Comments on: When the crowd is racist at Google

By: Gaming courses

Gaming courses — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:07:26 +0000

The hatred directed Obama is a good example of how the innate racism of some ordinary folk can be used against them by those of more manipulative bent.

By: Deborah Fitchett

Deborah Fitchett — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:20:11 +0000

Harry, it already filters – that’s what a “Safe Search” is. They say themselves, “Use Google’s SafeSearch filter if you don’t want to see sites that contain pornography, explicit sexual content, profanity, and other types of hate content in your Google search results.” It’s just that it’s currently filtering *badly*.

By: Harry Lewis

Harry Lewis — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:43:32 +0000

If Google were to do this job, why should it stop with images? There is plenty of nasty text that could turn up in search results. Surely we don’t want Google to reason that since it filters in China, it should filter in the US too!

By: Brad

Brad — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:34:25 +0000

Yeah I think it should be treated as crappy search results. I don’t find the photo offensive and don’t think it should be banned or delisted, that would be horrifying. Search should reflect the web and some (a lot) of it is racist, explicit, etc.

But point #2 is a good one. The George Bush image search has him compared to an ape, caricatured, photoshopped eating a kitten, giving the finger while holding the american flag and so on. And “george bush monkey” is suggested as a related search.

Aside from the still from the video where he flips the bird, I’m not convinced those are actually the most popular photos of him. I’d assume a real aggregate top-20 would be mostly boring news or promo photos and if I’m searching for just his name without “parody” or “monkey” or “eating a kitten” or “having his bare ass spanked by the statue of liberty” that’s likely what I’m looking for.

By: Jillian C. York

Jillian C. York — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:41:52 +0000

I think SafeSearch is the problem, not Google image search. I – ALWAYS – have SafeSearch turned off (namely because I don’t trust Google to censor for me) and that image isn’t even on the first page.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:57:54 +0000

I don’t think there was a racist intention, although people who copied the image may have had those motives. That site ape-ifies everybody, regardless of race: http://celebrityape.com/

By: The Crowd in the Classroom and the Guide on the Side | Smelly Knowledge

The Crowd in the Classroom and the Guide on the Side | Smelly Knowledge — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:50:28 +0000

[...] Obama” brings up a clearly racist image as the first result in a post entitled When the crowd is racist at Google. He writes that he is torn by this as he recognizes that, On the one hand, Google is taking a [...]

By: Mirek Sopek

Mirek Sopek — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 06:09:22 +0000

Charles – you are right. As they manipulate already (as in China) for bad, they, in this case, should meddle, tinker with algorithms, whatever, for good – and remove this item from search list.

But I stay on with my first opinion.
As illustration, please go to http://www.hakia.com (beta of semantic search engine) and see the results there: link.
Then add “ape” to the query and you will find what Google returned.

I’m sure what Hakia returns is not specifically manipulated (for good).

PS. I’m not related to Hakia and am not its hidden marketer :-)

By: Charles Frith

Charles Frith — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:19:54 +0000

I’ve thought about this some more. It’s not a rule and rule book that Google needs. They need to take this particular picture down and do it immediately. They police their advertising in a top down hierarchical manner, they manage their search results in China. Google needs to do the right thing on this.

No need to take a side. We all know what pornography is when we see it and this picture is unacceptable she is the first lady and in many respects more important as a woman than the President.

By: Harry Lewis

Harry Lewis — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:59:44 +0000

David, I wonder how you would have had Google handle the cartoon of Jefferson and Sally Hemmings. It's not exactly parallel, because it turned out 250+ years later to be a well-aimed insult, but by the standards of the time I'd say it was equally shocking. (I agree -- weird the way the safe search switch does exactly the wrong thing here.)