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?

[religionofpeas]

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

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]

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"...

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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: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.