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.

Comments

It is an ad.

[houghi]

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.

Re:It is an ad.

[Cafe Alpha]

Ever watch political ads sway an election or referendum? People are really stupid.

Re:It is an ad.

[itzly]

Sure, but it's silly to blame Google for putting it there.

Re:It is an ad.

[Anonymous Coward]

The ads aren't just false, they're often dangerous. Search for a piece of software, such as VLC and the top results are poorly differentiated ads pointing to somewhere other than the official download site. From that alternate site will be a repackaged version that, at best will have an installer bundled with crapware. Quite probably loaded down with some sort of virus or backdoor for viruses. Next theing you know supermegawindowsantivirussepreme2015 is explaining to you that 32,485 threats have been detected and that the full version for $49.99 will be able to clean them. When you get the full version, it will explain how you can get all your now-encrypted files back for the low, low price of $2,000.

Re:It is an ad.

[nbauman]

So Turkish nationalists are buying Google adwords. What's the problem with that? It's an exercise of free speech (for a position that I disagree with).

I have Armenian (and Greek) friends, so I know the basics. Armenians tell me about losing grandparents, aunts and uncles in 1915. This is of course the 100th anniversary. The personal tragedies are overwhelming, and if that wasn't enough, there is the further tragedy of destroying the Armenian and Greek communities and culture in Turkey, and the end of Ottoman tolerance.

I realize there's a debate over the word "genocide." The official Turkish position is, "Let the historians decide." I'm not sure what good that does them. The New York Times leans towards "genocide." http://www.nytimes.com/ref/tim... There is some symbolism here that I can't follow too well.

There is also a small, slowly growing movement among Turks to acknowledge the Armenian position. I don't know how long it will take. I'm not as optimistic as I used to be about world peace and reconciliation.

But Google isn't doing anything wrong.

Re:It is an ad.

[Anonymous Coward]

the funny thing about all this is that the term "genocide" was coined precisely to describe what the ottomans did to the Armenians. no kidding, look it up. the author of the term is known.

Re:It is an ad.

[rmdingler]

So Turkish nationalists are buying Google adwords. What's the problem with that? It's an exercise of free speech (for a position that I disagree with).

I have Armenian (and Greek) friends, so I know the basics. Armenians tell me about losing grandparents, aunts and uncles in 1915. This is of course the 100th anniversary. The personal tragedies are overwhelming, and if that wasn't enough, there is the further tragedy of destroying the Armenian and Greek communities and culture in Turkey, and the end of Ottoman tolerance.

I realize there's a debate over the word "genocide." The official Turkish position is, "Let the historians decide." I'm not sure what good that does them. The New York Times leans towards "genocide." http://www.nytimes.com/ref/tim... There is some symbolism here that I can't follow too well.

There is also a small, slowly growing movement among Turks to acknowledge the Armenian position. I don't know how long it will take. I'm not as optimistic as I used to be about world peace and reconciliation.

But Google isn't doing anything wrong.

Two takes from this:

Free speech, first and foremost, especially to the folks who disagree with me.

Eyes wide open, a very close second, get your important information from as many sources as possible.

Re:It is an ad.

[oobayly]

I had a script that used to I used to run whenever I found somebody trying to sell a rebadged package like Open/LibreOffice, GIMP, etc. It would simulate clicks on the offending advert via a list of proxies until that advert disappeared - generally they have a fairly low daily click allowance so that they don't get hit by large fees from google.

Re:It is an ad.

[stephanruby]

The official Turkish position is, "Let the historians decide." I'm not sure what good that does them.

Is that a new position? Or does Turkey like the Armenians better than the Kurds somehow?

When Noam Chomsky wrote about the treatment of Kurdish people in Turkey, the position of the Turkish government was to prosecute Noam Chomsky's Turkish publisher.

Re:It is an ad.

[CastrTroy]

This is what is wrong with advertising on the internet. It's become too automated. All that's required to get your ad up on the internet is for you to put down the money. Nobody reviews the ad to see if it's for a legitimate product. Nobody checks that false claims aren't being made. And the websites wonder why people resort to using things like Adblock Plus. If they held ads to a higher standard, then they could demand more money for ads, and they would have a much smaller likelihood of people blocking them. With the current state of ads on the internet, I avoid them as much as possible. If they were high quality, less intrusive ads, I might start paying attention more.

Re:It is an ad.

[matfud]

"Lemkin was also a close relative of genocide victims, losing 49 relatives in the Holocaust. However, his work on defining genocide as a crime dates to 1933, and it was prompted by the Simele massacre in Iraq.[5]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

Re: It is an ad.

[Crashmarik]

i think YOU are stupid. powerful rhetoric can lead anyone into hellish rabbit holes.

goebbels, lenin, robespierre, bush YOU NAME IT.

You are accusing George W Bush of powerful rhetoric ?

The alternative is... What, exactly?

[Etcetera]

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.

Re:The alternative is... What, exactly?

[ultranova]

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?

"I hate Jews" is a point of view. "There was no Holocaust" is a flat-out lie. You are entitled to your own opinions and interpretations, but not your own facts. The latter makes you wilfully insane.

And frankly, Turkey is being a moron here. They could simply ignore all this, it happened 100 years ago after all. Or they could issue an official apology. They could even frame the Armenians as nasty people who had it coming, evil as such approach might be. But instead they pick the one strategy that has no chance of success whatsoever: pretending nothing ever happened. It's enough to make one question whether someone in Turkey wishes to ride a national persecution complex to power.

Re:The alternative is... What, exactly?

[Shadow of Eternity]

It's enough to make one question whether someone in Turkey wishes to ride a national persecution complex to power.

Why not it's working fuckin great for Hamas...

Re:The alternative is... What, exactly?

[Cytotoxic]

I'm pretty shocked how quickly people jump to censoring ideas they don't agree with in this society. The irony of so many people on a public forum like Slashdot advocating for complete censorship of speech they find distasteful or wrong is thick. I would say there is a new mood to suppress opposing ideas, but I think history shows that there is nothing really new about it. Still, The Onion covered this sentiment pretty thoroughly the other day.

Trescott University president Kevin Abrams confirmed Monday that the school encourages a lively exchange of one idea. “As an institution of higher learning, we recognize that it’s inevitable that certain contentious topics will come up from time to time, and when they do, we want to create an atmosphere where both students and faculty feel comfortable voicing a single homogeneous opinion,”

Re:The alternative is... What, exactly?

[TheRhinoplast]

Where the subject matter is not of a measurable or falsifiable nature, Google would have a third category, which flags pages with "Who gives a shit?".

Re:The alternative is... What, exactly?

[dave420]

They learned from the best - Israel.

Re:The alternative is... What, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some factual errors here.

"Armenians as the name implies are Aramaic" (I've corrected your spelling too)

Wrong. Armenia is the name used by non-Armenians to refer to the country. "Hayastan" as we call it, is named after Hayk, the patriarch of Armenians. Depending on your reference, you'll find that Armenia originates in reference to Hayk's descendent Aram (your mileage will vary).

You might be confusing Armenians with the Arameans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arameans). Armenians predate (and coexisted with) the Arameans. Armenians aren't Arameans nor do they speak Aramaic. Armenian is an Indo-European language - it's predecessor is Proto-Indo-European.

Not searches. Ads.

[Lumpio-]

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.

Re:Not searches. Ads.

[Ginger Unicorn]

I think the issue is more that people who don't know better (probably the majority of people) will assume those ads at the top of the search results are just results, since they look very similar, just with a little yellow box that says "ad" under the main link. This box is easily overlooked by inattentional blindness if you're not looking to make sure you aren't looking at an ad.

It's all very well telling people to learn the difference, but most people won't, and that's not just their problem, it's everyone's problem if liars can pay google to effectively come top of relevant searches, since we have to live with people who will be potentially operating under dangerous false assumptions.

Re:Not searches. Ads.

[houghi]

it's everyone's problem if advertisers can pay google to effectively come top of relevant searches, since we have to live with people who will be potentially operating under dangerous false assumptions.

FTFY

... and lied like a Turk when he said it.

[antiperimetaparalogo]

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

Not in the UK

[Chrisq]

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.

The problem is the ads don't show the sponsor

[hhammermill]

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.

Re:The problem is the ads don't show the sponsor

[StikyPad]

Because that's worked so well for political ads? "Paid for by Citizens for Knowledge? I hate knowledge! I'm not listening to this nonsense!"

Krm

[Flavianoep]

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.

Scientologists did it much bigger

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

What ads?

[axl917]

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

Japan killed 80M, Not so fast there

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

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.