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Is Santorum's "Google Problem" a Google Problem?
theodp writes "Fortune contributor Dan Mitchell argues that GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum's 'Google problem' isn't Google's problem at all. 'The fact that searching for 'santorum' puts the profane, anti-Rick Santorum site SpreadingSantorum.com (NSFW) at the top of Google's search results,' insists Mitchell, 'is not an example of a "Google bomb," despite the widespread use of that term to describe the result.' In the same camp is Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan, who also says that Santorum has a search engine problem, not a Google problem. 'It's just that everyone fixates on Google,' Sullivan adds. Which is perhaps to be expected, since Google is the King of Search and also has ties to SpreadingSantorum creator Dan Savage, having featured the sex-advice columnist in Google's The-web-is-what-you-make-of-it Chrome ad campaign (for Savage's admirable It Gets Better Project, not SpreadingSantorum). So, considering Google's vaunted search quality guidelines, is some kind of change in order? Sullivan, while making it clear he opposes Santorum's views, nonetheless suggests Google is long overdue to implement a disclaimer for the 'Santorum' search results. 'They are going to confuse some people,' he explains, 'who will assume Google's trying to advance a political agenda with its search results.'"
...they should try winning over hearts and minds (and clicks) instead of censoring something they find politically inexpedient.
Tolerance of bigotry is counterproductive. Dan Savage has been remarkably restrained considering the very real threat that Santorum poses.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
He's a political figure with public presence, he has exposed and his being chastised and lampooned was really well-deserved, based on statements made in public meant for the public.
The website exposes neither his private life nor anything else that would make it bullying.
Simply put, poltiicans have to put up with criticism, and if they're total bastards, they will get really harsh criticism...
Or maybe it's just the google algorithm at work.
I find it interesting that a Christian-Taliban like Santorum would cry about cyberbullying when he thinks raped women should see a resulting pregnancy as a gift from god and that the Catholic Church paedophile priest is primarily a Homosexual problem rather than one of opportunity.
I see one bully here and the top google result is what I would term "blowback". If I felt sorry for anyone, it would be for his children and anyone else with that name who has nothing to do with it.
Calling out scumbags like Santorum who attack CIVIL RIGHTS is hardly "bullying".
Santorum is pure "Christian Taliban", that is all.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
And if you read up on Santorum's bizarre beliefs it becomes event more disgusting. What the hell is wrong in the US that an obvious wingnut like Santorum can gain so much support?
Santorum's biggest issue is not Google but his political policies. He appeals to a very small population of rural conservative religious voters. He has zero appeal to moderate republicans which means he could never get elected. I mean the fact that a washout like Mitt Romney is leading just lets you know how awful the Republican candidates are.
Rick Santorum has chosen, for whatever reason, to make gay marriage a centerpiece of his campaign. That's fine, and it certainly gets him a lot of mileage with the far right. But it also comes with a downside. When you chose to single out a particular group as your enemy, you're going to have to deal with them fighting back. And if humor is one of the few weapons they have, you can expect a lot of jokes. So man up and get over yourself. It's not like Dan Savage was the one who started this fight.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It is not a search engine's responsibility to police our neologisms. Santorum is a word now used by the common public, and it requires no editorializing by third parties. As the original article points out:
The news is better for searches for Rick Santorum's full name, rather than just the word "santorum." In that case, his official site ranks tops.
So in other words, if I'm looking for a person, I write the person's name in and find the person. If I'm looking for a thing, I type said thing in and find it.
For example, would anybody be annoyed if a google search of the word "houston" showed Houston, TX as the first hit, instead of Whitney Houston?
Now as to why Santorum and santorum came to be connected is another matter. But that's something for a different conversation, which the columnist fails to grasp.
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
There is a difference between being mean to a public figure (especially a politician) and harassing just-some-kid. Rick "man-on-dog" Santorum deserves some ridicule for his absurd, and offensive, speech.
And no, we shouldn't ignore the anti-bullying message just because someone who supports it is an ass.
It's more an example of Internet Bullying.
A good case could be made that Santorum started it by preaching intolerance.
Santorum wouldn't be in this situation if he hadn't pissed off the online community. His hateful, provincial views are completely at odds with most of the younger generations who are able to freely spread ideas and news about villains like him. Santorum caught on as slang to publicly shame this man. As most here know, Savage had his contest to fit a proper insult to the guy. He deserves no sympathy and should realize how rational the hatred and criticisms of him are. The Google results are purely symptomatic. Conservatives in America should realize how viscous people outside of their base are growing to their views outside and stop making excuses.
No, it isn't.
1. Rick Santorum is a public figure. A high school kid (which is usually what "cyberbullying" refers to) is generally not. If he wanted to avoid criticism, he could have simply retired quite comfortably to his home in Pennsylvania.
2. The website and Spreading Santorum campaign were created in response to things Rick Santorum has said in his official capacity as a United States Senator on the floor of the US Senate. If you're a public official, statements like that are clearly fair game for criticism and/or satire.
3. Bullying is typically done by somewhat powerful people to a powerless or marginalized person. Rick Santorum is neither powerless nor marginalized.
4. Rick Santorum's stated position regarding homosexuality is that he would use the power of the government to try to force homosexual people to either not be gay or not exist. That a prominant gay man responded by trying to prevent him from taking power seems like self-preservation as much as anything else.
Sorry, the claim along the lines of "poor widdle Ricky getting bullied by mean Dan Savage" is simply ludicrous.
I am officially gone from
Mocking a politician is not the same as harassing vulnerable kids. The former is an important part of a functioning democracy, the later is just being a dick.
Santorum is pure "Christian Taliban", that is all.
Can we amend or possibly construct a corollary to Godwin's Law about usage of the word "Taliban" since it's use tends to indicate the person is a Koshevik, but eventually it will find wider usage as a replacement for a demonizing term the person disagrees with.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
So he's a jackass and a bully for calling out a hate-monger for being a hate-monger? That's bad? You are saying we should tolerate intolerance, which would mean we have to tolerate Dan Savage's points, and as he's running the more popular website, he should be nearer the top in rankings.
You see a malicious and hate filled public attack, I see a non-violent protest that, truth be told, I find rather clever and funny. Stop and think wether you would not also see it this way if it was about someone you oppose politically.
Jesus saves... the rest takes full damage.
Namecalling != criticism.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I'm not really a fan of Santorum, but whether or not you care for his views, it's a terrible way to make a point for someone who wants to make a thoughtful decision about who they should elect. It's the equivalent of schoolyard name calling. While I can understand how it got there in Google's search, and I understand why Savage did it (it's amusing and does appeal to the bathroom humor crowd), I wouldn't mind at all if it went away.
And really, there may be people in the US who actually act like the equivalent of the Taliban, but if you believe that any candidate currently running on any major, and most minor, party tickets is like the actual Taliban, you're either displaying ignorance or a complete lack of perspective. Knowing what the real Taliban does to people makes me borderline disgusted when I hear the term used flippantly like that.
If we would prefer to not have the government in the bedroom, perhaps we should help by taking the anal sex jokes out of the political equation.
Santorum is the bully.
He tried to use his political power to dehumanize gay people, and did things like comparing gay sex to having sex with dogs. Dan Savage's response, as a gay person, one of the people Santorum was bullying, was to fight back.
Santorum was never not one of the people with power. And God forbid if he were to become President, he would have more power than anyone. He is not a victim. He is a victimizer.
Whoa, whoa, whoa there. What Dan Savage is doing is explicitly in line with the definition of tolerance. Is Dan Savage trying to make Rick Santorum's speech a crime? Is Dan Savage trying to make sure that Rick Santorum does not have equal protection under the law? Is Dan Savage trying to deny Rick Santorum his civil rights?
No. Those things would be intolerant. Those are the things Rick Santorum is doing to Dan Savage.
Dan Savage, on the other hand, is behaving exactly in line with what tolerance means: he recognizes the opposition view, discusses it honestly, understands it, and uses speech only to properly characterize it as wrong. That is tolerance.
If Rick wants to show Dan tolerance, this is how he can do it: I, Rick Santorum, think that homosexual acts are morally wrong. However, I will not try to subjugate homosexuals, I will not deny them the right to marry or participate in society in any way. The only thing I will do is tell people that I really honestly do believe that people should not have sex with members of their gender. That is tolerance, and Rick would do well to follow Dan's lead on learning what the word means.
deliberately trying to game the search engine to have your results on top
No gaming involved. Google's search results are based on how popular a particular link is. People find the sexual meaning of santorum to be worth linking to. As pointed out in the article this isn't a Google bomb like linking "miserable failure" to "George H. W. Bush" was.
However, a person's name definitely belongs to them.
No it doesn't unless they have a unique name and have trademarked it. Plenty of Santorums, and santorum, in the world apart from one ludicrously anti-gay presidential wannabe.
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
There's a profound difference between tolerating someone's personal beliefs and tolerating someone's trying to impose their personal beliefs on others.
You should look up the word, because you obviously don't understand what it means. To tolerate something, by definition, means you don't agree with it. If you agree with it, then you support it.
People who say what you say, are attempting to use language in such a way to validate hateful and wrong opinions. By telling you so, I am expressing my opposition to your very bad mental acrobatics, which have led to your ethically bankrupt conclusion. Now, if I stop here, after telling you that you are a douchebag, then that is tolerance. If I come arrest you, or deny you civil rights, or try to exclude you from society, then that is not tolerance. Luckily, I tolerate douchebags like you.
While the "civil rights movement" as a proper noun refers to the events you refer to, that is hardly the beginning and end of civil rights.
Gay marriage is a civil rights issue. Freedom to express your love for another human and raise a family and share in the legal protections extended to straight couples/families is a civil rights issue.
You are wrong.
But I guarantee you he didn't undergo anything as publicly humiliating as his own malicious and hate-filled public attack on Rick Santorum.
Really? You can guarantee that?
All those kids that kill themselves year after year over bullying and harassment must just be imagining their torments, I guess.
Santorum is a piece of shit that is reaping what he's sown. If his statements were about blacks, instead of homosexuals, there would be no one defending him, but because homophobia is the most acceptable form of bigotry in the far right, it's poor Santorum and the big bad Google. Dan Savage didn't attack Santorum because he's a Christian. Savage attacked Santorum because he's a bigot. There are plenty of Christians out there that are not bigots trying to shove religious considerations into secular laws.
a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance
Probably not. Savage can probably be described as "obstinately devoted to his opinions", but that's a rather incomplete definition of the word, which would apply to almost all people. The rest of the definition, which twice uses the word "intolerant", does not describe Savage, who is not intolerant. You will know Dan Savage has become intolerant when he calls for heterosexuals to be denied civil rights, which would be quite a turnaround for him.
I don't understand the problem. The status quo is maintained with the gay marriage too.
The same people that were allowed to marry before, still can marry. The benefits from marriage have not changed to them in any way. So for them, nothing changes. The status quo is upheld.
Why are they making a fuss about something what in no conceivable way has anything to do with them? They weren't interested in having a gay marriage before, they still don't want to be married to someone from the same sex, gay marriage does not affect them in any way. They are just trying to meddle in other peoples life with for no reason.
PS: I come from a country where a religious marriage ceremony is not recognized anyway. If you want your marriage to be recognized, you have to show a governmental certificate of marriage. Anything else is invalid. So any argument about how some religions define marriage is completely beside the point here.
I'd imagine that google has considered tag clouds far more deeply than Fortune's Dan Mitchell, well frankly I'd imagine they prototyped it even.
I'd further expect they vetoed tag clouds on the basis that any tag cloud they might produce can be better implemented by assigning the correct weighting for results.
In fact, you'll recall that google once offered "similar" results, which provided exactly what Dan Mitchell wants, but I'd imagine Google has good reason when they removed it.
In short, Google has already spent millions on the algorithm exploring exactly this algorithm via their similar button, which they ultimately discarded.
Btw, you'll also notice that Rick Santorum's wikipedia page comes up fairly high no matter how hard we try creating additional frothy content top push it down. Isn't this indicative that google has done a very good job identifying the two meanings of Santorum?
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
That has always been the way with bullying. Everyone ignores it until the little guy successfully fights back. Then all of a sudden it is a problem that has to be dealt with.
I think all speech should be protected.
Thats my logic, sparky. You dont seem to have any.
"His name was James Damore."
Republicans do that shit all the time. They are all about controlling the language of politics, with terms like "entitlements", "welfare queens", "big government", "tax and spend", "family values" (my personal favorite), "illegals", etc. They are all about name-calling and implied or explicit insulting of large swathes of people. Why does that get a pass, but when one of the marginalized fights back, all the sudden it's "bullying" and "childishness"? Isn't it childish of Santorum to say the terrible things he said about gay people? That gets a pass. You seem to want the opposition, which is marginalized and has less power than the establishment, not to get all uppity and try to fight back. They should just respectfully disagree and politely educate people. Of course, they should. How dare they be able to use the same weapons that the establishment gets to use! Look, this isn't some dinnertime argument about whether Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus, it's the real world, where these powerful people get up and make laws and statements that *directly affect* the lives of millions of marginalized people, and they get away with it. You ask the marginalized people to use a much smaller arsenal, when they are already at a disadvantage. That is simply unfair and unreasonable and frankly, makes you look kind of like a bigot.
1) express your love for another human
There is nothing preventing gay couples from expressing their love for one another. The government doesn't deal in "love".
1. Other than the whole "Lawrence v. Texas was wrong" plank Santorum stands on.
2) raise a family
There is nothing preventing gay couples from raising a family. Rosie O'Donnel is gay. She has adopted children. Many gay couples have had their own children through a surrogate mother or sperm donor.
2. Other than the fact that homosexuals are bared from adoption in many states (NY being one exception, along with 17 others. 6 make it explicitly illegal, the remainder have no clear law either way). Also, lack of marriage creates issues with custody and most aspects of family law.
3) share in the legal protections extended to straight couples/families
This is why many states have adopted the idea of "Civil Unions", which would give gay couples all the rights, benefits, and responsibilities of marriage. The idea was turned down because it was not called "marriage", even though there is absolutely no law preventing gay couples from having a wedding ceremony or calling themselves married.
3. Barring a new supreme court ruling on the subject, civil unions are de jure unequal to marriage are they are not guaranteed to cross state lines. Marriage is one of the few cases where the full faith and credit clause works exactly as written. A legal marriage in any state is required to be recognized by any other state.
But if you really want to get literal, blacks have the same rights as everyone else. There is no law that states that blacks can't get married. The law only refers to which race they are allowed to marry.
Please explain how these are not equivalent and why anti-same-sex-marriage laws should not join anti-miscegenation laws on the scrap heap of history.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
SpreadingSantorum has not become popular due to google bombing. It has become popular over the MANY YEARS it has been around because it was more popular than anything the asshole from which it takes its name has been doing. Now that he wants to run for POTUS, he finds it inconvenient that the negatives of what he has said and done in the past are more popularly searched than his actual actions, campaign promises, and political tenets(which are by all accounts still as bigoted and ignorant as they were years ago when Savage created SpreadingSantorum).
Why is this anyone's fault but his own? If he hadn't been so bastardly evil years back when this all started, there would be nothing to contend. But he couldn't keep his right-wing christian extremist mouth shut.
This would be like Hitler searching google and complaining that the first link that showed up was the Wiki article for Nazis.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
You are exactly the type that promotes bullying. You ignore and endorse bullying over and over, and then when the little guy picks up a tool to fight back with, you declare foul. Santorum attacked Savage. He beat him down. He used his Senatorial position of power to call Savage a dog fucker. That's right. Santorum called Savage a dog fucker. You are all for letting that slide when the cool kid does it. As soon as the victim has enough and picks up a 2x4 to fight back with, suddenly name calling isn't fair anymore.
Your position is one of hypocrisy and is in direct support of bullying.
The thing Santorum is being criticized over relates directly to the derogatory term used by Savage. Santorum doesn't like buttsex, so a definition was chosen which deliberately highlights this area of contention, and is shocking enough to make people pay attention. Fair enough if Dan Savage had a problem with Santorum over some tax returns he filed back in 2002, that wouldn't make sense, but calling out a homophobe in a way that makes homophobes uncomfortable is fucking GENIUS, hence the site being ranked so highly.
We were dragged down the "immature road" the moment this Santorum jackass decided the Bible was fo' reals. He and his hate-filled views are to blame for this, no-one else.
Google's search results are based on how popular a link is under the assumption that if a link is popular, it contains useful content.
Wrong.
The assumption is that if a link is popular, it is more likely to be what a person searching for that term wants to find. Which is a completely separate question from whether the content is "useful". Only a fraction of internet searches are for something "useful", and trying to restrict search responses to what is useful would be contrary to what the user wants.
For a great many people googling "Santorum", the hilarious take-down of his bigotted views is exactly what they wanted to find.
If you just google "Santorum" because you want to know more about the guy, then finding out what the Internet thinks of him is quite relevant.
If you are interested in "useful" information about his campaign or platform, then googling "Santorum campaign" or "Santorum Presidential Candidate" or so on would provide specifically that information.
That's gaming the search engine--that's what it means to game a search engine.
No it isn't. To game the search engine would mean to make a link appear more popular than it really is. If the link is legitimately popular, then that's not gaming the system, even if the link's popularity does not imply whatever else you might assume about the link.
The enemies of Democracy are
I don't want my 12-year-old daughter to see that definition
Please don't perpetuate your prudery into the next generation.
Please do not dictate how I should raise my children.
Here is what is wrong with the country: The world doesn't revolve around you. You expect the rest of the world to censor things that you don't like. I don't like Rick Santorum. He is a bigoted asshole who isn't fit to lead a Sunday school kindergarten, let alone the most powerful country in the free world.
But you know what? I put up with his stupid bullshit, because that is the agreement we have here in America. He is free to say whatever he wants to. And people are free to mock his hateful views. That is one of the things that makes America a worthwhile country. We have room for everyone and their views. And it seems that a sizable number of people seem to think that Rick Santorum needs to be mocked. Don't like the content? Don't use the Internet. Nobody is forcing you to.
Also, is it that horrible to learn what anal sex is? Some people like putting their penis in other people's anus, oh no! Get over it.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
No, it's not at all symmetric.
One group wants the freedom to live their own life according to their own preferences. The other wants to deny that choice to those people. These are very different things.
You are free to believe that homosexuality is an abomination. You are free to teach your children that homosexual marriage is a sin. Whether or not James and Matthew can marry each other, you are free to believe what you like and to marry the opposite-gendered person of your choice. All of this is completely OK, even when gay marriage is legal.
On the other hand, you seem to want to tell James and Matthew that because you don't agree with their choice, that they are not allowed to make it. You are denying them the freedom to make their own personal choices, and you are denying them the civil rights and protections that come from legally-recognized marriage.
The only thing you're denied by their attempts to fight for their freedom is that you may occasionally be made uncomfortable. You may have to explain to your kids that some people in the world choose to live and believe differently than you do. You may have to work harder to spread your belief that, even though it's legal, homosexuality is wrong. You know what? You have to deal with these already. Living as part of a free society means that sometimes you don't get everything just the way you like it. You're already free to live as you choose, and yet you want to deny that to others based on your belief. That is simply not OK.
Stop trying to force me to accept people that want to view porn in a public library in front of children.
That is a very different debate, one I'm not discussing here.
However, only one side is trying to change laws to match those views.
This is patently false.