. That's the real reason why the pictures weren't there.

Re:Can you say dupe?

[LostCluster]

Seriously why does this need a new story? What was wrong with the update posted to the previous article summary?

Because in journalism there's a tradition of printing retractions for mistakes made on page A1 on a future page A1 in order to give the takeback as much exposure as the mistake. Slashdot leveled a rather serious charge of censorship against Google that quickly was proven not to be true.

Furthermore, there's a new piece of news coming out of this mess: Google's being quite slow on the refresh of the image search database.

Rights?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this "Your Rights On-Line"???

Since when does google have to do anything other than what they wish?

Lame...

What?

[VivianC]

The Abu Ghraib story broke in April 2004 (and officially became a non-story on November 2, 2004)

How did this become a non-story? Are you saying that the press will no longer keep running it since it no longer helps Kerry? Did Bush pardon the soldiers involved? Were the prisoners freed and given settlements? Maybe it's a non-story now for the media, but it is still a story for those involved and for everyone smeared by the broad brush.

Where's The Apology??

[Pave Low]

CmdrTaco knowingly and falsely insinuated that the Bush Administration and Karl Rove had something to do with this. Instead of saying "I'm sorry", michael just had to insert another bit of gratitutous Bush-bashing for no reason, and just noted that google is just slow to update.

Michael and the rest of the editors had to be dragged kicking and screaming into this lame and uncontrite retraction because it was so untrue.

Re:Where's The Apology??

[Anonymous Coward]

"Not that this is the only tech news site, of course ..."

I agree. I used to be an avid /. reader for several years, roughly 1997-2002, as in I checked the 20x a day. I now maybe check in twice a week.

The main problem is that the editors don't really try to improve themselves intellectual or as people over the years. This shows.

You can argue that /. readers are immature themselves, but frankly, snuff out the trolls, and you'll really find really that the editors have not grown with the intellect of their readership. /. used to be a place you could uncover new avenues regarding tech, projects, etc. Fact is, their main readership has outgrown the site. I'm not saying that the editors have to know every little detail about a lot. Just that the average good, non-trolling reader of the /. community simply has become smarter than the best editor /. has. Yes, probably much due to /. But also because the editors haven't raised the bar on themselves too despite reading the same content, and more.

Reading /. for anything tech related becomes like a political junky reading Time magazine after he's read both "In the Public Interest" and "Dissident." /., like Time magazine, becomes nearly childish and trivial in argument and content.

To remedy this, /. has gone the route more akin to reality TV. Instead of better coverage, widening coverage, finding new ground, or a higher editorial quality, they've resorted to snide, off-hand but misplaced political commentary to get a rise out of their readership.

Now, I have no problem with the politically-related stories. But many of the high post (high ad exposure) stories are political, and it's not solely because of an election year, but these snide or unsubstantiated political references.

The references come off as cheap, as well as disingenuous to get a rise out of people. When you combine poor judgment in off-the-cuff political commentory with lessening story draw, it's no longer a good site to visit. It's irritating. The site starts to feel beneath you.

So readers go elsewhere. And golly gee, they collect and find other less political bashing sites that cover much of the same stories as on /., but more regularly updated and with a hell of lot more depth. Sure, it's a collection, but only handful. /. becomes secondary.

I still check in. But when I read this crap, it's just a simple reminder of why I don't come back as often as I once did. The editors committed defamation. They know it. They just don't care or feel bad about it because they feel justified and they know, in reality, no one will go after them financially.

But in terms of what that it reveals to me of them as people, bleh. Without a doubt they were nerds. They've just become adult brats.

Not everyone reads old articles for updates

[dj42]

Had I not happened to login to /. just now, I would have been left with a considerably worse impression of my favorite search engine than now because of the old story. The fact they even responded to slashdot demonstrates something to me. I used Altavista as my primary in the nineties since it came out, and only last year converted to Google. I still use many, but Google is my choice nowadays, and I'd hate to see them censoring. That would IMMEDIATELY cause me to switch search engines. The fact that the article was wrong is just as big as a story as the original, if not MORE significant, since the mistake could have mislead thousands upon thousands of readers.

Re:non-story?

[mitchus]

Slashdot is slowly turning into a left-wing version of Fox.
Yes, excellent comparison. Fox also allows critical discussion of the news in situ. Fox also updates erroneus news with immediate apologies. Last but not least, Fox viewers are also of above-average intellect and critical judgment.

the original story was just a ploy by Taco to bash US policy
Who had the tendency towards conspiracy theories again? :)

Re:Why so long?

[NotQuiteReal]

Because there is a LOT of stuff on the web?

If you don't like how the professional search engines work, you can always run your own spiders, I guess...

Huh what?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The Abu Ghraib story broke in April 2004 (and officially became a non-story on November 2, 2004)

To simpletons in the American electorate, that might be true. But, if anything, Nov 2nd made the story much more relevant to about a billion muslims who view it as proof positive that the current US government may talk a good story, but where it counts, in real life, their actions are a whole lot different.

Re:Huh what?

[Trailer Trash]

You (and many others) may have missed the fact that Lynddie and her fuck buddy are rotting in a military prison awaiting trial, and some of their accomplices have already been sentenced.

Compare this country to anywhere on earth. Go ahead. Some Israeli soldier put 20 bullets through the head of a 13-year-old girl (who had already been shot in the leg and was struggling to get away) last month and he got a reprimand for losing the confidence of his subordinates. That's par for the course.

When was the last time you heard of any other country that disciplined its military people for war crimes? Seriously.

I'm not saying the US Army is perfect, and I think that too many innocent people have died that could have been avoided. But you people act like it was a fucking frat party with Saddam in power until we came and messed it all up.

Making men do fake sex acts is disgusting, but compared to Saddam's meat grinder, electrocution rooms, chemical baths, Uday's iron maiden, and the rest of it, this seems a bit tame. And our soldiers are still facing charges over it. Which is how it should be.

But get a grip, people.

Re:Huh what?

[hyfe]

When was the last time you heard of any other country that disciplined its military people for war crimes? Seriously.

During WWII, under the german occupation of Norway, a girl was raped by a german soldier in my hometown Horten.

Some citizens complain to the Commander of the garrison there. Within days he had tracked down the guilty soldier. The following day the soldier was promptly executed publically in the town square.

Re:Huh what?

[shking]

When was the last time you heard of any other country that disciplined its military people for war crimes? Seriously.

You mean like in 1995, when Canada disbanded an entire regiment and put soldiers on trial?

Your bluster just demonstrates that, like many Americans, you are profoundly ignorant about what goes on in the the rest of the world... or for that matter, right next door. Next you'll be telling us that europeans are lucky not to have experienced terrorism first hand. In fact, they've been living with it for more than 30 years. Ever hear of the IRA or Bader-Meinhof?

Re:Just because Slashdot says it doesn't make it t

[Anonymous Coward]

This just goes to show that /. groupthink isn't always on target,

Actually, just the opposite. An inaccurate story was posted, and it was torn apart by the comments. The hive-mind that is slashdot preformed quite well, IMHO.

liberal bias on slashdot

[Squeezer]

how come all of the political stories lately on slashdot have been slanted towards favoring the left?

oh yeah i know this is slightly offtopic or whatever, so mod me down so I can't be heard, I don't care.

Re:Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

[lscotte]

Agreed... Funny how /.ers think they are smarter than the average idiot, guess what - just cuz we like tech doesn't make us smart.

Re:non-story?

[mitchus]

I see no hint of an apology in this article.

Its existence is the apology.
That's the way it's done in any news. If the New York Times prints something on the first page, and on the next day they print the opposite, that's one hell of an apology, even if they don't say "I'm sorry". The best you might hope for is "erratum".

Re:Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

[VistaBoy]

Someone mod this guy up. Probably the most insightful thing I've read in the past week.

There are two problems with our current state of politics:

1. Constant attempts to one-dimensionalize views so people can be labelled easier.
2. Extreme, uncompromising views on these fake one-dimensional issues. You either want to dump mercury into seawater, or you're a tree hugging hippie. You're either a fundamentalist religious zealot, or a godless heathen. Et cetera.

I think someone needs to start a "Compromise" party so sensible people can vote. For instance, if we

Re:Why so long?

[anethema]

Maybe they are focusing resources on other things.

Re:where does it say this?

[LiquidCoooled]

Search for "litigious bastards".

The top result is SCO. Do you REALLY think they would have that in text anywhere on their site?

Irresponsible? No, it's a Good Thing

[grcumb]

Some will be quick to decry how slashdot is quick to jump to conclusions. They'll draw fairly pointed comparisons between slashdot and 'real' journalism.

As far as they've reasoned it, they're right. But that's only because they haven't reasoned it quite far enough.

This is exactly the process that happens in the major news media. A journalist spots something unusual, thinks there might be a story there. An investigative team looks into the evidence, tries to get feedback from the source(s), and either corroborates or refines the initial hypothesis.

The difference that we're seeing here is that the story is not landing in our lap, fully formed and packaged according to the publisher's wont. In the past, we never saw the messy part of any story, just the finished product.

I happen to like being able to see the 'messy part' . I like it a lot. In fact, it's why I come to slashdot. If I trusted Big Media to properly digest and format my news, I'd have no need to come here at all.

The truth about slashdot is that, amid all the noise, the silliness, the kvetching and moaning, there is a great deal of solid fact-checking going on. Assumptions do get challenged, news is removed from its 'frame' and picked at. Opinions get challenged or supported by a large number of qualified peers[*].

[*] And admittedly, a smaller but significant number of unqualified peers. 8^)

How many media companies have the same resources available to them? Not many. Most don't even hire fact-checkers any more. And believe it or not, slashdot fact-checkers really are better than none at all. 8^)

Retraction

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

A retraction for the attack on Google, but another attack on the Bush Administration? Abu Ghraib was bad, but the issue here is Google's perceived censorship of the images, not the event itself.

Re:No offense, but DUH.

[adpowers]

*cough*CBS*cough*DAN RATHER*cough*

Why not use another search engine?

[tjstork]

Gasp! There's more than one search engine out there besides Google. And you can't police them all. So, maybe, instead of searching all the time, use some of the other search engine brands like lycos or even the pre-google favorite, alta-vista, just to keep google honest.

Re:A non-story?

[fisher182]

i can't seem to remember bush torturing anyone. did you see any photos of him torturing people? i sure didn't. hmmm.