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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.
I think no one should take Savage's opinions when it comes to anti-bullying because of what he has done here. It just spreads the message, "Be tolerant of my views, but I will be completely intolerant of yours and harass you if I disagree with you."
the Santorum is surging.
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.
Yeah... One outspoken person mounted a successful campaign against another outspoken person :-D
If you think this is cyberbullying, then you are the bully in your school/work/social surroundings.
It sounds as though his issue is with the site, not with Google. Google is just presenting information that exists -- it is the site that is the problem for him.
So....doesn't he know a lawyer or two to address the site in question?
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.
"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.'""
If Google _were_ to include a disclaimer, it would be pushing a political agenda. Unless the disclaimer was something like: "The search results below may indicate that the candidate of your choice is so hopelessly clueless about the web that they are unable to grab the top search result for their own name." Unless of course the Luddites now have a political party....
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.
When I first read that, I thought you had written "brokeback".
Of course, given proper context...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
If 90% of the websites say bad things about Santorum, and that's what 90% of the results show... where is the problem? We aren't allowed to have online activism now?
It's more an example of Internet Bullying.
A good case could be made that Santorum started it by preaching intolerance.
I think to have this issue in proper perspective it helps to Santorum's original words which started his conflict with Savage:
http://www.rotten.com/library/sex/sodomy/santorum/
You have to ask yourself, how would you feel if someone said such things about your sexuality/how you to relate to those you love.
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.
I disagree. Mr Savage's actions are no different than a group of kids in the playground deciding to equate some unpopular kid's name with something clearly distasteful. Santorum's political opinions may be offensive, but they're out there as part of a public discussion. Relabeling Santorum's name to mean something vile is childish and does nothing to help open communication between rival factions on the playground. You wouldn't put up with this sort of behavior in Elementary school, yet somehow because it's gotten the attention of Stephen Colbert and Google, it's okay? If you don't like Santorum (I personally don't) then talk to his issues, don' t resort to immature nonsense like deliberately attempting to skew search engine results.
http://www.beanleafpress.com
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
Rick Santorum is racist, sexist, and homophobic; he is in favor of teaching religious dogmatism in public schools. He should be exposed and publicly humiliated.
What I find disgusting is that the mainstream media talks about his poll results but never criticizes his political views.
http://ratetees.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/santorum-frothy-t-shirt.jpg
I'd expect to see this "problem" go away as a result of Google changing the algorithm just as they did to make "miserable failure" no longer have Bush the Lesser's official White House bio as its top result.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
At least, that's the basic idea behind both Google and other engines: show results that aggregate the opinions or outlook of many people. Authoritative links are ones which many people use, useless links are one that no one uses.
The whole thing with Santorum is that, actually, there is a very large segment of people that despise what he stands for. This group is at least competing with (if not more powerful than) the population of people that think he's a sane politician worth listening to.
The disconnect here is mass media. According to the rules they have adopted, candidates are to be taken seriously when they hit a certain (small) proportion of support, at least if they are right-wing candidates, and open mockery or confrontation are simply not done. Hence, Santorum is a "real candidate" and shouldn't have this level of opposition.
But that's not reality. I agree: a disclaimer would implicitly say that the voice of the people is political... which is rather obvious and useless, since it's always true.
SpreadingSantorum.com has nearly 16k +1's. Obviously the site is considered more popular or useful than Rick Santorum's own site. The search algorithm is correct. Nothing to see here. Move along.
I dunno, I think the problem is a Rick Santorum's Problem. It's because of Rick Santorum's obsession with gay people and banning gay sex. Maybe Rick Santorum should get off his soap box. And since Rick Santorum is against gay marriage obviously those people are going to be active against him along with others that fear is rise to power.
You sound boring.
SpreadingSantorum predates It Gets Better, so this doesn't look like a causal link.
I don't think Google should do anything at all. Why should Santorum get special treatment? The already provide SafeSearch, and TFA proposes setting it to "strict" if you don't want to get results like this.
See also: Dan Savage on this.
Relabelling? Hardly. It's just Google indexing sites. Clearly the "vile and childish" site is more popular than Santorum's own.
Vote for Santorum in the primaries. The Republicans will self destruct, for this one election cycle, under the burden of championing the hate for women and gays that Santorum dresses up as religious freedom. He is unelectable outside his base support group.
You mean his $2M house in Virginia. He was using a cheap sub-100K home in PA, rented out to some tenants, to both maintain the illusion of residency and screw a poor local school district out of $67k-100k (exact figure varies by story) to send his kids to some cyber charter school while they were primarily living in VA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Santorum#Pennsylvania_residency
It's no different than what tabloids are doing. And just like they can censor various news channels, like TV, radio or newspapers, they're trying to censor Google results as well.
If there are more people saying more bad things than good, about that guy on the web, then that's his problem.
Google, can solve this very easily, it can say in a small bit of text on the side, that those are the search results according to the algorythms, which are neither political or bribable. If they give in and do something about it, then they can never honestly put something like that on their website.
Maybe they should add something akin to karma for websites like that. They might present facts, but their goal seems to be attacking the politician, not informing the public.
Regardless of what they think, you can't fight jackasses by being one yourself.
After reading the heading, I was poking around the internet, and I'm aghast to find there is a man, a CONGRESSMAN, no less, named after this vile substance!
Eww... GROSS!!! Have these Repulsivecans NO SHAME?!? DISGUSTING!!!
So if I'm a presidential candidate, any search for my last name should go to me? That's fucking ridiculous. The internet is a big place that includes THE WORLD, I could see there being a problem if Rick Santorum was the ONLY Santorum on the planet though this is not the case. Because someone has a last name doesn't mean they are entitled to the top results. That wouldn't even work.
Are you implying that the genuine article isn't vile and childish?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You can call it whatever you want. It doesn't change his right to do it and Google's right to leave it up there.
"If he wanted to avoid criticism, he could have simply retired quite comfortably to his home in Pennsylvania."
Yep, that would be one way.
Another way would be to, you know, not be a monstrously bigoted asshole. But you know, people choose different ways to get through life.
So, it seems that everyone else has forgotten to link Spreading Santorum in the article, so I'll do it here.
It's not that Santorum has a Google problem, it's that Santorum has a bigotry problem, and lots of us are participating in the solution - which is to make it VERY public that he's a homophobic slime.
It's kind of like the "vote for the crook, it's important" publicity in the '91 Louisiana gubernatorial election. At least Duke was a former grand wizard of the KKK, Santorum is CURRENTLY doing everything he can do to harm a minority part of the population - and this frothy mix is running for President!
So I fully support the fact that the word "santorum" now means "the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex." Sure, it's distasteful. But it's important.
Namecalling != criticism.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Rick Santorum's problem is not because of Google or any other search engine.
His problem is that he is an odious little tyke who espouses the very worst views of radicalised "Christianity". He is just as great a danger to freedom and decency as the radicalised Muslim clerics, for much the same reasons - indeed, his obscenely misogynistic rhetoric sounds awfully like that of the "Mad Mullahs".
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.
To me any political speech that has no basis in reality is just wrong to it's core and draws from the same well as the typical school yard bully. Personally, I'd rather not have my political spectrum sullied with such nonsense and have criticized such foolery often (both right and left, if you will). While there is no way I can stop people from acting like children, I feel that politics have too many lies already and such foolery simply makes it harder to discuss the things that really need attention.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
I'm sorry, but what does being rich, powerful, or connected have to do with being bullied? Being a public personality doesn't mean someone can appropriate your name for another purpose.
...or an AlGoreithm.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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.
So, it is not number one but well above the fold on Google's main competitor. Even if Google intervenes here, it will remain near the top.
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.
If you take the anal sex out of politics....
There has GOT to be a great line in there somewhere. It's just too damn early for me to think of it.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb
He can reverse this. I remember when Apple's lack of Flash support was in the news, and Apple successfully drowned out much of the negative press by including dense concentrations of the word "Flash" (referring to the camera) in their press releases. They successfully made searches for "iphone flash" show links to their pages rather than to blogs complaining about the iphone not having Flash.
I personally feel that search engine manipulation is a problem, and while I commend Google's position on their neutrality - I feel some precedence should be given when it involves peoples names. If you have a unique name and somebody blogs bad things about you, you are stuck with those results *for life* every time someone Google's you.
Because of Section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act, the material has been found to be defamatory by a court, as evidenced by a court order, limiting such an option to only those in power, or those who can afford a decent lawyer. It's evil.
When I searched "rick santorum" (without the quotes) just now, I got an ad for Rick Santorum's website and the top result was Rick Santorum - Bing News (and that seems like a sensible search result).
When I searched Google for "rick santorum" without quotes, I got an ad for Rick Santorum's website the results for the Maine Caucus as the first information shown, and a clickable link to Rick Santorum's website as the top result.
Searching both search engines for the same criteria WITH the quotes: Rick Santorum - Bing News (on Bing) and Rick Santorum's website as the top result (on Google).
If there was an issue, it's been fixed.
But in general, the search engines (all of them, even the lesser ones) have an absolute responsibility to police their algorithms for making any defamatory site is not the top result (which would de-facto make that search engine endorsing the defamation via their algorithm), unless all of the content contained in the site is actual and factual and can be cross checked by valid, reputable sources (i.e., not just blogs). The such a site would be valid criticism, not defamation.
Again, Bing and Google both pass this test when I used their searches with cookies off and scripting off. For those seeing the issue, clear your cookies, clear your browser cache, and get a new IP address (if on static IP) and see if it continues, or if it's a side effect of any personalization of search results.
Once again, as of 02:46 GMT, I am not seeing this issue where a defamatory site against Rick Santorum is the top search result.
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
The "miserable failure" thing was abusing Google's algorithm. It pointed out something faulty with Google's algorithm, and they corrected it. I personally thought it was hilarious but I can't argue that the underlying mechanism that allowed it to be posted didn't need correcting. It was, in effect, an exploit.
The santorum thing is totally different. Dan Savage created a page with meaning that other people linked to for legitimate reasons. It deserves its place at the top of the search results. There's nothing wrong with Google's algorithm and no exploit that needs correcting. The search engine is functioning correctly.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
Google simply allowed the Spreading Santorum result to rise to #1 because the site meets Google's criteria for making it to the #1 slot. It's my understanding that years ago, after the Spreading Santorum website was created, thousands (millions?) of people blogged about it, linked to it, and so on, so it rose to the top of Google when people searched the politician's name. Google is not advancing anyone's political agenda by simply allowing searches for the word "Santorum" to return results using the same ruleset that searches for any other word follow. They're simply following their own rules.
Specifically granting Santorum an exception from these rules and downgrading the site that rose to the top by following the rules would be "advancing a political agenda." Santorum's.
Of course, this is the kind of rhetoric you see everywhere in modern politics. Not advancing my political agenda is "advancing a political agenda," but advancing my political agenda is not "advancing a political agenda" but "fair and balanced reporting."
Google can do anything they want with their results, being a private company as opposed to a true "public" forum. However, that's how a lot of people view Google, and search engines in general---as neutral providers of the results of the rest of the web. I'm sure we're all familiar with the uproar when it is discovered that such-and-such a search engine is bumping certain results because they were paid off to do so. This situation would be no different. If Google grants Santorum's people a special exception and downgrades the Spreading Santorum results, that's the end of believing Google's results are fair and non-biased.
Right now Santorum's people are buying an ad on his name, obviously. Maybe Google should just remove the "ad" and the pink background from that result. Then it would be first and look just like it made it's way to first by earning that slot according to Google's ruleset. Of course that would be the equivalent of bumping certain results because Google was paid off to do so, wouldn't it?
Ultimately, this story is nothing more than people who want to control the debate getting upset that the other side is controlling the debate better than them. Google is akin to a stretch of roadside and Santorum's people are whining that Spreading Santorum staked out more, bigger political yard signs that they were able to. And now they want permission from someone to come in and rip out most of the signs so they can put up their own.
Liberty in your lifetime
"Name belongs to them" shouldn't even enter the search algorithm unless someone's buying that name as ad words.
If I search for $celebrity_name, I'd surely prefer an unofficial fan site with huge community and lots of interesting info to a "name belongs to them" official site which only contains a photo, "buy merchandise" link and links to social media profiles.
Now the article's case is arguable, but search algorithms are largely ad-hocery and prone to glitches and being tricked. Search bombs happen to public persons regularly, but it's just a reason for another ad-hoc nudge, not generic rule to prioritize "MY NAME, MY, MY! BUY MY STUFF AND LOOK AT MY HALF-EMPTY SITE BECAUSE IT'S MY NAME" sites over possibly more relevant others.
Internet bullying is no different from regular bullying. When you are a public figure anything goes.
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
I think Larry Flint had it right with his satire of this politician years ago in Hustler. Away from ability to google the following "hustler santorum" but I'm sure it will index the proper links.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
spreading santorum is just acting like any other PAC--an interested point-of-view outside of any candidate's direct control
Palin had a "TV problem" and some suggested that "TV" was bad for her.
The fact that people can go back to e.g. Youtube and watch CBS tv reports on Palin makes it even worse for Palin and the likes, e.g. Santorum.
Katie Couric's historic interview tells it all - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nokTjEdaUGg
So, Santorum's "Google-problem" may be a variant of Palin's "tv-problem" in a way.
I think, if I were the Santorum Campaign, that I'd be far less worried about the fact that some smartass linked the candidate's name with $upleasantact, than that apparently this linkage is apparently far more popular than my official campaign pages. Google results report, essentially, what is there, not what we want to be there. Apparently Sanatorum's Internet presence is so extensive and effective that a random parody get's more links that his actual site.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I need to search for Santorum and click on the first link today!
giggity
That'd be really good ammunition against him; one supposes it hasn't been used yet because it's pretty high-caliber and
a) Romney's not that desperate yet, and
b) I'd hope Obama would keep that in reserve himself.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I don't think a lot of the posters here realize what Dan Savage is doing. As a disclaimer I think Santorum's views on homosexuality are horrible I disagree with a lot of his platform, I actively discourage people from considering him. What Savage is doing goes above and beyond what is reasonable. He's not just bashing him for his narrow minded views he took his named and turned it into a juvenile sex term. That's what goes to far. That's what takes it from political discourse to childishness. Bash Santorum, rip him apart for what he says, he deserves it, but don't go down that immature road. The trivializing of his name does more then just affect him. He has kids who have to deal with it and there are other people with the same name that have to deal with this as well. What if a conservative said I disagree with Obama on X, let's come up with a derogatory sex term for Obama and plaster it all over the web. I would bet most of the people here saying it's something he should deal with would be changing their tune, of course I think a lot of people on Santorum's side would change as well, and that's the problem. We need to hold a level of reasonable treatment whether we like a candidate or not. Treat the opposition the same way we treat our candidate of choice. Hammer them when they say something stupid, hold them to task, fight against their spread of ignorance, but don't descend into childish name calling and what is essentially bullying.
Learn to write a good clear political webpage, have your massive web savvy grassroots base link to it and ensure they write good "link" pages. .... website" - where helpers are guided via an app or main site to paste their name, photo, quote local political issues and then have it go live with a few clicks.
The more quality on topic words shared by the 'real' sites the more people will find the main site with easy search terms.
Google seems good at finding real pages, real words and seeing where links go and trying to rank them in some useful order.
Where can it all go wrong?
That massive support base just can't make web 2.0 work?
That massive support base is addicted to the new trendy walled web 2.0 sites that don't allow deep outside searching?
That massive support base was all computer generated on the cheap?
That massive support base is a bit too small and some was computer generated with real skill?
Solution:
Make a "I support
A bit like a web 2.0 profile but much more hidden tech about understanding how Google works.
Add in options on war, faith, rights, medial issues, work, pets, family ect. to ensure a wide range of 'new' sites over many hosts are auto generated.
Text, link, graphics, tag and keyword rich with just enough new info to be unique for any search engine all linking back to the main site.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
A LOT of people. Perhaps if you don't want the internet revealing that you're a huge asshole, you should try not being a huge asshole.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The home page has no keyword tag, no description tag and only 255 words of search engine readable text. It's amazing that the site ranks as well as it does.
Imagine if you are a business leader or local politician and someone with the same name as you becomes infamous in a big way.
Any local politicians named Ken Lay? How about Scott Peterson?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
While I don't really think this slander campaign is the right way to approach such a disagreement in views, it's still pretty disgusting that Urban Dictionary offers the definition as a coffee mug. Maybe some people have some pretty awful coffee every morning, but I don't think calling it a byproduct of anal sex makes the coffee any better.
given 2 choices in a seach, the standard Rick Santorum site and the "other" site lots of people will find the anti-Santorum site more interesting. Supporters are going to know they want the candidates site but those just surfing for something to read are going to gravitate to the more _colorful_ spreadingsantorum.com. I think it's human nature.l
As it stands, Santorum just has to continue to purchase Google ad space so his candidacy site is top on the results page. Or continue to show why people should not vote for you.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
That would have been some good advice for Santorum to take. Once he decided to speak out against anal sex, he invited the subject into his campaign.
No, I think blowback is correct. The more forceful blowback, the more santorum there is.
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
The disclaimer they were talking about is mentioned near the end of the original article.
So you can see (after reading the Blogger entry) that they're not talking about merely stating that the voice of the people is political, but that the search results are "slanted" by persons gaming the system. Presumably they think their results are now game-proof enough to no longer merit such disclaimers, and that the idea that
"Santorum means the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that's occasionally the byproduct of anal sex."
is just a popular enough idea to rank highly in search results (i.e., is the "voice of the people" as you put it). Otherwise, except for nits, I agree with your comment.
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.
don' t resort to immature nonsense
Santorum started it. Now he's reaping the whirlwind. My generation is through playing nice with bad politicians.
There is a war going on for your mind.
If you consider Dan Savage's actions bullyish, then how would you categorize Rick Santorum's previous public speakings and insults against homosexuality and same-sex relationships - from his position in the government no less? Rick Santorum is an openly-homophobic right-wing extremist. This is an easily observable fact.
This is why Dan Savage (a gay pro-gay-rights columnist, best featured in the Savage Love article in the back of the Onion newspaper) created SpreadingSantorum and coined the Santorum phrase. Note also that this happened a LONG time before Santorum was even a gleam in the eye of a misguided presidential race.
He got what he deserved, and now that he wants to be the president it's not going to suddenly disappear. He created his froth, he can lie in it.
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
Savage made the comment in 2003, according to wiki (though I'd swear it happened in the late 90s). While Google certainly existed, it wasn't all that popular at that point. Calling it internet bullying before the internet was a driving popular force is problematic. Maybe newspaper bullying would be better.
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
Here the namecalling is just acting as the hook to get people's attention. And it is obviously working.
Once that's done, there is plenty of real criticism once you click through to the blog.
Bullying requires one entity that is more powerful than another using its power to abuse the weaker entity. Santorum, by definition, can't be bullied by gay people, at least not in this context.
Where's your criticism of Santorum? Why are you siding with him, the bigoted asshole, against the people who did no wrong and have only chosen to fight back in kind? How do you sleep at night?
"I believe and I think that the right approach is to accept this horribly created, in the sense of rape, but nevertheless, in a very broken way, a gift of human life, and accept what God is giving to you."
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
It's hard for an American President to win re-election if the economy is bad. The US economy is unlikely to be "good" by November, especially if your memories of "good" include the internet bubble of the late 90's and the housing bubble of the late 2000's.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
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.
http://www.whitepages.com/name/Santorum/ Plenty of people named Santorum. Maybe some kids. Who are now getting bullied. Nice, Dan.
I'm a hard-core liberal, and it pisses me off what he's done. He's effectively censoring (not in the legal sense) debate because he doesn't like what someone has to say. Now that Santorum is a serious candidate, it's even worse since people are actively trying to inform themselves about the man and the first thing they're going to see is some childish prank.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I think Larry Flint had it right with his satire of this politician years ago in Hustler. Away from ability to google the following "hustler santorum" but I'm sure it will index the proper links.
If I'm not mistaken, you'd need to search more specifically than that. You might need "Asshole of the month" in your search as well as the terms "Rick Santorum" and "Larry Flynt".
BTW, the link above for Rick Santorum contains material which would appall any normal human, but which Santorum himself is probably proud of, in his own morally-twisted way. The other links are to material he would be less enthusiastic about. The Asshole of the month page is from 2007, but Santorum was behaving like an asshole long before that.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
If you don't like Santorum (I personally don't) then talk to his issues
Nobody's going to change Santorum. I don't think he's even capable of discussing gay rights.
don' t resort to immature nonsense
You're right, and normally I'd agree. But this guy is different. On the chance that it would disrupt his campaign a little bit, it was worth it.
You are making an argument based on hypotheticals. "Google would have" you say: well, maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they don't care because they are a search engine in the business of providing useful and ad-filled search results. "If someone on the conservative Right had come up with a scatological term..." you say: again, they didn't. They could have, but they didn't. Unless you can show where there's really unfair treatment from Google, then you don't have an argument. You are just concocting a hypothetical world in which you are right. In the real world, liberals *did* turn Santorum into a scatological term and it *is* showing up on Google search results and it's showing up there because of the grassroots campaign to make it a popular search item. There's nothing unfair here on Google's part, and really nothing unfair on the part of the people who are fighting back against the truly vile garbage that spews from Santorum's mouth.
On the contrary, quite the opposite. I didn't choose the words "vile and childish" to describe the spreadingsantorum.com site, I quoted them from the person to whom I was replying.
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. If a link is popular because people want to insult the subject rather than because the link provides useful information, then they have broken the assumption behind Google's search results. That's gaming the search engine--that's what it means to game a search engine.
Your "political spectrum" is already sullied beyond repair when assholes like this Santorum jerk are strutting around calling swathes of people evil and when someone gets upset at that, they are vilified by people like you. That's fucked up, but as the language wasn't too off-kilter I guess that's fine by your bizarro logic.
Logic does not apply here. Marriage is a sacred institution to these people, and being in the "married" club means being special. If they allow everyone in their club, it loses its exclusivity. Just like allowing black people into white country clubs, just like allowing women voting or in the workplace.
The fight does not come from them losing anything tangible or quantifiable, it comes from losing that feeling of being special.
I agree with you because I think about these things logically. I also cannot overlook divorced people who say they have changed their ways and now believe in the sanctity of marriage, because it doesn't make sense. But that's the whole point, sense is irrelevant.
That, in turn, is the basis of Santorum's argument that gay sex is no different from man-dog sex just because it's not the traditional man-woman sex. They both are outside of the "traditional" definition, and are therefore equally dirty and offensive, and should remain just as outlawed, if not just socially unacceptable. A false equivalence based on Santorum's personal beliefs. The same as claiming that Pakistan and China are un-American because they are not in America, and England is just as un-American for the same reason. Nonsense. And of course the implicit assumption that pro-American is the only patriotic value that anyone should hold.
And that's where the google-bomb started, Santorum spouting nonsense as if it were logical, and ignoring actual logic in the process.
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.
There's no such thing as an ad hominem attack. There's the argumentum ad hominem fallacy, whereby the arguer attempts to say that the opposition is wrong because of some personal flaw. This is not that. It is a straight up attack on the man's character because of the things he's said. No ad hominems.
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.
Santorum's problem is not that Dan Savage's page has too high a ranking. It's that "ricksantorum.com" has too low a ranking.
They're quite close. Both have PageRank of 6. Both have about 1500 inbound links. Both have Alexa traffic ranks around 35,000. A little bit more press and Santorum's own site should move up.
...it's a terrible way to make a point for someone who wants to make a thoughtful decision about who they should elect.
I'm pretty sure all four of us already have all the sources of information that we need, in order to make thoughtful decisions.
As for the rest of the American electorate, this seems to suit them perfectly.
My generation is through playing nice with bad politicians.
I wish that every generation would have your attitude.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Consider this thought exercise. You have an idea that you find important. You think other people will find it important. You want to share it with others. You want people to remember the message long after the messenger. How do you spread your message?
I know I would personally prefer that as a society we have higher level political philosophy debates and discussions and less sound bites and attack ads. But a society tends to have a very short attention span. As individuals, we all tend to have more than enough on our plates at a personal level without having to scale our perceptions up to the broader political arena. So it might be more tasteful and civil if anti-Santorum groups put up sites that detail merely the hows of whys of what they disagree with, rather than vulgar imagery. Unfortunately, our brains tend to gloss over the logical and thoughtful debates, and fixate on the shocking and the vulgar. Which is why the most popular political ad remains the negative attack ad, and why SpreadingSantorum has elevated political displeasure into a decade long bathroom humor punchline that continues to delight and disgust.
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
Insightful?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
First off, IMHO, Santorum is a moron. That being said, I have to agree with some of the complaints about the search engines and the "SEO" experts gaming the engines. If the site in question is truly in the top due to popularity then too bad for Santorum. Forcing the search engines to 'demote' negative rhetoric would do more for censorship then SOPA, PIPA & ACTA combined and is probably a bad idea.
I do however feel that the search engines have become bastion's of crap as of late. For example: I recently needed a replacement fan for my laptop, an ASUS X71VN. My first move is always Amazon. Not finding anything there, I proceeded to ASUS' store, part no longer available. Finally I proceeded to search for: "ASUS" "X71VN" "fan" (quotes included so that google will 'AND' my keywords rather than 'OR'ing them). I was greeted with tons of results, most of which didn't have all of the keywords visible in their content, did not sell fans but laptop power supplies and the multiple sites that returned were pretty much the same vendor with at last count had 25 domain names, all with slightly different presentation, but basically the same vendor. Other usual suspects of useless drivel: fixya.com, driver download spam and one of the latest fucktards yogi.com. It would have taken less time to drive to Fry's with a small screw driver, open one of their display laptops and remove the fan than I spent trying to purchase this ubiquitous item.
I can see having a complaint against this type of Search Engine Gaming (SEG). Google/Yahoo/Bing/Et al and their algorithms are clearly responsible for this kind of garbage floating to the top. The people hurt most by SEG are people trying to use the search engine to find information, not advertising and SPAM.
Let's face it, the search engines are free and they can do what they please. However, we don't have to use them if we don't like them. Mr. Santorum should try and find an SEG expert to out-SEG the "negative" site.
Lastly, a twist on an oldie but goodie:
What is the best platform for discussing politics?
MS-DOS, since you often have to 'C'-Colon-Enter.
-- L8R, guitardood
What are you basing this on? The spreadingsantorum.com site is being ranked using the same criteria as every other site on Google. It ranks #1 because it is deemed to be the most relevant site for the phrase "santorum". If you search for "Rick Santorum" (with or without quotes) then the #1 site is his wikipedia entry.
Whatever the original motives were santorum is now a noun with a certain definition. The fact that it is also a reasonably common surname is irrelevant. The intentions behind the pages that appear in the listings are also irrelevant. Google returns the search results that are the most relevant for any given search terms. If they start changing the results based on outside influences (especially from politicians) then how can any of the results be trusted?
it's a terrible way to make a point for someone who wants to make a thoughtful decision about who they should elect.
But this isn't an attempt to have a thoughtful discussion about who to elect for many reason.
1) This happened well before the election
2) This is a response to Rick Santorum hate speech
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
Perhaps you may have heard liberals bitching about the content of the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, and their willingness to act as an echo chamber and amplifier for very-conservative opinions, some of them verging on crackpot (Obama a Socialist? really? Death panels? really?). There's no need to hypothesize. Difference is, there it's a few very wealthy guys with a strong bias (Murdoch, Ailes) promoting their views. At least in the case of Google and its algorithms, they are reflecting the strong opinions of a much larger number of people, and the corporation itself is (apparently) relatively unbiased.
I'm pretty sure that only applies to Jewish men with Jewish women. If I recall correctly, Jewish men can pay for sex with gentile women. Just not Jewish women.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
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
If you're going to cite the Streisand Effect, don't forget to cite the Streisand Effect. There, FTFY.
Really? You can tell a lot about me based on eight words I said on the Internet, only two of which were even mine? Wow! With your uncanny profiling skills do you make six or seven figures consulting for the feds, or something? Because that's pretty amazing!
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
The problem is, that while your criticism is valid, it often applies to people of both political parties almost equally. Granted, not all of them are running for President, but it isn't fair to single him out while ignoring everyone else doing it.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
On as many message boards, blogs and other websites so that it will be clear that the frothy mixture of feces and lube is not in any way related to Rick Santorum and that "santorum" is not the frothy mixture described.
Columbine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre#Bullying_as_a_rationale
Being a victim doesn't mean you can retaliate anyway you want. Nice try.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Bush's "Miserable Failure" was a Google problem - the perpetrators found a way to trick Google's robots into doing that.
Santorum's "Santorum" search results aren't a Google problem, they're a "millions of people hate you enough to pass the meme along on their web pages" problem.
And after hearing Santorum criticize John McCain for not getting how useful torture is to the US military, I'd say that Dan Savage was way too kind to Santorum - the man deserves worse than what he got.
I could be wrong but I think he is criticising Santorum? I mean comparing homosexuality to bestiality and incest has no basis in reality and is just name-calling of the worst kind -- not the childish kind, but the adult I-will-do-anything-to-spread-hate kind. Much worse than what spreadingsantorum.com is doing.
That kind of santorum is just gross.
Santorum the man was equating homosexuals with monsters who rape their own children.
It's obvious which is more criticism-worthy. That must have been what the GP was talking about. Of course I'm assuming they aren't a colossal hypocrite.
The enemies of Democracy are
Retaliating with words, which is what Savage has done, is just fine, though.
The answer to speech you don't like is more speech, not censorship.
Maybe you should check my posting history before making assumptions? One should know that you make a better point to moderates and even the rare 'reasonable conservative', if you don't start off sounding like a child.
More Republican Poutrage (Score -1, Flamebait)
More Republican poutraging, this time over a 'online poll' that they managed to game in such a way to point a finger at Chris Dodd. Perhaps we could suggest another target? Mitt Romney has money in tax havens and Swiss bank accounts, lets call to investigate him. That wouldn't be politically motivated at all
Re:More Republican Poutrage (Score 5, Insightful)
Chris Dodd is hardly the only politician who has done such a thing, and there is currently no law against it unless there is an actual promised payment (even Delay/Gingrich have been smart enough to avoid that). Some might argue that there should be laws against such 'retirement plans' for politicians, but it would be hard to enforce, and likely unconstitutional. There are however laws against money laundering and using foreign bank accounts for tax evasion, perhaps Mitt has been completely honest, perhaps not. As 'we' all know, online polls are easy to game, it wouldn't be hard to ask them to investigate using a couple of thousand email addresses.
Whenever the GOP is in power they seem to spend more time grandstanding for political advantage than doing the work of the people (for example, 'where's that jobs bill?').
Re:most of the 1100 pirate TV channels likely are (Score:2)
While I'll admit that once in a while I sometimes do enjoy watching football, the game is exactly a competition played by unionized workers between two corporations. What's really silly is that when teachers organize to help their members try to attain the middle class the GOP cries like they are trying to skin alive every tax payer, while the sport unions creates millionaires for throwing a ball around. That really does show 'the children' what sort of skills are valuable in our society.
Re:Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 (Score 1)
Considering that the last negative GDP quarter from the panic of 2008 was the 2nd one of 2009 (just after the stimulus started). The chance of a double dip recession as it used to be label (one or two growth quarters after a recession, followed by a negative one or two), is exactly zero. Sure the recovery has been shallow, but some have succeed, it's America. Do you expect failure? Why people have been pushing the idea that we are still in recession is not nearly as astounding as why they aren't being called out as either morons or political hacks for it.
Re:Occupy Wall Street protesters are creating thei (Score:3, Insightful)
Ron Paul is all about the straw man. He calls his 'The fed', sure it might sound a lot like the the banking arm of our federal government, but to hear him talk it's the root of all evil, well that and the EPA and you can probably find him complaining about fluoride in his old newsletter.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I agree that the Savage Internet campaign may help rather than hurt Santorum win the nomination. GOP primary voters oppose gay marriage by 70%. http://www.people-press.org/2012/02/07/growing-public-support-for-same-sex-marriage/
It's hard to say, however, what effect it may have in the general election, which will include Democrats and Independents. Among all voters, opinion about gay marriage is evenly divided.
But I don't think a majority of all voters agree with Santorum that homosexuality is the same thing as the sexual abuse of dogs. Santorum's anti-gay pronouncements go far beyond the issue of gay marriage. To the extent that Savage's site exposes Santorum's extremism, it will help Obama, but I'm not convinced that most people will make the leap from anal froth to anti-gay bigotry.
Damn, was not aware of this:
In 1996, after Santorum's pregnant wife delivered prematurely (the newborn survived for just two hours), the couple took the dead preemie home to meet the other siblings. Honest! (There is no calculating how traumatic this experience was for the young ones.)
Gabriel Michael's lifeless little body was shown to the three Santorum kids (aged six, four and one). For several hours the wigged- out parents encouraged them to cuddle with it, snapped photos, sang lullabies and held a private Mass at their former Pittsburgh residence. Santorum says he and Karen brought the corpse home so their children could "absorb and understand that they had a brother."
And he's worried about the google result?
...some smartass linked the candidate's name with $upleasantact,
Ya know, there are a lot of people that think anal sex, with proper lubrication, is actually enjoyable.
Savage didn't define the act, he defined the byproduct.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Never wrestle with a pig: You both get all dirty, and the pig likes it.
While I'm not a very politically active (besides spouting out some stuff online most weeks), I have been both canvasing and on the phone bank for the Democratic party. So it's likely that I've done much more to affect political change than you. Also, I don't claim to be perfect and recently lost my temper when talking to a birther, but at least I know for a fact that such actions are the worst way to change minds
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
If you take the anal sex out of politics....
Then all we have left is water sports.
(Think trickle down.)
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
There are, of course, two Stephen Colberts - one's a TV character who's a Republican, and the other's an actor, who's a liberal. One of them thinks the other is an idiot, and he's in a good position to know. But I'd take Colbert the Character over Romney, and I'd take Colbert the Actor over Obama.
Bullying is usually just "words" so, what is your problem with bullying?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
This is crap.
If searching for the KKK leadership somehow , through sheer public outrage and the collective , uncoordinated effort that incited resulted in some nastiness about the KKK's views to pop up who would say Google has a problem and the KKK is being victimized?
Rick Santorum has major mental illness- that's fact, not an opinion. He's in deep denial about AGW and loudly espouses theories which are in direct conflict with physics and chemistry. His opinions on homosexuality are more of the same and in direct conflict with established psychology. It's not society's fault if Rick Santorum is a regressive denier know-nothing who through sheer ignorance supports ecocidal mass murder and homophobic viewpoints .
Given the implications of AGW upon all of us and all our children, Santorum should consider that he's getting off easy being lampooned only for his anti-scientific position on homosexuality.
.. last name for anyone, let alone a politician, to have.
Is the family name derived from an occupation or behavior, such as "miller" or "hunter"? :-)
Well, apparently, you only have to fool the majority of people for a little while.
Mitt Romney wins the Maine Republican caucuses
"The Associated Press is reporting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has won the Maine Republican caucuses to defeat rival Ron Paul by a small margin. According to Reuters, 95 percent of the votes have been counted, and Mr. Romney has 39 percent of the votes thus far with Mr. Paul currently sitting at 36 percent."
since santorums political goals are to incite hate instead of live and let live isn't it fitting he gets as good as he gives? Why are these search results a problem?
Santorum's problem is neither a Google problem nor a search engine problem; his problem is that he's fucking asshole.
The public discourse is not dominated by Google or Bing or any other index; it's dominated by what people say. Google tends to relay what people say, and it generally does not censor anything that is not an artificial manipulation by a spam network. It didn't censor "These WMD cannot be located." and it didn't censor "Did you mean 'french military defeats?'"
If people are expressing their view that Santorum is a fucking asshole, then no amount of fixes or disclaimers on Google's index will change that. Stephen Colbert will still grin and say that to him the name Santorum is synomyous with leadership - and nothing else. Bloggers and commenters will still chortle over sentences like "Romney squeezes out Santorum" or "Santorum talks himself into a lather". It's entirely his own fault, because homophobia, unlike homosexuality, actually is a choice. Being an asshole in public sometimes results in people publicly saying that you're an asshole.
Well, there are two facts to consider here:
1) I don't actually know what the value of $unpleasant act is. Context in the article and other comments leads me to think that it's rather less mundane than normal homosexual acts, though maybe that's all it is. I can't look at the moment, I'm at work.
2) I was basing my definition of "unpleasant" on how the campaign would see things, not my personal view. I don't really care where people choose to poke or be poked as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Of course by "publicly expressed his personal disapproval of homosexual perversions" you mean wanting to legislate discrimination into our laws and ram intolerance down our throats.
He said a bunch of stuff that offended people, and the offended people didn't just sit idle and take it. Why should he get protection from the consequences of his own speech?
"But this one goes to 11!"
You don't know what bullying means.
I find being offended by me offensive.
Even if you trade marked it any one is free to use it. You can't stop me from naming my kid the_raptor. At that point if my kid want's to sell slashdot posts they can call them the_raptor's slashdot posts and you can't do a thing about it, regardless of your trade mark.
I find being offended by me offensive.
There is really no evidence that any 'gaming' is going on.
On the internet, the website defaming his name is simply more popular than he is.
For some reason you make the assumption that I think what Santorum said was ok, I decidedly do not think that or that Santorum should get a pass on his comments. I think the comparison he made crossed the line so far he should have been removed from office. I’m actually somewhat disgusted that Santorum can even be making a run at the nomination. I'm totally fine with Savage's site being ranked so high and I'm fine with almost everything he said. If Savage made Rick Santorum synonymous with closed minded homophobe I'd be fine with that, but he didn't he made the name a sex term, that's line I think was crossed. I disagree with your belief that the only way to win is to go negative or go tit for tat. Let them say their stupid things. Call them out on it. Show everyone their idiocy. You will win over new people which will bring change. Be as polarizing as they are and all you do is isolate yourself. You begin to look petty and ignorant and people stay away. Do you really want to become what you call out the Republicans for?
This didn't happen because some guy did it to Santorum. This happened because Santorum attacked a portion of the population and was refuted in a way that was both graphic and spoke to the nature of Santorum's bigotry. Sure the racists on the far tip of the right wing could make all kinds of vulgar depictions of obama and put them on the internet, (and they have,) but when people see them they roll their eyes and move on. When people see spreading santorum, they don't roll their eyes, they nod.
People have tried to do this to Obama and they can't, because no such protest exists.
In no way am I saying there aren't legitimate protests about Obama, but nothing that would make America as a whole decide a website like this one was fitting.
I'm not sure how you drew your conclusion. I said up front I thought what Santorum said was horrible. I don't think Santorum should get a pass, as a matter of fact as a public official I think he should be held to an even higher standard, in fact I thought Santorum should have been removed from office in 2003 for his comments and was ecstatic when he lost the election in 2006.
Let me paraphrase Londo Mollari:
Vir, fairness has nothing to do with politics!
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
So the current situation with Catholics forcing their religious beliefs via contraceptives on non-catholics and Santorum trying to force his religious views on homosexuality on atheists is not analogous?
How is Santorum's attempt to force a belief set different than the Taliban trying to force a belief set?
I find being offended by me offensive.
I guess this is the difference between your view and my view. I see Savage's redefinition of Santorum's name as only loosely related to what he said. If he made Rick Santorum equal closed minded homophobe much like Benedict Arnold equals traitor, that would be valid. You're right, Santorum was immature and exceptional ignorant first, and he should have been reprimanded, in my mind removed from office, for what he said but he did it first is no excuse.
Or no one really cares. It's a fairly common practice. The Clinton's had nothing to do with New York until Hillary wanted a seat in Congress.
I find being offended by me offensive.
So your position is that no one can say anything bad ever?
I find being offended by me offensive.
Are you saying that the world would have been a better place if Columbine had not happened? Before you answer, remember that Columbine is the pivotal point in our countries history where the populace found out that being a bully could have life threatening backlashes. It is the point that bullying began being seen as a problem.
You'll also notice that Santorum's wikipedia entry mentions Dan Savage and the neologism.
The stain of santorum is now permanent, and nothing could be more appropriate. It is an indelible scarlet letter written in santorum on the forehead of Santorum. It will never, ever go away. How seldom is there justice so perfect?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yes, Hillary's a carpetbagger, but that's /so/ not the same as essentially stealing money from a school district.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Someone in government attempting to legislate discrimination against people engaging in a natural, consensual and loving act is not "expressing a personal opnion".
The best people like myself can hope for is that you and your preferred political representatives never get power.
I don't have an issue with opposing gay marriage.
I have an issue with rewarding marriage of any form with official benefits (tax or otherwise). Cut out all of the benefits and there's no need to officially recognise gay marriage - or indeed, to refuse to recognise it.
As a result of this "namecalling" I've been aware of Rick Santorum's bigoted views for years.
I'd say that's damn effective criticism.
I stole this Sig
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!
So, two wrongs make it right? Is that your position?
My position is that bullying is wrong, retaliation is wrong
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I could care less if people wan't to voice their opinions how much they hate Santorum, or Obama. What gets me is when someone manipulates the Internet (which is suppose to be for the people) to try and shove down my throat someone's view. These sort of tactics are illegal in the business world, why should it be any different with free speech! If you don't like what someone has to say, don't listen to them, and don't muffle someone out because you don't like it. How can people trust Google when it's clear they can manipulate results in their favor?
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
If Santorum was an "ordinary human producing cogent and halfway intelligent" things to say in the first place, maybe he would get the same treatment. But when your stance is there is no difference between bestiality and homosexuality, you have to expect people aren't just going to accept that and not call you out on it.
As for proof of wanting to legislate discrimination, Santorum wants laws passed defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. That is sexual discrimination against homosexuals and no amount of spin can change that.
You also need to get out and learn a bit more. Only ignorant people would think all homosexuals "love having stuff rammed down their throats." Do you also believe all women "love having things rammed down their throats" or is your intolerance only limited to male homosexuals? I don't believe wanting equal rights for all people is the same as being an advocate for homosexuality either. But I guess if you choose to live your life in a world of only extremes of black and white, I guess anybody defending the rights of a homosexual MUST be a homosexual themselves, right?
"But this one goes to 11!"
raising children isn't easy and the expenses occur /before/ you have them.. if you remove the benefit one way, you better damned be ready to tell me how you're going to put it back! A "planning to have a baby in two years" tax cut sounds damned silly (and is the same thing as) a tax cut for marriage. It's for the children. The institution is abused, however, when tax benefits are given in the absence of children now or in the future. When children aren't involved a civil agreement (which can be called marriage for all it's worth) will suffice to give one's mate certain legal authorities.
Gay or straight doesn't matter - its the presence or absence of children. Don't be so quick to get rid of benefits you (and me and everyone "normal") is damned happy (aka healthy) to have!
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
The fake residency is the only thing I was addressing.
I don't know enough about the school thing to respond to that point.
I find being offended by me offensive.
How do you make Santorum == "closed minded homophobe" if you /dont/ say something obvious? Do you think posting the comment to a local corkboard is enough? Something exuberantly topical /had/ to be chosen or we wouldn't be talking about it now - and no "Santorum == homophobe" opinion would have been recorded in history by those who felt deeply offended and have the same right to talk *hit that Santorum does. Literally.
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
Rick Santorum has systematically tried to stigmatize and discriminate against an entire minority group by opposing all forms of recognition of same sex relationships, opposing anti-housing and employment discrimination legislation, hate crime legislation, etc., etc.
Dan Savage made a poop joke about him.
Different magnitudes of bullying, I'd say.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
If Rick Santorum had his way, abortion doctors would be facing murder charges, probably even capital punishment.
Santorum wants anal sex to be illegal. Santorum wants contraceptives to be illegal. Santorum wants abortion to be illegal, even if the woman was raped by her own father.
Sometimes I have to wonder if he would call for stoning homosexuals if he could get away with it. I guess he'll have to settle for stripping them of their civil rights and treating them like second-class citizens.
That might not be 100% analogous to the Taliban, but to call such comparisons "flippant" suggests to me that you're not all that familiar with Santorum's platform.
:(){
So the current situation with Catholics forcing their religious beliefs via contraceptives on non-catholics
Are you referring to the situation where the government wants to force your views on contraceptives on Catholic employers? In that case: no one holds a gun to your head and force you to work for a catholic. If you want condoms you can pay for them using your own money, try to find someone that will give them to you for free or find a new employer that will give you condoms. It's only one side doing any forcing here: your side.
Spelling/grammar nazis welcome (English is not my first language and I am trying to improve my spelling/grammar)
On the internet, the website defaming his name is simply more popular than he is.
Which is a problem given that people searching for his name aren't searching for some vile, childish "definition" that has nothing to do with him.
Again, if "Obama" were to be defined as something like that it wouldn't be the first thing to come up in search regardless of how well it's gamed.
And, to those of you modding me down: why not jump in here and discuss it instead of acting like I'm a troll or something?
Do you have ESP?
Children are a lifestyle choice these days. Dont have them if you cant afford them - I subsidise them (through education, child benefit and health) far too much already.
Anyway, why the big fat assumption only married people have children? How about cohabiting couples, what about happy threesomes, why not a single person that chooses to have a family? Dont impose your worldview and its constraints on the rest of us.
Especially dont expect us to pay for it.
huh? Google hasn't manipulated anything. You sound confused
No one has been silenced. Anyone who wants to actually see Santorum's web page can just click on that next link.
I haven't stated my views. Please don't put words in my mouth.
I find being offended by me offensive.
I searched for his name for a 'vile childish "definition"' once and got exactly what I was looking for. Those who wanted to see the guy's website should just click the link below it.
As for Obama, there are many people who have spent a good deal of effort to link his name to all kinds of things. None the less, when I search for 'Obama' I don't get a website about Socialist Muslims as my top link. The difference is that Obama is a generally respectful human being as politicians go. Santorum brought this on himself in a way that someone like Obama simply never will. If more people rolled their eyes at the definition, than those who gave it a nod, it wouldn't be #1.
Santorum's problem, not Google's.
Marriage is a sacred institution to these people, and being in the "married" club means being special.
Especially ironic when the Christian divoce rate is identical to the national average.
Marriage is sacred enough to preclude people you don't like I guess, as long as that person you don't like is someone other than your spouse.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
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.
Yes, that is the definition of "satire".
Bullying, by definition, targets someone of less power or status. Satire is the mockery of a political or social figure with the intent to portray them as ridiculous.
I apologize for putting words in your mouth. I should have referred to pro contraceptives views and the pro contraceptives side instead.
Spelling/grammar nazis welcome (English is not my first language and I am trying to improve my spelling/grammar)
So.. a man who is profoundly unfair in his policy-defining positions against an entire group of people wants me to understand that someone else is being unfair to him? Good luck. The entire point of SpreadingSantorum is the irony... and it's delicious.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
It's a dirty tactic to lure people from the real site. Nothing I hate more than landing at a bogus websites. And Google is supppse to rank pages by their validity, so how could they get this mixed up, maybe they need to fix it.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Ergo, you are accusing Dan Savage of cyber bullying Rick Santorum. Ergo, you are siding with Rick Santorum. Ergo, dave420 has correctly called you out for what you are.
Yes I am accusing Dan Savage of cyber bullying Rick Santorum, while I also see it as protected speech. What do you call such actions? Well, beside something along the lines of 'turnabout' or 'fair play' and simply 'satire', as none of them are specific enough. Wikipedia calls it a "Neologism" but that simply describes a new recent word rather than how it came into being used. "To Savage..." seems too vague for me and would be more of a push-back on it's creator. Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling to prosecute Dan Savage via the latest cyber bulling laws, but there has to be a good name for an activity which is 'An effort to punish someone by using the internet to make derogatory meme of something personal to them'. Whatever you call it (revenge?), the result of this particular turn of events will likely this new meaning for 'frothy ass mixture' will stay in our language, whereas Senator Santorum himself will fairly quickly fade from view (He's major asshat IMHO, with plenty to criticize without ever resorting to name-calling)
In fact, I'm surprised that he appeared on the national stage at all. The only thing that he was really know for nationally was about how Dan Savage singled him out for years of mocking for some bigoted speech on the Senate floor (like it was the first time a Senator said something stupid in that forum). While few people would make the association, but I would guess that without the additional attention of that particular neologism, the former Senator who failed miserably in his attempt at a third term might never have been even notice at the national level.
Do you realize that all the best slurs are usually started or propagated originally from within those same communities? I guarantee that within a couple of years, if not already, the people most using Santorum in language will be full on bigots. (e.g. "I see that some S@nt0rum leaked out on your pants) It might be news to you, but I've found that reactionary loonies don't care about irony, in fact they seem to relish in it. Also, it's likely that children who's last name is Santorum (or even rhymes with it) will see endless teasing for that 'offense', weather it be the descendant of a singular bigot who offended Dan Savage so deeply or not, it's still a lousy thing.
That being said I would support Dan Savage over Rick Santorum on virtually any other subject and if he's able to turn some of his notably into his 'it gets better campaign', I would argue that at least some good has come out of it.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
You're assuming facts not in evidence: the burden is on you to show that there should be any benefit at all in the first place. Why should there be any tax cut involved in raising children? The idea that there should be seems moronic to me. "Because there's always been one" is not a reason.
Sic doesn't mean what you think it means.
It's not. Next question?
Rick Santorum's problem is Rick Santorum's platform and politics.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Santorum doesn't have a Google Problem, America has a Santorum Problem - too much of it smeared on it's face.
No, I'm neither "liberal" nor Democrat, but this election's pretendents for GOP's nomination really look like a freak show. Seriously, if this is the best you can offer or (more importantly) agree on, than you shouldn't bitch about Obama or Hillary, you deserve them.
Troll 2.0 Fear my asocial networking!
What an Obummer...
It just goes to prove that freedom of speech does not include the freedom to avoid any repurcussions from your speech.
I'm all in favour of murderous racists and child rapists employing their freedom of speech: it makes it so much easier to track them down.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
That doesn't say ANYTHING about incest. Nothing but selection bias.
I'm the real Vorokrytin P. Winterbuttocks.
Loosely related? Santorum hates sodomy. He hates it. He's said so. He also hates gay people. So we get a gay awesome journalist making a site that redefines Santorum's name into a noun referencing a direct side-effect of one of his most obvious bugbears. That is a classic example of satire. Savage couldn't engage in satire if he wasn't given the fuel, and he (rightly) can't sit by and let this Santorum bigot continue to spew his ignorant hate unchallenged. Savage is just showing everyone what a complete asshat Santorum is, and it's working a charm.
I remember reading Savage's column suggesting his recoinage of santorum (I believe it was the result of a reader competition to come up with something nasty to stick the name to) in the Onion. I thought it was a funny idea at the time and it stuck with me. A part of me giggles every time someone says Santorum.
But who'd have thought then that, a decade down the road, this goofy suggestion by a sex columnist might be standing between Santorum and a presidential run. I mean wow, that's pretty cool.
Anyhow, Google just tries to democratically measure what people are talking about on the internet. If more people associate "santorum" with a form of butt goo than with a politician, that's not Google's fault. Santorum just needs to start a campaign to get links from supportive websites to his campaign page and he can probably get that first page-rank. Even though it'll still be right above "santorum = butt goo". But, hey, that's democracy for you.
First off your description of the situation is incorrect. The government is forcing no views on Catholics. Before this Catholics were free to not use contraception. After this Catholics are still free to not use contraception. What view is being forced on them?
Choosing to do something yourself based on your religious beliefs is religious freedom. Forcing someone else to do something based on your religious beliefs is religious oppression.
The classic example is: Your freedom to swing your arms ends at someone's face. According to you it's the person who get's hit fault for being in the way. I mean they have the choice of not standing there right?
You're saying that if random murder is a religious belief of the murder church then it's a constitutional violation if you prevent members of the murder church from murdering. Yes this is an extreme example but that is on purpose. If one's beliefs are forced on others how do you regulate it? You've forced a situation where the state has to then either sanction churches, sanction specific dogma of the churches, or permit literally any action under the logic that it is a religious belief. That's the complete opposite of separation of church and state.
I find being offended by me offensive.
You may disagree with Santorum, but to compare him to a terrorist group that is responsible for the intentional deaths of hundreds (thousands?) of innocent lives is simply WAY over the top.
... you'll get screwed in the face?
...there really will be a santorum surge this Valentines. ;)
On thing is for sure, IF Santorum gets elected president, Google is going to get ONE MIGHTY PRESIDENTIAL BITCH SLAP. Remember what W did to Iraq and Hussien? That's what happens when you make the President made at you.
I thought of a shorter argument.
Why is the burden on the employee? If Catholics don't want to follow employment law then they shouldn't start businesses. No one is holding a gun to their head.
I find being offended by me offensive.
Why is the burden on the employee?
Unless the government interferes there is no more burden on the employee that want a part of the compensation for his work to be condoms than on the employee that want a part of his compensation to be gold coins. All they have to do is to find an employer that will agree to compensate them the way they prefer.
If Catholics don't want to follow employment law then they shouldn't start businesses. No one is holding a gun to their head.
The Roman Catholic own his business. The government don't own it. It is his. He should be free to offer to trade money (and only money) for work instead of money and condoms. An employee should be free to accept the offer, reject it or try to negotiate. A Roman Catholic employee owns his capacity for work. The government don't own it. It is his. He should be free to offer to trade his work for money (and only money) instead of money and condoms. An employer should be free to accept his offer, reject it or try to negotiate. If an employer and an employee can't agree on the conditions for a trade no trade is done. No one has forced anyone to do anything.*
By creating a law that forbids employing people without giving a part of their compensation for the work in condoms the government points a gun to all employers and potential employers heads and tell them to do it, fire all employees or risk government violence. Before Roman Catholic employers were free to not pay for contraception for their employees. After they are no longer free to not pay for contraception for their employees. The government is forcing the view that it's OK to pay for contraception on Roman Catholic employers. It is also forcing Roman Catholic employees to accept a promise of free condoms as part of their pay. You seem to believe that forcing beliefs on someone is wrong. You should therefore oppose this kind of laws.
* If any Roman Catholics reading this feel the argument is to secular please let this Protestant give you some pointers concerning what the Bible your own church agree is the Word of God (Dei Verbum) has to say about property rights: Exodus 22:1-9, 1 Kings 21:1-20, Leviticus 19:11-15, Romans 2:21, Acts 5:4
Spelling/grammar nazis welcome (English is not my first language and I am trying to improve my spelling/grammar)
My expectation is that the Romney consulting and marketing machine is abusing a weakness in Googles algorithms to 'fake' trending and sentiment. For a motivated group of IT professionals with $$$ to spend, I'm sure it's doable..
Your premise is invalid. The view that's it's OK to pay for contraception is not protected. The view to not use contraception is protected.
Your argument is that since the murder church believes murdering random people is a religious belief they are free to ignore the law against murder.
I find being offended by me offensive.
Sorry about the previous short answer.
You've wandered a significant distance from the original problem. The whole argument you give above is irrelevant. You switched to arguing that the federal government shouldn't be able to create any laws regarding employment. You can replace contraception with minimum wage and your argument is unchanged. You've moved it from a First Amendment Issue to a States' Rights/Federal Powers Issue and thus you are completely off topic.
Additionally the religious text you provide is irrelevant as the country in question is not a theocracy.
If you'd like to address the original issue, specifically why you feel a church has the right to force it's view point on non members, I'd be happy to answer. However if you continue to change the subject I won't bother.
I find being offended by me offensive.
If you 'Google' the topic, you'll discover that the average 12-year-old has already seen about 8,000 murders, 100,000 acts of violence, rape and aggravated assault. In fact, Children's Saturday morning programming shows 30 violent acts per hour. It's therefore not likely you'll be able to control a tsunami of that magnitude. Sad to say, your offspring, as a member of the digerati, is likely exposed to far worse than religious bigotry on a daily basis. As regards fundamentalist belief systems, which are still widely embraced throughout the word, the best thing more liberal-minded parents can do is teach children critical thinking skills. And, perhaps, remember this axiom: Children need less your ‘wise’ counsel – and more your good example. If you practice rational discourse in discussions with you child and others, you might have a fighting chance. .
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.
The heart of the matter isn't a matter of perspective. The heart of the matter is (the Taliban|Rick Santorum) being willing to give religious belief the force of law. If the Taliban didn't have the force of law, the level of enforcement would be irrelevant.
Sometimes calling a monster a monster is necessary. The idea that he "merely" wants to incarcerate homosexuals rather than execute them is the part that should make you disgusted. The fact that the Taliban is more brutal doesn't change Rick Santorum's failings. If the people living under today's Taliban had stopped them long ago when they weren't significantly worse than any other group, would they be suffering under such oppression today? Keeping our house clean is the only way to prevent the start of that sort of slide, and showing the world Rick Santorum's failings is part of that cleanup.
Virg