Slashdot Mirror
How Google Searches Are Promoting Genocide Denial
merbs writes: If you use Google Turkey to search for "Ermeni Krm", which means "Armenian genocide" in Turkish, the first thing you'll see is a sponsored link to a website whose purpose is to deny there was any genocide at all. If you Google "Armenia genocide" in the U.S., you'll see the same thing. FactCheckArmenia.com may reflect Turkey's longstanding position that the Ottoman Empire's systematic effort to "relocate" and exterminate its Armenian population does not qualify as a genocide, but it certainly does not reflect the facts. The sponsored link to a credible-looking website risks confusing searchers about the true nature of the event. Worse, it threatens to poison a nascent willingness among Turkish citizens to recognize and discuss the horrors of its past.
When I see ads, I ALWAYS assume they are false. Also: ads are influenced about your browsing history. I did not see it and I tried google on several countries. No ad.
Next on /. I googled iPhone and saw an ad for Samsung. OMG,: google is evil.
I am not a fan of Google, as they have way too much power, but I think this is just stoopid.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Ban people with an opposing point of view? Google deciding intentionally what's "true" and "not true"? Only people with approved viewpoints get a chance to place ideas out there?
Perhaps he author might want to take some time to Google "epistemically closure," followed a little later for some basic overviews of the history of mankind.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
There's a difference. Learn to know it. And if you seriously can't tell the difference between a paid link and an actual search result, get AdBlock.
The business model of ad-based internet commerce is bound to have "money talks".
How loud and how visibly depends on the amount paid i guess..
Can we call it that now?
In Germany is illegal to deny the Jewish genocide... in Turkey is illegal to accept the Armenian's genocide!
Every Armenian, with Greeks (who also suffered horribly), Assyrians, Kurds (who still can't teach their language in Turkish schools or publish/broadcast it), e.t.c., honors the 100 years from the Armenian genocide (about 1,5 millions victims), not only because we dislike Turks (o.k., we even hate them), but because forgetting about it will make us again victims: Hitler once said to his officials about the Jews "but who remembers the Armenians...".
German almost torture themselves with their continues self-critic about their past because they don't want to repeat it (and even Jews accept that they have repent) - Turks... well, we Greeks know about them and take measures agaist the future they still plan for us.
They still exist Armenian people who were alive when Turks genicide their families, so some of them could accept the apology of the Turks - but i doubt if ever happens from a nation that make it illegal to even mention the Armenian genocide (warning: you will go to jail if you mention it in Turkey - actually you may be non Turk, mention it outside Turkey, never visit Turkey, and still be convicted from the Turkish "justice"!).
"... and lied like a Turk when he said it." - Mark Twain
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
Dear Armenian folks: while I sympathize with the history of your people, picking a fight with an algorithm is probably not a good use of your time. Everyone knows that Google's search content reflects the views of the wider Internet, and their sponsored links reflect the views of the people who pay them. You might be better off buying your own sponsored link on Google to combat the offensive one.
Have you noticed how Germany is third world nation teetering on the edge of becoming a failed state, so great and horrible is the weight of their collective shame? No? Well, maybe you should considering just fucking admitting. it already. No one cares (except a few Armenians, one assumes.)
I don't know if you've noticed, but you have a few other things on your plate right now what with the Kurds and ISIS and the religious conservative blowhards (you know, the ones who make Texas look like a bunch of simpering progressives) who have all but torpedoed your EU aspirations. This Armenian thing is a softball. Try not to fuck it up.
Click on the advert several times a day. Encourage friends to do the same.
The person funding the ads will only have a limited amount of credit with Google. When they hit their limit, the ads will stop appearing. Repeat every day until the advertiser gets pissed off and pulls the ads.
"Worse, it threatens to poison a nascent willingness"
[citation needed]
So you know it's probably not unbiased information being promoted by Google as accurate, but something that someone is paying to have a link appear before you. So even if you trust Google absolutely (which you shouldn't, since Google simply ranks sites on popularity, not accuracy), you shouldn't trust the sponsored links. At least google makes it obvious which links are sponsored.
Our top link is the Wikipedia article followed by several links that definitely call it a genocide. I guess the Turks only bought a propaganda ad in America because the UK public is already sufficiently brainwashed with the "religion of peace" crap.
please excuse me for not believing you a single word.
we know how the balcans people react when it comes to one of their neighbours. it is pure, deadly hate.
We are talking here as westerners, but try to go to Turkey and talk to the local people. Any mention of the genocide and you have a potential riot in your hands.
I talked to a Turkish taxi driver recently who turned out to be a politician escaped to Britain in the early 1990's as a political refugee. The way he talked and the things he said backed up his claim that he was indeed a politician.
The upshot is that that country is a gunpowder keg, large ethnic and religious groups who are ready to get to each other's throats, and only Mustafa Kemal's brilliance of making it a secular state kept it together until present day. Presenting an official apology for the genocide will give the necessary spark to the local politicians to rip the country apart.
Nothing but the facts!
Google is now supposed to 'vet' the sites they link to as far as authenticity and "proper" interpretations of highly-disputed events?
How the fuck are they supposed to do that?
(Not to mention, the minute such entities - search engines, ISPs, etc - start value-filtering content, you can kiss the moral justification for net neutrality goodbye.)
-Styopa
The problem is not the ads themselves. Advertising is free speech. The problem is that the ads don't show the purchaser (the sponsor) so the reader has no context on potential bias.
Basically Google is enabling astroturf campaigns.
No matter how misleading a political ad is, there is always a "paid for by X" at the end of it. We should require the same of all advertising.
Why is the "genocide" label so important? There was undoubtedly mass murder and mass relocation/"ethnic cleansing".
Do the Armenians get some special prize, or extended privileges because their dead ancestors were victims of "genocide"? Do they get to extort present day Turkey for "reparations" or something?
Furthermore, why doesn't anyone seem to give a damn about the Ukrainian genocide (The "Holodomor") of the 1920s and 1930s? We hear about the Armenians and we hear a lot about the Jews, but even with Ukraine being a focal point for recent news, the genocide of the Ukrainians by the Bolsheviks is skipped over like it never happened.
Google's Armenian Genocide ads are trivial compared to the atrocity of scientific-data in the sponsored "Climate Change" listings.
On the flip side, I guess the "global warming" keywords must be cheaper now that the rhetoric has been forced to shift. Lulz.
Armenians might object to a link that offends them. Turks might object to a different link. Politicians might object to links that (in their view) promotes piracy or terrorism. For god's sake let's not argue that because a link is offensive (to someone) it shouldn't be returned by a search. I worry about Google's undue influence like everyone else, but for the moment, the commercialization of search engines is a better model that politicizing them. Don't like the first return? Click on another link. It's the fucking internet. It's big.
"He's using a quantum encryption scheme! That'll take hours to break!"
Was there an official apology offered for the massacre of refugees in that city ? Cos' that was the whole reason for fire-bombing it, that it was full of refugees. It had no military value.
Google Searches are promoting Alien abduction, antivax crap, white supremacy, black power, that Elvis is still alive, that Hitler died in Argentina in 1986, that Hitler has clones, and that Aspartame isn't bad for you.
The key is that most people quickly develop a sense that they have landed somewhere bad in a moment; just like most people have developed an internal ad-blocker for their eyeballs for that occasional ad that slips through.
"This domain is for sale." is a huge give away for instance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
is what the commenter is referring to.
USA is no better. The History News Network offers this careful parsing of international law and past events to conclude that USA's efforts to "relocate" and exterminate its American Indian population was a very regrettable thing but certainly not genocide.
if there were a Turkish Carl Rove, they'd have deflected media conversation away from their own past to make the USA squirm over its refusal to officially acknowledge its treatment of the American Indians as genocide...
I get Wikipedia when I search.
Isn't this a free-speech issue? Or, even more fundamentally, freedom of opinion?
There are people in the Southern US who refer to the American Civil War "the War of Northern Aggression". From their point of view, that's what it was - slavery was just the excuse. It's not a widely held opinion, but it's theirs to hold.
Russian history books present a very different view of WWII and the aftermath, as compared to Western history books.
If the Turkish government and people believe that what happened does not qualify as a genocide, that is entirely their right. I do not understand the pressure to acknowledge the events of 100 years ago. It's like the XKCD cartoon: someone in the world is wrong! It's history, it's past, and a formal acknowledgement by today's government isn't going to change what happened.
Ok, so someone educate me: what am I missing here?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Google certainly didn't ask for being mandated for governments. But when governments wanted to seize control of search results in name of "war against terrorism" people aplauded. Governments are in charge now, and there are just a couple information hubs they need to care about. So much for the World we've choosen to live in.
-><- no
If anyone is wondering about the Turkish phonology, I inform you that the phrase "Ermeni Krm" is actually something like "Ermeni Kirimi", but with dotless ii. In Turkish, it is not possible a word composed of only consonants, but as you may know, /. doesn't support Unicode.
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
Well, one thing should be quite clear: for factual historical information you do not turn to the media, and I say in this case Google qualifies. You read and you ask the proper people, and you learn. You can't argue or discuss about a topic (*) if your knowledge base comes solely from the internet - well, you can, but you won't ever be taken seriously, and rightfully so.
(*) Of course we're not talking about hardware reviews or celeb gossips...
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
When the secret documents of their cult appeared on the Usenet newsgroup 'alt.religion.scientology', the Internet awareness of their "galactic emperor Xenu killed the alian Thetans, and they have been reborn as all your bad thoughts" inner beliefs grew. But when they tried to censor the newsgroup, awareness *exploded*. Appalled at this and at the increasing rank of anti-scientology websites in Google, they created the largest website in the world. According to the former webmaster, Jurian Massena[sic?], the site had so *much* content that it actually crashed Google databases.
It was fascinating stuff: I met that webmaster after he left the cult. They simply did not care about the quality of the content on the website, they were just trying to flood the search engine, much as they tried to flood the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup with thousands of bulky messages a night. That led to a lot of Usenet sites dropping the newsgroup, because they couldn't handle the bulk. Over the course of six months while the attack was active, it was roughly half a Terabyte of spam.
Half a Terabyte: In 1999!!!!
It's described as "sporgery" in Wikipedia, it was a fascinating attack on free speech.
Say it ain't so! They'd never do that! /sarc
Who could have guessed that everyone on the planet thinks JUST LIKE YOU DO, and nobody thinks differently. OH JOY!
Frightened of fairies, honey?
My top 5 search results are;
1. Wikipedia
2. Google news, which hits the LA Daily News first
3. history.com
4. armenian-genocide.org
5. NY Times
Aside from Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia - where have European countries promoted genocide?
Mao's China?
PolPot's Cambodia?
Rwanda?
Or was it the Sandinista's extermination of native americans?
Lying is not going away. Learn to detect it.
It was genocide. A bunch of ad buys and denials by Turkey do not change the indisputable truth that they committed genocide against the Armenians. It was pure, murderous savagery, and that doesn't deserve another "perspective". There is no "other side" to this story.
please excuse me for not believing you a single word.
we know how the balcans people react when it comes to one of their neighbours. it is pure, deadly hate.
Do you think all brainwashing happens as shown in horror flicks, with mad scientists attaching electrodes to people violently fighting back? No, most of it happens in broad daylight, where unsuspecting and naively trusting minds are manipulated at places just like good old slashdot, with finely controlled messaging and carefully orchestrated hit-jobs just like the one we have going here. You're brainwashed and you don't even know it.
Search tearm is wrong, it should pretty much be "Ermeni Soykrm".
There is a current project to rank websites based on the quality of info contained in them.
Everyone living and alive today is only alive because their forefathers were blood thirsty racist bastards who killed and raped those whom they considered to be unequal to themselves. The jews whom the media loves to play the part of the martyr engaged in enough genocidal killing in their days to make isis blush. (ask about King David's penis belt). Similarly the so called native americans killed of and slaughtered whole sale the real indigenous populations. Life is brutal. Everyone of you liberal bleeding hearts who lament the injustice of the world have a duty first and foremost to kill yourself. You have no right to your priveleved white position just based on an accident of your birth. When you are dead it will allow room for others who do not have the qualms about using violence and power to rise to power to rise to power. Might always makes right, and the winner writes the history. e.g there has never been a war that to good guys lost. This is as it should be. The really bizarre phenomeno is people willing choosing to opt out of the struggle to power. These people will be written out of history. (talking about you white people. no kids no future)
So let's have a shout out for genocide. If the turks han't killed all those Armenians, turkey would be called Armenia. Of coarse We would have bleeding hearts lamenting the genocide of turks by Armenians. Thank god the side of right won that war.
Check your facts before spouting off about the Mass Media.
According to this link http://www.nationalww2museum.o... the death total for WW2 was 90M so 80M for Japan might be a tad high. Granted the totals for China are in dispute but still complaining about the Mass Media getting it wrong then putting in such a number is just wrong.
the first result i see is the Wikipedia page on the Armenian genocide. that's got it's own problems, but that's neither here nor there. using a proper Ad Blocker (i have uBlock installed) plus a good Hosts file (i'm using Hostsman and the MVPS hosts file) prevents Google's sponsored crap from showing up at all.
It's "ermemi soykırımı" not krm (though i can't explain how the s and the y disappered).
But, since 99% of all humans are morons (plus or minus 3 percent margin of error), you have a good point.
..except for their own reputation. It's not like there will soon be an election where americans will need to vote fot turkey.. so this isn't comparable to ads for products or elections.
A US-based search for "armenian genocide" does not show the link (I get wikipedia, history.com, news links, armenian-genocide.org (probably partisan, I'm not checking), unitedhumanrights, genocide-museum...). "Ermeni Krm" does bring up the link, but it's clearly marked as a paid ad just like any other sponsored link, so I can't say it disturbs me too much.
I can understand most of those, but why add this as it is clearly a scientific truth.
and that Aspartame isn't bad for you.
Numerous scientific studies have returned that Arpartame is perfectly healthy in the doses used unless you have a genetic issue with it that causes much worse issues.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
What about the white genocide?
Will you censor it with -1?
It is very unfortunate that this article has a "baseline assumption" that the Armenian Genocide claim is true. Building on this assumption the author is suggesting that any attempt to pose an opposing opinion is bad and must be blocked. Where is the scientific method in this mind set? How could one find the truth, if that is the objective, with such a single-minded stance? We hear awfully a lot what the Armenian side has to say. Shouldn't we also listen the other side of the issue? What is wrong with the Turks trying to reach out with paid ads? Don't you think it is relevant to know that Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire had started an insurgence with the support from Russia and killed thousands of Turkish people right in the middle of WWI? During WWII "without any tangible reason" US government had brought Japanees descendant American citizens into camps. Now, consider what the US would have done if those same citizens had sided with the Japan and started an insurgency in the US homeland while the US Navy is fighting a war teeth and nail in the Pacific? How is that any different from the story back in 1915? Shouldn't we talk about why no scholar from Armenia or any Western country for that matter has looked into the Ottoman archives that were made available years ago by the Turkish government to help clarify the topic? Shouldn't we talk about the lack of any physical evidence of "systematic extermination" of Armenians in the Ottoman era? Shouldn't we talk about the Armenian terrorist organization ASALA and numerous Turkish diplomats they murdered in 70s thru early 90s. The article paints Turks as the bad guys and offers Cyprus conflict as yet another example. However, I see no mention of the EOKA and the atrocities committed by the Greek Cypriots. How was that not a genocide? The Internet, as in other dimensions of life, is full of good and bad information. As an information age citizen it is everybody's responsibility to use this powerful tool, that is the Internet, to discover the truth for theirselves. Several commenters here hit the fundamentally broken argument in this article---it is outright stupid to trust and ask any organization (Google, US government, EU congress, etc.) to make decisions about what is right and what is wrong on our behalf. It is stupid to ask Google to block ads and it is stupid to have senates pass laws to label some event 100 years ago as something. If we start letting that what is to stop this filtering and labeling at this rather peripheral topic i.e. Armenian genocide claim. May be next time "the deciders" will focus on something that has more immediate impact on our daily lives and choose to block climate change supporting pages or deem any discussion of police brutality to be harmful for the society or suppress any page that argues that distribution of wealth in the world is skewed. If you think about it all these arguments offend some group in the world. So, how would you feel about that?
Someone is suggesting Google is responsible for the content of it's ad customers?
The political/religious/historical views portrayed in a website should determine if Google accepts them as an ad customer?
Also, [citation needed] for your whole frickin' post. Japan are portrayed as the victims of WW2? Not in any "mass media" I've ever seen they're not, and I've lived in four different western countries.
And the '80 million' figure is just not credible, any way you slice it. In 1941 the Japanese army numbered about 1.7 million men. Did they really kill more than 40 people each? How?