Latest Target In War On Drugs: Google Autocomplete
netbuzz writes "The National Association of Attorneys General met in Boston this week and one panel focused on the 'safe harbor' provision of 1996 Communications Decency Act. Within that broader discussion, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood cited the autocomplete feature in Google search as evidence the company has more control over content than it contends. 'We know they manipulate the autocomplete feature,' Hood said, with his point being that there should be more such manipulation, not less. His primary example: a search on 'prescription drugs online' presents an autocomplete suggestion of 'prescription drugs online without a prescription.'"
...thus began this Anon's War on War
And so is anyone who accepts the proffered autocomplete options without thinking about what he wants to search for.
On the other hand, here's an opportunity for GoogleClippy. "It looks like you're searching for illegal drugs online. How can I help you with that?"
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
The new front in the war on drugs: minor inconvenience. Take that, drugs!
A government official is looking for a moral crusade to fill his time and justify his paycheck. Mississippi Jim, on patrol!
. . . it auto-completes with "The National Association of Attorneys General" . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
http://youtu.be/blB_X38YSxQ
Because they believe that Google should be at the front line of essentially censoring the internet to only return things they feel are 'acceptable'.
The government can't censor you (yet), but if they can strong-arm a company into doing it for them, it must be OK, right?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Well, I was going to invite you to my annual "worldwide slashdotter tug of war" competition, but now I'm not sure I'll even host it again this year.
When you do something small and nice for a group of assholes, be it the government or the RIAA or whomever, then you set the expectation for that as the bare minimum across the board. There's no gratitude, they'll only say that you aren't doing enough. The second they started censoring autocomplete, it was an inevitability that crap like this would happen.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Drugs will fuck up your life kid, so if we ever catch you using, buying and selling them we'll kidnap you and throw you in a cage and fuck up you and your family's lives.
Typical politics.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
other nefarious and dastardly plots these brave attorneys have uncovered:
1. an image search for 'boobies' using google image search can and will display, actual breasts.
2. Google translate can and will translate nearly a dozen highly offensive english words into any of more than 20 different languages.
3. a youtube search for 'collateral murder' will produce a video of american soldiers murdering journalists in iraq.
4. Google searches for the phrases "edward snowden" or "Julian Assange" provides shockingly inappropriate, unbiased information pertaining to united states foreign and domestic policy.
5. despite dire and repeated warnings by their trustworthy IT staff, google will in fact let you google the word 'google' without any safeguard for the catastrophic consequences that ensue.
6. despite providing readily available search results for filthy pill junkies, google search raises the ire of attorneys around the globe as it fails to provide a reliable and affordable source of high quality pure columbian cocaine for todays savvy litigators and high powered firms.
Good people go to bed earlier.
It auto-completes with "gullible"...
I got as far as "Mississippi Attorney General" and stopped reading, because I knew what followed would simultaneously knock points off my IQ and make me weep for the lost potential of a once-sentient species.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine