Google Autocomplete Still Makes Vile Suggestions (wired.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: In December of 2016, Google announced it had fixed a troubling quirk of its autocomplete feature: When users typed in the phrase, "are jews," Google automatically suggested the question, "are jews evil?" Almost a year after removing the "are jews evil?" prompt, Google search still drags up a range of awful autocomplete suggestions for queries related to gender, race, religion, and Adolf Hitler. Google appears still unable to effectively police results that are offensive, and potentially dangerous -- especially on a platform that two billion people rely on for information. Like journalist Carol Cadwalladr, who broke the news about the "are jews evil" suggestion in 2016, I too felt a certain kind of queasiness experimenting with search terms like, "Islamists are," "blacks are," "Hitler is," and "feminists are." The results were even worse. For the term "Islamists are," Google suggested I might in fact want to search, "Islamists are not our friends," or "Islamists are evil." For the term, "blacks are," Google prompted me to search, "blacks are not oppressed." The term "Hitler is," autocompleted to, among other things, "Hitler is my hero."

Comments

What did you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is showing what others are searching for. What else would you expect from humanity?

Re:What did you expect?

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

So, Google has no obligation to prevent its services from being leveraged by those who understand how it works from exploiting search suggestions as a means of disseminating their personal views. Is that what you're saying?

Re:What did you expect?

[religionofpeas]

They should prevent exploitation of their algorithms in general, not just when it suits some particular vocal group.

Re:What did you expect?

[Pinky's Brain]

That's one way to read what he said if you have a mindset which believes Russians cause everything on the Internet you don't agree with.

I assume he meant "humanity is awful and doing awful searches". No exploitation needed.

Re:What did you expect?

[jellomizer]

I see this as a reflection of human kind, not of Google.

As we get more polarized, it gets too easy to see the other group as bad or evil, we tend to forget that the other people have the same set of problems that we do. And are just trying to make it in the world the same as us.

Re:What did you expect?

[ezdiy]

So, Google has no obligation to prevent its services from being leveraged by those who understand how it works from exploiting

Google bombing is exception, not a rule. It simply doesn't happen on this scale.

There are no secret neonazi meetings for this.

The truth is that people simply do search for these things - "are jews nice?" and "are jews evil?", the latter ends up being more frequent as a result of people encountering nazi propaganda elsewhere and following it up by questioning it via google.

Interestingly, whenever a moral outrage happens over some tardy phrase like that (last time, it was "how to have sex with kids"), the media shitstorm actually amplifies the phrase, in ultra-refined Streissand fashion and only then we can talk about the phrases being artificially rated up.

Re:What did you expect?

[Sneftel]

Do you, personally, get your news and personal opinions from Google autocomplete? If so, please stop doing that. That's not what it is for.

Re:What did you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

This!

Using an autocomplete algorithm to base your opinion on what any one subject may or may not be is no way to come to a logical conclusion. Why do we still need to be pointing this out to people in 2018? This isn't some magic eight ball, it's a search engine. Stop treating it as a soothsayer or a modern day Oracle of Delphi.

Re:What did you expect?

[fustakrakich]

"Obligation"? No, its only "obligation" to me is to call up what I search for. It's up to me, the user, to refine the the query and filter results, not them. They should be a mere data dump over a dumb pipe.

Re:What did you expect?

[GuB-42]

I don't think anyone is gaming the system here. It is just that the way you start your query matters.
For example "Islamists" is rarely used positively, and the suggestion reflect that. People genuinely interested in Islam would probably use another term, like "Muslims". "Blacks" is probably more negative than "black people". "Jews", or even worse "jew", is used more negatively than "the Jewish".
As for "Hitler is", why would you type that unless you are expecting something unconventional? People more interested in history are more likely to type "Hitler was", because you know, he's dead.
Google is serving exactly what most people entering these queries want. And if they are disseminating their personal views, they only do it among themselves, not to those who use more "reasonable" search terms.

Re:What did you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

whenever a moral outrage happens over some tardy phrase like that (last time, it was "how to have sex with kids"), the media shitstorm actually amplifies the phrase

As a parent, I read that search as being shorthand for "how to have sex with kids in the house"...

Re:What did you expect?

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

They should prevent exploitation of their algorithms in general, not just when it suits some particular vocal group.

I agree with this. It's interesting that my question was modded down. Who was afraid of my question? Anonymous cowards, I assume, who use their logged on sessions to mod things down they don't like to see, and their AC sessions to make actual comments when they are bok bok bok chicken.

Re:What did you expect?

[farble1670]

The truth is that people simply do search for these things - "are jews nice?" and "are jews evil?"

While that's believable, with what are you backing up that assertion?

Re:What did you expect?

[GameboyRMH]

I think he's saying that Google shouldn't be surprised at vile things showing up in a box populated by unmoderated entries from Random Internet Fuckwads. I'm not. They should moderate the entries if they don't like it.

Re:What did you expect?

[farble1670]

For example "Islamists" is rarely used positively

Among who? The 1.6 billion muslims in the world? Are you sure about that?

Re:What did you expect?

[Lab Rat Jason]

I agree with what your saying here... but I just gotta point out that the world would be equally outraged if google was found guilty of putting a shine on the search results by hiding or depressing results for evil thoughts. I'm not saying there's a fix for this... and perhaps really what I'm saying is that THERE IS NO FIX for this, because humanity is messy, and like a flag in a stiff breeze - there is no equilibrium. We are instead doomed to vacillate back and forth furiously until we're frayed, ripped at the seams, and eventually destroyed.

Re:What did you expect?

[aicrules]

Yes, exactly that. Are jews being autocompleted to Are jews evil? isn't going to make me think "oh jews are evil". That's not how that sort of thing works.

Re:What did you expect?

[sexconker]

I do. Just yesterday I was using vinegar to clean some shit and someone remarked that vinegar is sour, and I said vinegar is bitter.
I went to ye ol' search engine and typed in "vinegar b" and got "vinegar bitter or sour" as a suggestion.

That suggestion told me that this was a thing. Clicking around a few links and reading a bit told me that while I may be outnumbered, I'm not wrong. Most people seem to categorize it as sour, but there are still plenty of us sane people who categorize it as bitter.

Re:What did you expect?

[sexconker]

please don't use such rhetoric ("leveraged", "exploiting", etc)

If you are honest rephrase it like "Google, understanding how its services work exploits search suggestions as a means of disseminating its views"...

?

Re:What did you expect?

[ShanghaiBill]

It's interesting that my question was modded down. Who was afraid of my question?

I am afraid. I don't think you should have been modded down since you raise an interesting point, but I fear that we sometimes go too far in censoring uncomfortable truths. In this case, maybe Google should take action. But we need to be careful. If they censor results for "Jews are ...", a precedent will be set, and they will soon come under pressure to also censor results for "Republicans are ...."

Re:What did you expect?

[sheramil]

In this case, maybe Google should take action.

The vast bulk of humanity is, in the words of Citizen Ted, "a worthless morass of lying, defecating chimpanzees". What precisely should Google do about this? If they are developing AI that will replace us all, that's enough.

Re:What did you expect?

[ezdiy]

Indeed, not an objectively verifiable truth, given that google doesn't share details of it's antispam measures.

Personally, I believe poisoning autocomplete is on par to poisoning the index itself in difficulty. A circumstancial evidence can be found by consulting blackhat seo forums - they mostly hire actual people to do the searches, it's really not something to be easily manipulated. Google antispam is thought to work by making a "bot or not" profile for each user profile it tracks.

As far I can tell, it's not possible to inject phrases at all via anonymous search.

Instances of google bombing work by simply crowdsourcing such credentials (think typical 4chan raids). The issue is that there is way too many of "outrageous" search phrases in the index, and only tiny fraction is traceable back to actual public troll operation.

Now, 'hillary...' phrases and such are entirely different story, and it's entirely plausible there was a secret campaign to poison the index. But for generally "outrageous" stuff, such an attractor is missing.

Re:What did you expect?

[ShanghaiBill]

The vast bulk of humanity is, in the words of Citizen Ted, "a worthless morass of lying, defecating chimpanzees".

My experience is that the vast bulk of humanity are decent people. We shouldn't let a the bottom 10% ruin everything just because they shout the loudest. Slashdot accomplishes that with the moderation system, which can be abused but mostly works well.

What precisely should Google do about this?

I think the best solution is to disable autocomplete for racial and religious terms. That is a neutral approach, and doesn't need constant monitoring.

If they are developing AI that will replace us all, that's enough.

That is a good long term solution. But until Humanity 2.0 is out of beta, we still need to deal with the world as it is.

Re:What did you expect?

[AmiMoJo]

Google has been "censoring" suggestions for terms and names related to things like porn and adult services for many years already.

Re:What did you expect?

[AmiMoJo]

Google wants to make search like the Star Trek computer that can answer natural language questions. But this is kind of like you starting to say "Jews are..." and the computer finishing your sentence with "evil?"

That's how people see it. It's call a "suggestion", not a list of most frequent search terms.

More interesting (to me at least) is the argument that Google search should have some moral responsibility to give certain answers. For example, is someone asks "do vaccines cause autism?" then it's it okay for Google to give them a load of crank sites claiming it does as the top results? Some people argue it's the marketplace of ideas (where bargain basement bullshit seems to be the most popular item) and some argue that there is a public health and child protection issue (even though medical science is wrong sometimes.)

Re:What did you expect?

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

I'm in favor of eliminating all auto-complete. I believe that in all cases, the implementers of auto-complete gain information manipulation powers that are not perceived clearly by the users of auto-complete. Does that make me pro-censorship? Does it make me anti-user? Does it make sense to view this as a left or right wing American politics issue? Why am I seeing Cowards posting from those two sides, calling me names, as if I asked something dangerous?

Re:What did you expect?

[Ionized]

'hey stupid people - stop being stupid!'

that's you. that's what you are doing. good luck!

Re:What did you expect?

[gmack]

My experience is that the vast bulk of humanity are decent people. We shouldn't let a the bottom 10% ruin everything just because they shout the loudest. Slashdot accomplishes that with the moderation system, which can be abused but mostly works well.

It really doesn't. Posts where the author sounds sure of themselves often get modded up even if they are completely wrong. We also have a problem of posts being modded up because the posts agree with the moderators political biases (inplausable conspiracy theories, insults). And then there is the laziness problem where just the other week, a link to goat.cx link got modded to +5 because not a single moderator checked the link or read through the replies to see the warning not to click the link.

Re:What did you expect?

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

Well, I guess we can expect this not to get modded up, even though it's absolutely true. Good observation. Moderation is clearly broken when I'm modded down as a flamebait troll because I asked what is essentially the framing question of this branch of the discussion, with the result that anyone viewing the forum with a filter at higher than -1 sees a series of disconnected comments and not the question I asked.

Re:What did you expect?

[novakyu]

There are no secret neonazi meetings for this.

And you know that ... because you were the minute keeper for the last national secret neonazi meeting and you didn't hear it come up?

Re:What did you expect?

[IcyWolfy]

I went to ye ol' search engine and type in "earth fl" and got "earth flat or round" as a suggestion.

That suggestion told me that this was a thing.
Clicking around a few links and reading a bit told me that while I may be outnumbered, I'm not wrong.
Most people seem to categorize the earth as round, but there are still plenty of us sane people who categorize it as flat.

Re:What did you expect?

[Hognoxious]

O'Rly?

Re:What did you expect?

[Hognoxious]

They want money.
They get money from eyeballs.
They get eyeballs by showing people what people want to see.
They determine what people want to see based on what people enter in the search box.

If you want to find out if Jews are petunias, nothing stops you entering that.

So, the assertion is backed up with common fucking sense.

Re:What did you expect?

[tsqr]

So, Google has no obligation to prevent its services from being leveraged by those who understand how it works from exploiting search suggestions as a means of disseminating their personal views. Is that what you're saying?

I didn't notice that the AC said anything at all regarding Google's obligations. Help me out here. Is there some force at work that I'm not aware of, that compels people to accept Google's search suggestions?

Personally, when I search for something on Google, I type what I'm searching for into the box, take a quick look to make sure the box contains what I think I typed, and hit the Enter key. What other people have searched for isn't of interest.

Re:What did you expect?

[Hognoxious]

Among everyone with a dictionary.

Re:What did you expect?

[sheramil]

What precisely should Google do about this?

I think the best solution is to disable autocomplete for racial and religious terms. That is a neutral approach, and doesn't need constant monitoring.

Google is a search engine and an advertising platform. They aren't a church - yet - and it's not their place to try to change human nature, or even to represent it in an unrealistically favourable light. If people absolutely can not deal with this, there should be an option they can activate to hide it from them.

Re:What did you expect?

[BKX]

No, actually you are wrong. Absolutely wrong. Sour is the taste of acid in your mouth. Bitter is the taste of alkaline (although alkaloids are far more bitter than actual bases, one should note that alkaloid literally means alkaline-like, so color me surprised). Note that those things are completely opposite. While it is possible to taste both sour and bitter at the same time through the use of alkaloids mixed with acid, using ordinary basic substances, it is not. Acids and alkalines react together to make salts, which is something altogether different tasting. The thing is that ordinary vinegar doesn't contain any alkaloids and is acidic, therefore, it tastes sour. It's the definition of sour. Strong vinegar is as sour as sour gets.

Some of the darker vinegars may have some small amounts of bitter substances in them, but acid will be the overriding taste. You'd need to make up some coffee vinegar or some shit to have a "bitter" vinegar. But even if you did, the acid is going to be the thing you taste most. Vinegar is like 5% acetic acid, so you're definitely going to taste it. And, even if your crappy coffee vinegar was bitter, it'd still be sour, because, you know, 5% acetic acid is pretty damn sour. So, yes, you are wrong. A minority of people agree with you. That's makes them wrong too. Just like the flat-earth retards. As far as bitter vinegar and flat earth being things goes, you're all fucking retards.

(Don't take my rant too seriously, I'm just in a bad mood. I feel much better now that I've gotten that out of my system. LOL, I was going to delete the text and not post it, since it's so vitriolic, but fuck it, I'll post it anyway, If I have to be angry, so do you.)

Re:What did you expect?

[sexconker]

Except when I typed "earth fl" I got "earth fleas", "earth flag", "earth flow", etc.
Flat Earth Society turned up somewhere in there too, but any clicking around would tell you that you're wrong to think Earth is flat.

Further, the Flat Earth Society is a joke. I love that you used it as your example because it shows how dumb you are. No one seriously believes in a flat Earth. It's clear and obvious satire, with some amusing exercises thrown in (trying to explain various phenomena starting with the assumption that Earth is flat). The fact that people like you point to it as some sort of example of ignorance is hilarious, because you're the ones who don't get it. It's a troll.

Re:What did you expect?

[farble1670]

So, the assertion is backed up with common fucking sense.

SEO. Google it.

Re:What did you expect?

[Hognoxious]

We're talking about the search box not the results. Stupid fat retarded cunt who doesn't know what "Islamist' means, google that.

Re:What did you expect?

[Hognoxious]

It's insulting, but chimpanzees are a species.

Re: What did you expect?

[yndrd1984]

There are no such peopke or nation as Palestinians.

Calling them something else doesn't make them less dead.

Re:What did you expect?

[allo]

And now you need to tell us how to identify these terms. Is the cult of scientology a church? What about the flying spaghetti monster? Once you start you need to censor everything or there will be always a perceived minority feeling abused.

Re:What did you expect?

[Megol]

Trolling?

Re:What did you expect?

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

I find your perception of what autocomplete does as an overall system to be lacking.

Re:What did you expect?

[eaglesrule]

The parent link has a function.

Post after post complaining about getting an unfair down mod? You must be new here. It isn't a perfect system but it works well enough. Please consider that.

Re:What did you expect?

[farble1670]

Stupid fat retarded cunt who doesn't know what "Islamist' means, google that.

Man you must have gotten beat up a lot of a child.

The autocomplete results in the search box are just search results. You can think of it like a meta search. You are searching for search phrases. The algorithms that builds that meta data can gamed as well. A naive approach would be to just spam search for a particular phrase to make Google think it's a popular. In reality it's a lot more complicated than that, just giving an example so people like you can hopefully comprehend.

Re:What did you expect?

[tsqr]

I find your perception of what autocomplete does as an overall system to be lacking.

Oh, no. I suppose I could ask for illumination; however, I find that your opinion of my perception doesn't mean very much to me.

If I'm typing a query into the Google search box, I don't get an autocomplete "suggestion" in the search box. I see a short list of suggestions below the search box, where I can click on one of them if I wish. My experience has been that (1) it is extremely rare for one of the suggestions to match what I'm after; and (2) typing my query is faster than scanning the list of suggestions. There just isn't any compelling reason to look at the suggestions. Of course, this is just my use case. You're welcome to your own.

Re:What did you expect?

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

Post after post about unfair downmod= 2. Inflammatory language from others + downmods, many. Mobile users and casual viewers aren't going to use parent links. It isn't a perfect system, and it works well enough for you, but may still need improvement for other users. Please consider that.

Re:What did you expect?

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

You say my opinion doesn't mean much to you, but then you describe your use case. So, I'm going to assume you do want an opinion after all. Your use case makes sense, provided the host of the servers that collect and weight the autocomplete results is truly a trusted provider. I assume you have vetted your provider appropriately, to the extent that accidentally typed passwords or other secrets that may wind up in a search box are not a concern for you. Personally, I do not make these assumptions about every user of Google's autocomplete. I think the majority of them, if pressed, would give an answer that comes down to appeal to common belief/popularity as their reason for trusting Google.

Re:What did you expect?

[tsqr]

You say my opinion doesn't mean much to you, but then you describe your use case.

Actually, I described my use case before you mischaracterized my perception.

So, I'm going to assume you do want an opinion after all.

Bad assumption.

accidentally typed passwords or other secrets that may wind up in a search box are not a concern for you

As I said before, what other people type into a search box is not something that matters to me at all.

Please feel free to have the last word. In fact, why don't you just type it into a search box?

Re:What did you expect?

[Gr8Apes]

You could just not have certain subjective phrases combined with other subjective phrases. Yes, people will find creative ways around whatever filters you put up, but eventually your weighting system will generally represent non-inflammatory searches unless you specifically type them in. Which is likely what should be happening anyways, but for reasons other than to not offend some specific snowflake. It should be easy enough for there to be a child-safe layer for those under 8 and between 9 and 14, for example. If your search shows up in porn or hate related searches, it likely shouldn't show up for those 2 classes. Why Google hasn't figured out how to do this is truly beyond belief as it's actually a simple application of weighting applied to their current data that they already have in hand.

Re:What did you expect?

[Gr8Apes]

And now you need to tell us how to identify these terms. Is the cult of scientology a church?

You're asking the question wrong: is a church a cult?

Answer: yes, by definition.

Re:What did you expect?

[Gr8Apes]

I'd have a better question - since the response was modded up drawing attention to your post, why are you worried about it? I have posts that were modded negatively, in several cases merely because the moderators didn't like the sentiment. In several cases those negatively moderated posts generated additional postings of which some were thoughtful or good. It's irrelevant if they were moderated highly or negatively, what matters to me is the discussion is interesting, which is the only reason I still read /. The stories themselves are usually already known, it's the commentary that makes it interesting.

Re:What did you expect?

[Riceballsan]

First off I do think google bombing does happen on pretty large scales, because it doesn't take that big of a scale to tweak things. No it isn't secrete neonazi groups usually, it's 4chan jokers and kids. Sometimes kids because they are trying to troll, sometimes kids because they don't understand what they are searching for. (they heard some guy in the background of a youtube video say all jews are evil, young kids don't even know that jews are just a race of humans, so they google search the question etc...).

Re:What did you expect?

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

Word.

Thought Police

[Calydor]

Google is not and SHOULD not be the thought police. If their algorithms show these to be common search queries, take that as a hint that we need to DO something - as long as that something isn't to sweep things under the rug by censoring the results.

Yes, censoring. I don't give a rat's ass about the argument that it's only censorship if the gubbermint does it. The internet is the new town square, deal with it. Circumventing censorship laws by "suggesting" to private companies what is and isn't appropriate things for people to see is bad.

Re:Thought Police

[liquid_schwartz]

...factor in segregation.

Segregation is such a dated word. The proper term is "POC Only", which sounds much more exclusive. Good thing they redefined the word racist to only apply to white people, otherwise this would qualify for certain.

Citations:

https://www.dailywire.com/news... https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/...

Re:Thought Police

[RightwingNutjob]

Yes they are. In some African countries, by other black people.

Re:Thought Police

[ranton]

Google is not and SHOULD not be the thought police. If their algorithms show these to be common search queries, take that as a hint that we need to DO something - as long as that something isn't to sweep things under the rug by censoring the results.

That is a very easy ideology to maintain if you don't think too hard.

Google's search engine by definition censors what you see on the Internet when using their service. Even limiting your results to popular sites, or the ones Google thinks you probably want to see, is censoring out plenty of other results.

Circumventing censorship laws by "suggesting" to private companies what is and isn't appropriate things for people to see is bad.

No one is doing that here. Google will still serve up results for "Hitler is my hero" if the user types that in. What Google doesn't want to do is suggest that search query because they feel a sizable number of users simply don't want to see those suggestions. You will also note they don't offer up pornography related search suggestions for similar reasons. Nothing is being censored, they are just keeping things PG-13 until the users initiates a search on their own.

Re:Thought Police

[Comrade Ogilvy]

Suggesting to private companies what they should do is called free speech. If private companies choose to protect their brands by listening to feedback from the public that is also called free speech.

So you want stop the thought police by first stomping on freedom? How is that going to work out?

Re:Thought Police

[Anonymous Coward]

Alphabet is run by a bunch of pussies that will cave in to the request.

Otherwise, youtube would have told the advertisers "Where the hell are you going to go, TV?" when they threatened to pull there ad's over some bullshit showing on a youtube video.

Re:Thought Police

[bluefoxlucid]

That's not censoring any more than a city is censoring your exposure to farms.

Censorship requires the intentional curation of content to remove certain elements. You can intentionally curate content without removing those elements (by portraying other elements more-strongly--propaganda), and you can unintentionally over-represent some content (by collecting information for a purpose and by a method, which incidentally ends up over-representing the view as per the collected data and under-representing anything else).

Think about climate change science. Climate change science generally involves discussions and papers written from the current methods and consensus views of climate change scientists in the broad field. A study of climate change generally won't take the time to point out emerging research methods, older research methods, other specifically-notable but not-mainstream science, or an enumeration of opposing views among a minority of climate scientists.

Why?

Because many of these support the current climate change consensus, some oppose it, and nobody is really asking about any of that.

When people read up on current climate change consensus and the state-of-the-art, they're asking about what we currently accept as climate change science, and how we generally reach those conclusions. They're not asking about leading-edge research methods or the minority of scientists who are detractors; they're asking about what we're confident in today. Why would you waste time sticking that stuff into a general climate change discussion?

That's not censorship; it's education. You can educate yourself further by looking specifically for these other things and learning about them. If you want to discuss climate change today and make future projections, you use the mainstream research; if you want to discuss the future of climate change study, you look to the pioneers; and if you want to discuss flawed science, unanswered questions, or any other legitimate or illegitimate claims and research by detractors, you look to those detractors.

At any moment, you can only look at a subset of all information. The information most-agreed relevant--in Google, this is by an algorithm--generally shows up more than what is considered less-relevant. Nobody's gagging it; they're just typically not interested in that.

What Google doesn't want to do is suggest that search query because they feel a sizable number of users simply don't want to see those suggestions.

Who searches for "Hitler is"? Maybe "Adolf Hitler rise to power", "Hitler mein kampf", "Adolf hitler death", "was hitler jewish", etc. By the time you've gotten to "hitler is", you've excluded most things folks would search for. Now you're looking at the majority of a minority.

Re:Thought Police

[chispito]

Google is not and SHOULD not be the thought police

Well, if they have no hand in what the algorithms produce, they'll be even more gamed than they already are. I'm sure trolls and political operatives would love that.

Oh noes!

[nwaack]

Google showed me something I don't agree with! Better run back to my safe space and hide with my teddy bear. - smh

People in general are vile and disgusting, this is just another attempt to hide the real world from people and make them snowflakes.

Re:Oh noes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Google showed me something I don't agree with! Better run back to my safe space and hide with my teddy bear. - smh

Also worth noting that Google customizes its completions and suggestions based on what you look at. If you're getting results that include "kill all the jews" and "why are jews evil" - it's because Google has recognized that you seem to search for stuff like that a lot.

This trips people up a lot when they post "hilarious" Google autocomplete results where Google recommends really weird fetishes related to some benign search - not realizing that what they're actually showing the world is that they frequently search for some bizarre fetish, so Google thinks they're always interested in it.

Re:Oh noes!

[nwaack]

Your hypothesis seems to be that anyone who doesn't want to be subjected to the more vile aspects of humanity is a "snowflake".

How do you figure? My post says no such thing. What it says is that forcing Google to censor their autocomplete in an attempt to hide people from the real world is turning humanity into snowflakes.

Don't like autocomplete? Turn it off! I don't need other people determining what I can and cannot see when searching the internet.

Re:Oh noes!

[serviscope_minor]

What it says is that forcing Google to censor their autocomplete in an attempt to hide people from the real world

It's no more the "real world" than people talking about kittnes. The real world consists of both nice things and bad things. Nastyness is no more real than any other aspect of life.

s turning humanity into snowflakes.

You have cause and effect back to front. google are only hiding it because people don't want to be subject to racist bullshit.

Don't like autocomplete? Turn it off!

Autocomplete's fine on the whole. What I don't want is racist shit coming up any more than I want porn coming up all the time.

I don't need other people determining what I can and cannot see when searching the internet.

WTF you're talking about using google. Literally the entire point of google is to determine what you see.

Re:Oh noes!

[nwaack]

Wow, calling me a pedophile as an anonymous coward. You must be a real big man. Google tailors its suggestions to your general searching habits, so if you're getting stuff about children in your suggestions, then maybe the police should be checking into you, you piece of shit.

Re:Oh noes!

[nwaack]

Go away you whiny SJW. You completely twisted both my posts to fit your silly world view and I'm done trying to reason with you.

SJW Google To the Rescue!

[Anonymous Coward]

Help! Help! I can't think for myself and my eyes are sensitive!

mangoes in a heatwave

[religionofpeas]

When I tested this by entering "you should not eat", I got the helpful autocompletion "mangoes in a heatwave".

Color me naïve...

[DrTJ]

... but I fail to see the problem.

Those who search for "hitler is my hero" will find the results anyway and will not hindered by the completion removal.

Most others are not likely to be converted to die-hard nazies because they see a completion alternative.

The minuscle part of humanity that are, probably have worse problems.

Re:Color me naïve...

[Calydor]

I'm actually tempted to go look up what that search result contains ...

Who the fuck cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to the Internet. Sack up and deal with it.

Islamists ARE Evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously the poster doesn't understand the difference between "Muslims" and "Islamists." Islamists are those that believe in an religious dictatorship under Sharia law. Iran and the Islamic State are two examples of state founded on Islamist principles.

They are evil and are not our friends. Why object ton these very common-sense statements believed by the vast majority of citizens in western democracies?

Nothing vile to be found - what's the problem?

[bradley13]

This is an impossible problem to solve. There will always be the next "offensive" sentence. And anyway, who gets to define what is offensive? The only solution to this problem is to stop showing other people's searches. Which, arguably, might be a good change to make.

Regardless, I'm not seeing the problem. These are search terms. What is offensive about searching for "blacks are not oppressed"? Are you looking for evidence to support that conjecture? To refute it? As a search term, why should anyone take offense?

Or how about "islamists are not our friends"? The term "islamist" refers to a muslim who believes that Islam should be not only a religion, but also a political system. In the West, we believe in a separation of church and state. So, in fact, islamists are not our friends. Where's the offense?

We'll skip the "Hitler" searches, because the vast majority of those are not serious. Bored teens on 4chan have to do something with their spare time.

What about "feminists are sexist"? In fact, modern feminism in the West no longer seeks equality for women, it now seeks special treatment. Just as affirmative action is by definition racist, so modern feminism is sexist. Even if you disagree with this, searching for the reasons that people may believe it, is a perfectly legitimate search.

Climate change? There is, in fact, still a great deal of debate. Not about the climate warming, perhaps, but certainly about the degree of warming, about the predictions being made, and the degree to which climate change is natural or anthropogenic. Again, why should search terms be problematic?

Re:Nothing vile to be found - what's the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lower standards for women, for example
http://popularmilitary.com/nearly-half-females-failed-graduate-army-infantry-training-standards-also-lowered/

Re:Nothing vile to be found - what's the problem?

[Bryansix]

Special treatment like wage parity? Special treatment like non-hostile workplaces? Special treatment like bodily integrity and autonomy?

Perhaps you mean to say "affirmative action is by definition race-conscious" and "feminism is by definition gender-conscious". If so, say THAT.

Cool strawman arguments. He never said any of those things. Nice job putting words into his mouth though. This is sometimes referred to as "Mansplaining".

Re:Nothing vile to be found - what's the problem?

[yndrd1984]

"It now seeks special treatment"?? Says who?

Anyone who pays attention. Your post is almost a parody of a "clueless tumblr feminist".

Special treatment like wage parity? Special treatment like non-hostile workplaces?

We've had laws to deal with both of those issues for decades.

Special treatment like bodily integrity and autonomy?

Since men don't have either of those, asking for them is by definition asking for special treatment.

Re:Nothing vile to be found - what's the problem?

[yndrd1984]

Your post is instead a classic clueless white male denial.

You probably think I'm male because I don't like some kinds of feminism - quite an assumption, but not an unexpected kind of stupid.

And you think I'm white ... because I use correct spelling? Damn that's racist.

Yet they persist. Thus continued feminist agitation.

No, the continued feminist agitation causes them to still be issues.

The wage gap is primarily caused by career choice, number of hours worked, and years of experience in the workplace. The remaining 3% - 6% is almost certainly caused by the other inconveniences men are more likely than women to accept in favor of higher wages - like longer commutes and risk of death.

Men are totally raped to the same extent as women

They aren't, but only because we don't count 'forced to penetrate' as 'rape'.

Also, how many women who were statutorily raped have to pay their rapists child support?

and have the same legal constraints on their reproduction, you're 100% correct.

Even if abortion was illegal, women would still have more choices and fewer legally-enforced responsibilities surrounding reproduction than men do.

Somehow I find enough sympathy for pregnant women to realize that they should have the right to abort (at least early in the pregnancy) even on a whim. You, on the other hand, will see a man who was coerced into sex at 12 years old by his 35 year old teacher, or one who passed out at a party and woke up to a woman he didn't know climbing off of him, and shout at him to "take responsibility".

But originally you said "bodily integrity and autonomy" - have you heard of the draft and circumcision???

Vaunted AI

[g01d4]

You've got to wonder how their autocomplete algorithm works and even why it would bother with a ridiculously open ended, e.g. Are x question - unless such questions are not that open ended, which would be interesting.

Re:Yep

[sinij]

When 1st amendment was written, private entities that could control so much of our communication did not exist, not even in concept. Government was called out because it was the only entity that could limit speech in a meaningful way. 1st amendment core intention isn't about Government actions, it is about limiting free speech.

Ummm ...

[Obfuscant]

I too felt a certain kind of queasiness

Then step away from the computer and read a book. The internet is not a place for people who are queasy when faced with opinions they don't agree with, ESPECIALLY AS AUTOCOMPLETIONS ON A SEARCH ENGINE. If the question "are jews evil?" makes you queasy, they you will not like the internet, and the rest of us do not want you to try to recast it in your limited vision of what is proper and correct.

I would suggest only reading books your mother picks out for you, since she will be able to filter those to prevent you seeing queasy-making things.

Re:Ummm ...

[Obfuscant]

We're talking about condemning an entire race/religion of people based on nothing but irrational prejudice.

No, we are talking about no such thing. An autocomplete suggestion is just that. It is not condemning anything or anyone. Who's the moron who thinks that an autocomplete suggestion is a condemnation?

As for the moron who commented: "Not wanting Google to suggest your kids reads a web page titled "how to have sex with children" makes YOU the bad guy." First, an autocomplete is not suggesting they read a page. Second, the "vile autocomplete" has nothing to do with sex with children, unless you think that the reason Jews are evil has something to do with them having sex with children. That one's on you, pal.

Queasy?

[Shotgun]

Google returning a suggestion for a search makes the author "queasy"?

Really, snowflake (in all of its derogatory connotations), you need to turn off your computer and go outside for a few minutes. You're not mature enough to use a keyboard.

Re:Queasy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, FFS, if the precious little snowflakes are offended by algorithmic suggestions they should just turn off Google's autocomplete. Problem solved. But then they wouldn't have something to whine about, would they?

Re:Queasy?

[Calydor]

Or maybe people don't consider the phrasing of their Google searches.

Maybe they look for dissertations, in which case I can clearly imagine a thorough and indepth essay on what Jews are and aren't being titled "Are Jews Evil?" simply because of the Betteridge law of headlines!

Maybe someone told them, "I don't remember the title, but if you Google for 'blacks are not oppressed' you'll find it," and what they're after is a comparison of black life today compared to before Rosa Parks.

Consider the stupid, stupid things people say on a daily basis. Now apply that level of thinking to "I want to look up this topic on the Googles!"

Google Feud

[fahrbot-bot]

People type all sorts of things into Google and autocomplete simply reflects that. Ever played Google Feud?

Here are the answers to What is the number for .
Check out #8.

1. comcast
2. the irs
3. pi
4, marvin
5. autozone
6. time
7. cvs
8. 911
9. boost mobile
10. walmart

Re:Google Feud

[Lab Rat Jason]

By my keypad doesn't have an eleven... it only has numbers zero through nine... how do you dial nine-eleven???? Aaaa!

Re:Google Feud

[burtosis]

To be fair, I'm guessing most of those went from #1 straight to #8 after 3 hours on the phone with nothing to show for it.

Re:Google Feud

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's just the next word, there's contexts where it's reasonable. You might enter that if you're in another country and want to look up the local equivalent to 911.

Re:Google Feud

[Godwin O'Hitler]

Well that's an hour I won't get back. Unfortunately it's too American pop-culture oriented for me.

Re:Wait a minute...

[DaveV1.0]

You don't understand the meaning of the word "racist".

How about Santorum?

[Wdomburg]

Due to a concerted campaign spear-headed by Dan Savage, putting "santorum" into Google not only returns a deliberately vile suggestion as the first result, it offers it as a "featured suggestion".

Regardless of what you think of the politician, should Google be held accountable or be compelled to alter search results? Not only is the result incontrovertibly vile (that was the explicit goal) but it was an engineered effort by an individual and his fans against another individual.

If this is okay, why are search results and search suggestions that denigrate an individual or group problematic, and who gets to make that distinction? The choice of search terms to illustrate "vile" results seems to betray the ideological moorings of the author, who cites the results for "feminists" and "islamists" but makes no mention that Google also suggests, for example, that conservatives are "stupid", "evil" and "racist".

I know plenty of people who believe that to be true, of course, but my circle also includes people (including many many and some second wave feminists) who believe third wave feminism /is/ sexist.

In the case of Islamist and Islamism, the term is usually used to differentiate oppressive, theocratic Islam from the broader religion.

Re:How about Santorum?

[ceoyoyo]

It certainly is vile: "santorum... rick."

When you click you find out that this some American politician who: "likened Obamacare to Apartheid in South Africa in a Nelson Mandela tribute speech" and "signed an online pledge vowing not to respect any law, including any decision by the United States Supreme Court, conferring legal recognition on same-sex marriage."

Now, the second suggestion is a useful noun describing a particular mixture of biological and non-biological products.

Vile is in the eye of the beholder. You can argue how much governments should legislate morality, but it seems like an exceptionally bad idea to have private corporations do it.

Re:How about Santorum?

[serviscope_minor]

The choice of search terms to illustrate "vile" results seems to betray the ideological moorings of the author,

You say that like it's a bad thing. I guess that's your ideology speaking.

Malicious training

[duke_cheetah2003]

This is the result of jokers, idiots and people possibly too smart (and hateful) for their own good.

Google is simply showing what it thinks you're trying to type, based on what others have put in. Now imagine a bored someone writes a script to peg Google search with some undesirable search terms and has the bot hammer Google 24/7/365. So Google naturally learns 'people like to search for this term, I'll suggest it to others cuz it's so popular.'

With botnet armies at their disposal, anyone with some know how can retrain Google's autocomplete. Working as intended.

Re:Wait a minute...

[RightwingNutjob]

Equality under the law means that no animals get to be more equal than any others. If you think that line if thinking is racist, then you've got the problem, not me,

Wired

[ruddk]

Has it ever been any good?

Islamists?

[TsuruchiBrian]

I thought Islamists was a term created specifically to differentiate the bad Muslims. (e.g. Muslims aren't bad, it's the Islamists that are bad). I don't think this is unreasonable. I don't think it's fair to say "Christians are bad" whenever some Jesus cult does some crazy shit, but at the same time, I wouldn't expect google to come with good results for "christian fundamentalists" or similar terms.

Re:Islamists?

[ceoyoyo]

I was curious. Interestingly, the first suggestion for "christian fundamentalists are" is "not a separate denomination." Second is "stupid," third is "cults."

Seems reasonably on par with the results for "islamists are". I expected "...stupid" is probably a top five suggestion for any X is/are query because it's the internet.

Re:Islamists?

[Bryansix]

Christian fundamentalists build replicas of Noah's Ark in the desert. Islamists do other things. Comparing the two is ridiculous.

Re:Islamists?

[fafalone]

People always talk about the small percentage of Muslims that are terrorists. Less spoken about is, depending on the country, up to 62% of all Muslims say suicide bombings against civilians are often or sometimes justified. Among Muslims in the US and western Europe, 13-35% support suicide bombings at least some of the time. Large majorities of Muslims support Sharia Law to be the law of the land (and large percentages support then having it apply to non-Muslims as well). From country to country, support for stoning as a punishment for adultery runs from 25% to over 75%, and at least 6 countries with large Muslim populations they support the death penalty for leaving Islam.

It's still not fair to paint everyone with the same brush, but support for extremism is a major problem in the Muslim faith, and it's not limited to a small minority. (And no, there's not parity with Christian support for their nutjob fanatics).
And you know what's sad? I think things don't have to be this way, and think we can move past it. But that begins with acknowledging the problem, and for refusing to stick my head in the stand and pretend this issue doesn't exist, I'll be painted as an evil racist.

Re:Islamists?

[TsuruchiBrian]

Some christian fundamentalists build replicas of Noah's Ark. Some Christian fundamentalists bomb abortion clinics. Some Christian fundamentalists commit genocide. Maybe you don't want to lump the genocidal christians in with the fundamentalists. Ok fine. I don't know what to call those people either. Shall we call them Christianists? This seems like a semantic debate.

Re:Islamists?

[TsuruchiBrian]

I never said anything about parity in extremist views between christianity and Islam. I am not a person who claims that all religions are equally dangerous, and I do think the polls you cite are indicative of a real problem.

I would like to bring up a couple points, however.

#1. Like all polls, there are probably polling errors. These can result from poor translations of questions and/or answers. They can result from the fact that people do want or feel comfortable answering questions honestly (e.g. due to living in oppressive countries, etc). These numbers are alarmingly high, to the point that I would doubt polling error could be the only problem, but I wouldn't treat these numbers as gospel.

#2. I don't think it's fair to take the country (or region) with the most extreme stat (gaza at 62%) and present that as representative. It may be representative of Gaza, but it's not representative of Muslims in general. I could say something like "Depending on the county, up to 90% of Californians believe president Obama is the antichrist." That might be technically true, but omitting the fact that the 1 country with 90% of people believing this also happens to be the least populous and most religious county is being disingenuous, and misleading people about the beliefs that are representative of Californians in general. I obviously made this example up. What I am getting at is that we should be sticking to averages of of the populations we are talking about, and not citing stats about the most extreme sub-populations unless we are referring to those sub-populations.

#3 We are all painted as evil racists by somebody. It's not the end of the world. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. You don't need to let others' opinions of you carry any weight.

Re:Islamists?

[fafalone]

Funny, you accuse me of doing the same thing you did: Look at one sentence and ignore the rest. The 62% was followed by noting it's 13-35 among a large sample of Europe+US; does knowing it's higher than that but lower than 62 in the rest of the Muslim world reduce the problem as to indicate a biased presentation? No. The following was concerning a global average, and the one after that covered both the low end and high end. I could have made the point explicitly, but even the low end in the west is a widespread and massive problem.
For polling error, unless you're proposing there's huge errors exclusively in one direction that happen across multiple polls across the last decade... it doesn't diminish the problem.
And it's not that the racist label bothers me specifically, it's that it indicates societies desire to pretend the problem doesn't exist because trying to fix it wouldn't be PC.

Re:Islamists?

[TsuruchiBrian]

1. I wouldn't characterize what I did as making an accusation, so much as bringing up a point.

2. I did not ignore the rest of your post, as evidenced by the fact that I also referenced other parts of your post.

3. I do acknowledge that you brought up both the low and high ends, but I can see how someone reading this might come to the conclusion that the low and the high ends might be equally weighted, making the average somewhere in the middle. There are in fact many more Muslims in Western countries than in Gaza, and Gaza is in a very violent environment where tempers and emotions are high. I think if you had mentioned the the 62% was from Gaza, someone reading this comment might have a better idea of the reality without having to click your link.

For polling error, unless you're proposing there's huge errors exclusively in one direction that happen across multiple polls across the last decade... it doesn't diminish the problem.

I specifically said I don't expect the polling errors to be big enough to be the entire explanation. But I do think it's very possible they are not as high as they seem. It's also possible they could be even higher. My only claim here is that these numbers really do matter, and polls like this are usually not very reliable.

And it's not that the racist label bothers me specifically, it's that it indicates societies desire to pretend the problem doesn't exist because trying to fix it wouldn't be PC.

It's certainly reflective of the will of *some* people in society to pretend the problem doesn't exist. There is also a another segment of our society that thinks all Muslims are evil. I don't think fighting back against only one of these 2 irrational sides is productive. I think we need to effectively combat all forms of irrational ideology if we are to succeed. This means calling out all sides on their bullshit, and being as intellectually honest as possible.

Re:Islamists?

[bingoUV]

The poll on suicide bombings really seem off. Either the ethnicity of people matters more than the religion, or translation of questions into local languages was really bad.

Having talked to people from Pakistan, Bangladesh and some other of the places polled here - I find it extremely difficult to believe the extremely low numbers in Pakistan, as compared to others, especially Bangladesh. Pakistan :
1. is itself much more affected by terrorism, suicide bombing in particular
2. exports a lot of it to neighbouring countries
3. hid Osama bin Laden for a long time under the nose of its powerful military
4. citizens fund "charity" organizations like Jamaat-ud-Dawa publicly and in large numbers. Openly terrorist organizations like Jaish-e-Mohammed thrive with strong public support.
5. elected governments find it difficult to ban terrorist organizations, and enforce the ban once ban is effected. Only the army sometimes takes action against some of the terrorist organizations - note that army is answerable to people in a much much more indirect way than elected governments.

Since Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan are missed - all interesting from Islamic or a war perspective, I wouldn't rule out a serious cherry picking going on in the poll to create a prejudiced impression.

Re:Wait a minute...

[GameboyRMH]

No, he gets it, you demonstrate why the modern racist line of thinking is effective at spreading their views. A cursory examination finds nothing inherently, blantantly racist about any individual part of it, but the components work together to form a racism-rationalizing machine.

Re:Wait a minute...

[farble1670]

Most modern racist statements goes off the following ideas.

1. Racism isn't a problem ...

This is a polarizing, divisive statement. You are telling everyone that doesn't feel racist, and doesn't experience racism that THEY are racist. I am not sure if you are trolling or what, but if you have an interest in actually effecting change you should change up your tactic. Accusing and blaming people just makes them defensive and closed to your ideas.

Re:Wait a minute...

[aicrules]

And you can't do anything but suppress overtly racist content, if it's in your purview to do so. Anything beyond that is out of bounds and should not be suppressed no matter how sure you are that it is somehow part of a larger racist message. If you throw the baby out with the bathwater, you've gone too far.

Re:Wait a minute...

[sexconker]

Normally this leads to vile thinking to express this statement as true.

Most modern racist statements goes off the following ideas.
1. Racism isn't a problem
2. The minority group wants more then it deserves
3. We should stop such groups from demanding more.
4. We should role back any special considerations for them
5. We should give preference to the majority group

1: Racism isn't a problem that justifies treating people unfairly, it isn't a problem that justifies censorship, and it isn't a problem that justifies altering or "correcting" the truth.

2: Many minority groups do want more than they deserve. (Hint: What you deserve for being a member of a minority group is nothing more than fair consideration and treatment.)

3: We should indeed put an end to entitlements and get people used to the idea that fair consideration and treatment is what they are owed, not equal (or better) outcomes.

4: We absolutely should get rid of unfair treatment that exists only to benefit specific groups.

5: We should not give preference to the majority group. We should give fair consideration and treatment to all groups and, ideally, stop thinking of people as members of specific groups. Note, again, that this does not mean equal (or better) outcomes.

This applies to race, sex religion, etc.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Archangel Michael]

RACIST is simply a tool to dismiss something that one doesn't like. However, crying racism often leads to actual racist thoughts, like this video exposes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Voter ID laws are racist because they (particular race) don't know where to DMV is. They don't have the knowledge. They aren't aware or uninformed. They don't have ID. They ....

Categorizing all people one way. THAT is racist.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally this leads to vile thinking to express this statement as true.

Most modern racist statements goes off the following ideas. 1. Racism isn't a problem 2. The minority group wants more then it deserves 3. We should stop such groups from demanding more. 4. We should role back any special considerations for them 5. We should give preference to the majority group

I am not a racist, but I agree with part of this list. For all intents and purposes I am white (I have negligible traces of Native American blood). My wife is Latina with 20% Native American and 9% African blood.

1. Racism IS a problem.
2. Many minority groups DO want more than they deserve
3. Anyone should be able to demand anything they want, but that doesn't mean we should pander to them.
4. We SHOULD roll back Affirmative Action type programs which are racist by design. Racists will find ways around the regulations while the regulations actually hurt white males for nothing more than being white males.
5. NO individual should receive preferential treatment / consideration based on race or gender.

Do you feel that my views of these 5 talking points make me a racist?

Re:Wait a minute...

[GameboyRMH]

RACIST is simply a tool to dismiss something that one doesn't like.

Deplorable nonsense, "racist" means "unfairly discriminates based on ethnicity," which you demonstrate your knowledge of by using it later in your own post:

However, crying racism often leads to actual racist thoughts,

Thoughts you don't like and would like to dismiss? Or thoughts which unfairly discriminate based on ethnicity?

Re:Wait a minute...

[dextarz]

5++

My attempt was relatively tame...

[hyades1]

I tried "Jews are". Google auto-completed it as "Jews aren't white".

Re:My attempt was relatively tame...

[PPH]

And I didn't get anything remotely racist or anti-Semitic. But what I have gotten (in the past) is auto-completes related to my recent searches. So perhaps the author of TFA spends too much time digging around for racial slights.

Re:My attempt was relatively tame...

[hyades1]

I got this, and I spend literally zero time looking for racist stuff.

Tosh.0

[Zorro]

This is a regular gag on Tosh.0

You should try Tijuana sometime and try NOT to get a suggestion for a Donkey Show.

Re: Wait a minute...

[Bryansix]

You know, assigning motive to some other entity is almost always doomed to fail. Unless you've developed an acute ability for mind reading, you will never know a person's true motive for doing anything and trying to say you do is a waste of time.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Bryansix]

Please tell me more about unintended consequences. I'm sure the DNC would like to hear all about it.

Vile?

[computational super]

"Blacks are not oppressed" is now vile? You can say that you disagree, but this appears to be suggesting that you can't even ask the question. Talk about wrongthink.

Re:Vile?

[fafalone]

It's like looking into the racial disparity in IQ or violent crime... you can't investigate the causes and possible solutions, because even looking at the size of the effect you're a vile racist troll for even posing the question since it suggests that "there is a difference" might be a possible answer (notwithstanding that, whatever the reason, there *is*).

Most of those "vile" suggestions...

[e_pluribus_funk]

Are really just "objectionable" from a particular point of view.

Be Glad Someone is Searching "Are Jews Evil?"

[eepok]

Why the hell would searching "Are Jews evil?" a bad thing? Is it showing one of those Google answer summaries saying, "Yes"? Chances are that it's not and that it's showing the historical issues of antisemitism, prejudice, stereotyping, and scapegoating.

I'd be more concerned if the widely spread issues of antisemitism weren't being combated by people going to Google and asking if what they've been told as children or are being told by their peers is true.

I searched "Is God..." and the first option is "Is God Real?". Great question!

I searched "Are all criminals... " and the first suggestion was "Are all criminals mentally ill?" The second was "Are all criminals bad?" Again, great questions!

Questions are good. Especially when they are intended to seek truth and combat prejudice.

Re:Yep

[serviscope_minor]

When 1st amendment was written, private entities that could control so much of our communication did not exist, not even in concept. Government was called out because it was the only entity that could limit speech in a meaningful way. 1st amendment core intention isn't about Government actions, it is about limiting free speech.

This is an utterly specious argument. When the first amendment was written it was incredibly difficult to talk to anyone except a few people you knew. The options available then and vastly, vastly more are available now whether or not google decide to host or index them for you.

The options for speaking and being heard are unimaginably greater than at any previous time in history.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Archangel Michael]

If you can show actual linkage between closing of offices and voter ID laws, specifically that they are more than just coincidental in nature, I'd be all ears to hear it.

From the Article ... "To be fair, the state’s listed reasons for closing these offices seems more economical than anything else."

A full and complete sentence, that indicates that the closing of offices was not racist in nature. IF there is an absence of racial motivation, then the result cannot be racist. Then you get to the rest of the paragraph to get the "real" story (not the hyperbole)

"The Law Enforcement Agency rolled out a few new online applications earlier this year that can assist in getting people IDs and driver’s licenses. And the agency did the math on how many people were actually using the part-time DMV offices and found low usage."

Part time offices, closing due to low usage. Narrative is everything, facts don't matter.

Why don't they allow you to turn it off?

[sims 2]

A cookie setting is not an opt out when you have an account.
There should be a way to turn it off so it stays off everywhere you are logged in.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Hognoxious]

You don't understand the meaning of the word "racist".

... or "role".

Um... no

[rsilvergun]

Racist is a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races.

Voter Ids laws are racist because the people who came up with them did research beforehand that showed they would hurt minorities, particularly blacks.

Words have meaning. Besides the occasional internet troll the word "racist" is usually not a blanket insult. The person in question has generally done specific things. Where it gets complicated is that racists have learned that their behavior is no longer tolerated (and no, just because you oppose racism doesn't mean you have to tolerate everything, everywhere). Racists now hide their behavior. It's called Dog Whistling.

Re:Um... no

[Hognoxious]

Voter Ids laws are racist because the people who came up with them did research beforehand that showed they would hurt minorities, particularly blacks.

Do we really know that for a fact? Especially the emphasised bit?

Re:Yep

[Hognoxious]

When 1st amendment was written, private entities that could control so much of our communication did not exist, not even in concept.

Yes they did. Unless everyone had a laser printer at home.

Re:Wait a minute...

[farble1670]

The fact that you cannot even cope with the idea of racism doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Did anyone say it didn't exist? You see, the alternative to "everything is racist" isn't "nothing is racist". Most things in the real world (to which you clearly are lacking experience) operate in the gray area between the two.

No, the problem is you;re such a precious snowflake that you go into a blind tizzy when someone so much as mentions racism just in case someone accuses you of it.

Unfortunately for you, the evidence of certain people going into a blind tizzy is forever memorialized on the internet now for all to see.

I was ready to come here for an argument

[AbRASiON]

but it seems, fortunately today, the sane slashdot posters got modded up.

If people are typing in

"Donald Trump is a fucking idiot" then I want to see that, if it's so common, it's quite possible, I MIGHT want that suggestion too, saving me time, that IS the purpose of the suggestions right?

I could type a plethora of other examples, all horrible and nasty, but I'm sure y'all get it. I WANT to see nasty shit, it's part of life.

Also, google fucking destroyed the images search about ... 8 or 9 years ago now. As someone who ..frequents adult material, google was amazing, you could type in the name of someone and see all kinds of things, including what they were famous for, instantly, if this person is a bukkake queen or a fisting godess or who knows, it would show those pics first, because that is what they're known for.
That's never been the same since, even with safesearch off.

Re: Wait a minute...

[RightwingNutjob]

Court rulings are not right by virtue if being court rulings. They are right by virtue if being right, only if they're right. A rather infamous court ruling held that black people couldn't be citizens, and another held that segregation was A-OK.