Argentine Judges Disappear Celebrities From Internet

An anonymous reader writes "Since 2006, Internet users in Argentina have been blocked from searching for information about some of the country's most notable individuals. Over 100 people have successfully secured temporary restraining orders that direct Google and Yahoo! Argentina to scrub the results of search queries. The list of censorship-seeking celebrities includes judges, public officials, models and actors, as well as the world-cup soccer star and national team head coach Diego Maradona. Try it yourself — compare the results for a Yahoo! Argentina search for Diego Maradona (0 results) to a search at Yahoo! Mexico and Google Argentina (both with millions of results)."

Comments

third-person singular simple present?

[Anonymous Coward]

Argentine Judges Disappear Celebrities From Internet

Tomorrow:

Slashdot Viewership Disappears Editors From Headlines

Re:third-person singular simple present?

[Waffle Iron]

The usage here is appropriate, given that this particular usage was originally coined to refer to government abuses in Argentina and nearby states in the 1970s. As Wikipedia explains:

In the case of forced disappearance the word disappear, which is properly an intransitive verb, becomes transitive. Victims, who are those who have disappeared, or the disappeared, are said to have been disappeared, rather than the more usual have disappeared. The perpetrators have disappeared them, rather than made them disappear.

Re:third-person singular simple present?

[Waffle Iron]

The usage in this headline is an example of irony. It doesn't have to be an exact match for the original situation.

Re:third-person singular simple present?

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

In Catch-22, the Army disappeared Dunbar in the 1961 first edition, so I think it predates the Argentine nastiness.

ummm.

[rev_g33k_101]

when did the translators for zero wing start editing for slashdot?

Re:Don't use Google Argentina?

[eln]

It's not that easy. Google has thousands of operatives whose only job is to make sure people only use the Google authorized for their location. The consequences of straying from your designated Google are swift and severe.

I was talking to a friend on the phone when we started talking about why Google would have all of these different pages for different countries, and we couldn't think of why. So, my friend decides to try a search result on Google US and then on Google Australia just to see if anything was different. He had barely hit enter on the Google Australia search when suddenly I heard glass breaking and what sounded like helicopters over the phone. My friend screamed, and the line went dead. No one has heard from him since.

I tried to do some investigating of my own, and hit Google Mexico from an Internet cafe. Luckily, when the Google operatives burst through the front windows and started shooting the place up, I was able to escape through the back door. They were able to follow me with Google Earth, but I managed to give them the slip when I accidentally fell through an open manhole.

I've been living in the sewers under the city ever since that day. I haven't dared try to contact anyone, for fear Google would find me. This is the first time I've even dared to try to connect to the 'net, and I can't stay long.

Wait, I hear footsteps...

Oh shit, they're here! WARN THE OTHE^&^4wg4$^

NO CARRIER

A small suggestion (a la Mr. Swift)

[Patchw0rk F0g]

Perhaps they've solved our problem of over-populated web-hits on our idiotic, media-seeking celebrities up here.

If I recall correctly, Jon Swift purported that Irish babies would go a long way to feeding the impoverished English public.

If anyone from Google or Yahoo! in general is reading, could we add Lindsay Lohan, Brittney Spears and the other paparazzi-fodder to that list for the search sites world-wide? I'm not suggesting that eating their babies would be a good idea, but I'm positive eating up their web-hits and searches would go a long way to feeding the positive intelligence of not only the English public, but the world.

Think of it as doing your part to solve the (intellectual) hunger problems of the world. Onemillionactsofgreen.com would then meet their quota in... oh, about 30 minutes or so?!

Re:Don't use Google Argentina?

[grayshirtninja]

You should have posted as AC

Know much history? It's an intentional pun.

[A nonymous Coward]

It's a dark joke on the thousands of people who "disappeared" during the late great dictatorship.