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Seven Words You Can't Say On Google Instant
theodp writes "Back in 1972, Georgle Carlin gave us the Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television. Thirty-eight years later, Valleywag reports on The Definitive List of Words Google Thinks Are Naughty. You've probably noticed how the new Google Instant tries to guess what you're searching for while you type — unless it thinks your search is dirty, in which case you'll be forced to actually press ENTER to see your results. Leave it to the enterprising folks at 2600 to compile an exhaustive list of words and phrases Google Instant won't auto-search for."
Can somebody make a Chrome extension to get the data automatically (without pressing enter), pretty please?
white Power (but not "Black Power" - it's all in the marketing, after all)
Guess I'll discard the "always have to press ENTER" bug report.
Please stop trying to make everybody a victim of your own personal frustrations.
It's not our fault you can't get laid.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
I just love the endless amusement of typing "Is it wrong..." into google and seeing the list (to sleep with my dog/brother/mother).
Well done Google.
I read the list. I was expecting words that usually mean something everyday but have broadened to include potential offensive material. Amateur for example.
What surprises me is the list includes words where the definition would have to be known, and the person consciously wants to find the subject matter. a2m for example.
But its broader. A few choice ones on the list: fecal(legitmate medical/anotomical usage), lesBian, and finally, redtube gets the censor treatment.
I like the comment next to "cucold" - this one dates back to 1250, but it dies here.
And google has the gaul to climb on a soap box about censorship, the great wall filters of Australia etc.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
B*lg**m.
Most people aren't going to want to accidentally see the contents of that list when they use Google at work, or with their kids. We've hit enter for years and survived, I think we can still manage it.
... I don't dare even to initiate a search on google for "child portraits"... by the time I finish typing all the letters, I'm afraid of my door being knocked-down.
Oh, well... I'm more into nature landscape photography anyway.
I giggled like a little schoolgirl when I read that.
We, the family, were talking about nipples last Sunday at dinner.
Our guinea pig, Jason, died a few weeks back. We were never sure if he was a boy guinea pig or a girl guinea pig. My daughter, 10, said he must have been a girl as he had nipples. We all smiled and corrected her - boys have nipples too.
Nipples. I'm still giggling like a girl (with nipples).
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
I wonder what happens if someone searches for a word Google considers naughty, will they be categorized as naughty people?. Will they be subject to naughty commercials?
Just checked "portman petrified hot grits" isn't blocked so obviously the censors are falling down on the job!
Monstar L
Could it be that this system blacklists the words based on the content to be displayed and not based on the input itself?
This has nothing to do with censorship. They just don't want people searching "assignment" to have their screen jammed full of porn before you finish typing.
They just took terms that have a high probability of having something many would consider offensive showing up in the first few results. You have to remember they haven't disabled the searches, just disabled the instant search (which I hate anyhow). So you can type in the search press enter and Google will search as normal. What it won't do is instantly search.
That might be why there are some normally benign terms there, because when searched for they come up with potentially offensive links.
I'm ok with this idea. They aren't stopping the terms from being searched for, they aren't reordering their search. They are just trying to make sure people don't accidentally see things that would get them mad at Google. While I'm a proponent of the idea that people should stop being so whiny and easily offended, that doesn't mean Google shouldn't be pragmatic about it. This doesn't really affect anything in the big scheme of things.
I don't know which is more sad: Google thinking "lolita" needs to be protected or that the people keeping the list only know it as a reference to a film and never mention the book.
I also don't know which is more sad: that the Spanish word for "black" is considered so offensive just because it might be used by a racist or that a word for rooster is considered offensive just because it could be used sexually.
I just noticed, BTW, that even turning SafeSearch off doesn't prevent this particular Instant filter.
Also, I noticed that not only is "latino" okay and "latina" not, but although "negro" is filtered "negra" is not. Probably because the first page of results are a commercial product (Negra Modelo beer)?
I think their new addition is failing, too, because "marij" through "marijuan" give great results for "marijuana" even though "marijauna" itself is blocked.
Okay I know they are putting this on the blacklist, but it isn't like you can't search for it anymore.
It's simply that 'instant' doesn't show it right away.
In my opinion a good thing so that any child misspelling anything (cumeleon --> Chameleon) and stuff like that, doesn't get inappropriate sites right away.
I think it's sort of a good thing.
Be yourself and aim high!
AFAIK, you still get your search results, so what's the big fucking deal?
You want "pamela anderson" "naked" with her huge "titties" ? Press enter.
"loli" is also blocked. This may be why "lolita" was included.
browsed it briefly. Learnt a few new words.
Kind of dumb that "new porNographers" was listed there, as "porN" is already mentioned on its own.
Curious that "belgium" is deemed not offensive at all :)
it strikes me that this is not a simple list of words. Google most likely has either a list of porn sites, or a nice algo for determining if a site contains porn or not (srsly, you could just use web traffic and probably get a 90% correlation with porn sites).
i think it's a matter of once your insta-search starts hitting known porn links (or other flagged sites) as suggestions, google chops the list off.
that's how i'd do it, rather than employing people to run words through google and log the sites that come up.
(lol, my recaptcha is "drilled". i wonder if that triggers it?)
I wonder whether it's actually a manually maintained blacklist, or whether the decision to block the search is made after (automatically) examining the results generated by it.
Great, now I can't find my Uncle Gay Man Anal Sex Insertion on the Web through Google! My grandparents admitted it was a poor choice for a name, but they never would have guessed this.
Don't you mean Return, bitch?
... and then they built the supercollider.
sweet now I just have to begin all my searches with '-a2m' and finally never be bothered by google shitstant search.
at least we're safe from being bombarded with the dirty truth?
Sometimes I get sick of the Slashdot knee-jerk mentality about anything that is remotely connected to free speech or censorship.
First, many, many people surf the net with safe search OFF. This does not mean that you want porn showing up on every search, it doesn't even mean you want to get porn at all. You may simply want to make your own mind up about your search results. This works completely fine when you have to press enter to get your search results, because you can make a reasonably sound judgement about whether your search is safe before you press enter.
When Google introduced instant, however, it suddenly wasn't so clear-cut. It would be ridiculously annoying if I had to make that judgement before every single letter I typed. It would also completely ruin the point of Google Instant, which is to make life easier for me.
Google clearly decided that the most convenient thing for the vast majority of their users would be that they filter out naughty searches until you press enter. Perhaps they should have advertised this a bit more clearly, and perhaps they should allow you to turn it off, but overall this is a sensible solution and they can, in good conscience, claim that they still allow you to get all the naughty searches you want. You just have to press bloody enter.
I actually hope Google doesn't give a toss about the tiny minority that gets worked up about this.
Find it interesting that the term 'Google Sucks' is also not on instant. What happened to unbiased search results?
www.newviewmedia.com
Oh shit is this about my RIGHTS, online? ... wait... noooo
Oh hell let me read this shit... alright...
yeah... uh-huh... okayyy... soooo Google's
search engine was masquerading as a tool of
censorship the whole time?
that's not it... alright... no it's just a
measure of legal protection on their behalf.
WELL WTF... my rights weren't even involved.
Well at least /. helped me demonstrate my
online right to freely click-through and
waste my time on the internet! Thanks!
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Also darkr and leather roo still yield the expected completions.
And fann, ...
Am I the only one who never goes to the google page for searching and instead always uses the google search through the search bar in the browser? It just seems so much easier and quicker, especially when you know the keyboard commands to jump to that text entry. I guess I'm just in the minority.
Why does 2600 hate Göran Persson?
And you just have to post a link to the useless blog post instead of the actual list at the more respected source, 2600.
Bot Assisted Blogging
Is it definitely a search term blacklist, or might they be filtering based on the results?
Doesn't it seems more likely that instead of just having a list of verboten words/subjects Google simply searches everything but chooses not to display results when there's adult content? that would explain some of the non-intuitive words like "cuckold."
There's "fuck" and "motherfucker". So really it's only six and a half.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It's quite possible I might want to research "child processes". I'd hate to have stuff show up at the "p".
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
It's not our fault you can't get laid.
And you posted this on slashdot?
How about being able to turn off Google Instant?
Of course there is a button under preferences to do that but it doesn't work. That way Google can still try to force their paid for crap on people. Having a false feature is a fraudulent act. Wonder when they get sued?
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
sh!t, p!ss, fukc, cuunt, c0cksuckr, m0therfukcr, t!ts
I am trying to grasp why Google developed this. You are right in saying the reason for blocked terms is that they are trying to prevent complaints when people see sites they disapprove of. But my complaint (from the left) is that if you are going to block some search terms that are offensive, why to you allow others. For instance, if you are going to block the word 'kike' you should block the word 'fag'. [Remember: the symbol of LGBT rights is the '=' sign.]
I thought this might be a advertising thing. That as the search term changed the ads on the right column changed giving them the opportunity to display more ads. But there are no ads in the right column. So if you click on a result without pressing the enter button you will go to the web site without seeing Google advertising.
Maybe there's code that examines the results before they are instantly shown, and decides at that point if the results are possibly offensive.
I completely agree... I can't fathom why people get so worked up about having to hit the Enter key as a confirmation that you really want to see possibly offensive results.
Hell, on some sites, they want me to enter my date of birth to make sure I'm over 18 before I see certain content (not that anyone ever puts in their real date, regardless of their age).
Exactly. This is the obvious reason to have such a blacklist.
Looks like they have changed the blacklist. For example, arayan worked.
Who cares? This isn't censorship. They just don't want to get a bunch of complaints from your grandmother when she searches for "penitence" and after hunt-and-pecking "p-e-n-i" gets something that upsets her. You can still search for whatever you want, they just aren't going to automatically guess you mean something dirty because it might offend you greatly if you don't, which would be a PR nightmare. The converse is not true. It doesn't offend anybody (except maybe people who are rabidly-irrational about anything that could possibly be construed as censorship) to get benign results when searching for something dirty as long as they can get to the results by pressing the "Enter" key.
Don't be Dirty.
It's 2600...I'm sure it's one of their puzzles.
Yeah, the lack of neutrality is kind of interesting.
"Google is not evil" returns an instant page. "Google is good" returns an instant page. "Google is evil"... doesn't. "Google is awesome" is even a suggested auto-completion.
Of course, the embargo isn't perfect. "Google is tasty" has an instant page, but so does "Google is nasty".
"Google is now evil" still returns an instant. This, in contrast with the blank page for "Google is evil", when the former has ~ 41,000,000 hits, and the later has ~ 80,800,000 hits. That's a good counter-argument someone might make that it's based on the size of the returned space. There seems to be some of that: "Google is peristeronic" also doesn't have an instant return, and that search has 185 hits.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I'm surprised that the n-word isn't on that list. I guess it's still OK to say it.
Some people fear this will end SEO. However I find it more useful for our site. So far so good with no issues. So I can't really complain :).
Need Auto Parts? Check us out here! http://www.bmaparts.com
Wow. I thought they went the way of the dial-up.
(Also, I knew what most of the terms on that list meant. But I never should have googled "1 guy 1 jar." I'll have nightmares for a week, now.)
I can see the fnords!
They probably just did that to keep the servers from getting overloaded, like restricting the word "the".
Oh, wait, it doesn't ignore "the"...
Really though, it's probably for the better so you don't get a bunch of porn results when you pause on halfway typing "assume" or when looking for the different kind of cream pies you can make.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Click on the link, and the proxy server helpfully says:
ATTENTION
[blah blah how awful and scary the Intarwebs are!!!!!]
Access to the requested website has failed.
Category: Hacking;Information Technology
Guess I'll never know the full badword list.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
And the brainwashing is going fine as well - witness the comments saying "profane" words aren't free speech or protected.
Ah, to live in a free country where we can still say "FUCK" in primetime.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
It gets tiresome, USA citizen banging on about their freedom of speech. In reality the USA haven't got nearly as much practical free speech as the rest of the world. Try disagreeing with the powers that be and you will be sued into oblivion and beyond. Try criticising influential politicians and you will be practically silenced. You go on TV and the main thing crossing your mind is the avoidance of swear words.
To be perfectly clear, I think using swear words is mostly an expression of bad taste and/or education. But there are moments where strong language makes a point by depicting the genuine emotion of the speaker. This list of 7 words is pathetic. Even considering it outside the realm for which it was intended for is absolutely ridiculous.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
My third sentence above should read, "...his essays and Christian apologia..."
In the second 'graph, the second sentence should end, "...questions about his faith that he did not want answered."
You are welcome on my lawn.