At FrontPage this morning I discuss Google's self-censorship regarding Islam, which still continues (I just checked it again -- try it for yourself by typing in "Christianity is" and "Islam is" and comparing what you get for suggestions) days after the Googlebots said they would fix this "bug":
Google, the Internet's ubiquitous search engine, is under fire this week for censoring negative search results about Islam. If you type "Christianity is" into the Google search box, there immediately pop up a series of suggested completions to the sentence, most of them derogatory: "Christianity is bulls--t," "Christianity is not a religion," "Christianity is a lie," "Christianity is false," "Christianity is wrong," "Christianity is fake." No positive suggests come up. Likewise with "Buddhism is," and the sentence is once again completed with numerous negative suggestions: "Buddhism is wrong," "Buddhism is not what you think," and so on. But type in "Islam is," and nothing comes up at all. The negative suggestions inundating the searcher for other religions are nowhere to be seen.Google, however, says it was all a mistake, and denies have done anything to favor Islam. "This is a bug," insisted a Google spokesman, "and we're working to fix it as quickly as we can." Oddly enough, however, even with all of Google's technical savvy, this "bug" persisted for days and continues as of this writing, long after Google's announcement that it would quickly be fixed.
Or perhaps it isn't so odd, in light of Google's long-established penchant for favoring the hard Left and its allies in the global jihad. Critics have complained for years about Google's tendency to decorate its logo colorfully for cherished days of the Left such as Earth Day and International Women's Day, while ignoring Christmas (aside from bland Holiday greetings) and Easter. What's more, Google-owned YouTube has more than once removed material critical of Islamic jihad supremacism, while allowing blood-curdling pro-jihad and vile anti-Semitic material to remain on the site. Google's policies on removing videos all too often has appeared to follow a consistent Leftist line: anti-American, anti-Israel, pro-jihad.
It is also a remarkable coincidence that Google's "bug" would appear in Google not about Judaism or Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism, but in connection with the world's most thin-skinned religion. The one religion shielded from adverse judgment at Google is also the only religion that has is currently engaged in an organized campaign to stifle honest discussion about its texts and teachings that inspire violence. In 2008 the Secretary General of the 57-government Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the largest voting bloc at the United Nations today, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, warned the West about "red lines that should not be crossed" regarding free speech about Islam and terrorism. For years now the OIC has spearheaded an effort at the UN to compel member states to criminalize what it calls "defamation of religions," but by which it clearly means any honest discussion of the texts and teachings of Islam that jihadists invoke to justify violence and supremacism. Interestingly enough, the OIC stepped up this campaign in the wake of the publication of cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper that touched off worldwide Muslim riots. Google, at the time those riots were raging, was dutifully removing from YouTube videos that depicted the cartoons.
Thus when the OIC has Google, it doesn't need international edicts muzzling free speech. Like many on the Left, Google seems all too willing to carry water for the Islamic bloc's war against free speech and to oblige the OIC's totalitarian and thuggish influences, by voluntarily refraining from doing anything that might offend Muslims. While its restriction of the automated search suggestions may seem insignificant, its overall willingness to conform to notoriously fragile Islamic sensibilities and deep-six criticism of Islam is anything but trivial.
What's more, what with Google's influence as by far the premier search engine, the idea that Western non-Muslims must make special allowances for easily-offended Muslims sets a precedent that can only bear bitter fruit in the future. Ultimately Google, and every individual, group, business, and governing authority in the West, is going to have to decide whether it is going to stand for the hard-won principles of free speech and free inquiry, or kowtow to Islamic supremacism and intimidation. When the censorship is voluntary and self-imposed, as in Google's case, it is all the more shameful.
Hello,
As of 1/15/10, 7:58 am EST, the search engine still has this "bug".
This is disgusting spinelessness. People have to stand up to aggressors otherwise we will lose our right to speak our minds, to act they way we want to act, and to be who we want to be. The loss of our freedoms will occur with babysteps. Hopefully Google will come to its senses.
V/R
camnc4me
Oh, and Mr. Kipling has something to say about this:
IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,
To call upon a neighbour and to say:
"We invaded you last night - we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:
"We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"
----------
Our Danegeld is our freedom.
V/R
camnc4me
Mine (in the UK)has stopped giving me suggestions on "islam is" altogether! Which if is the case now than it proves beyound doubt that Google we doctoring the results and there was no bug!
I now also think the current spat with China is a distraction, there was probably no hacking either!
I liked their "I'm Feeling Luck Button" though, shame!
How does a private citizen put pressure on Google for these "bugs" and policies?
Is Google 1984's Ministry of Truth, YouTube 1984's Telescreen? Google is starting to look like useful idiots for Evil.
"Islam is" or "Islamism is" return absolutely no suggestions. Put in any other religion and you get the litany of suggestions like: is false, is bullshit, is not a religion, is a lie, is a cult, is fake, etc. In fact, spell the end of the religions wrong and Google will helpfully show the correct spelling as the first suggestion. Not so for any form of spelling of Islam or Islamism.
Ehm, I am getting the same result with "Taoism is"..?
Knowing well the intricacies of major software, I do find the bug explanation plausible, if not exactly well proven. The same goes for the time it takes to find, fix and quality-assure bugs in a complex system like Google actually is.
On a different front, Google is actually doing well, standing up to China.
Boycott Google - you know we have all sorts of institutions that claim to be fighting prejudice and defamation of racial and religions groups....................... where are they?
Sorry Henrik, but "Taoism is" returned four results including "is a religion" and "is not a religion".
I know a little about the Internet. Search engines use the "metadata" embedded in the HTML used to mark up web pages and database(s) of previously searched entries, as well as certain other databases. The engine would have to explicitly exclude items returned from a search in order to suppress the display of the search results. For Google to say it's a bug is perhaps a bit disingenuous.
Nothing like a mega-billion-dollar global corporation with excellent innovative workforce who revolutionizes information technology stooping down a 100 notches by enforcing a self imposed dhmmitude and a self imposed gag order when it comes to freedom for UNBIASED SEARCH for information.
The decision makers are nothing more then super rich intelligent gen X slaves of our times.
I have lost respect for Google.
I went on YouTube and I also have no suggestions for Isalm is.....
But what is also disturbing is the first suggestion for Judaism is, is Judaism is Islam! And that is also the smae suggestion for Christianity is and Hindu is...
Hermit, here's what I got when I pressed the "I'm feeling lucky" button: http://islam-is.com/ii
"This Site is temporarily shut down for non- payment.
Please have Pete Seda contact Datta Groover"
I went on YouTube and I also have no suggestions for Isalm is.....
But what is also disturbing is the first suggestion for Judaism is, is Judaism is Islam! And that is also the smae suggestion for Christianity is and Hindu is...
Hermit, here's what I got when I pressed the "I'm feeling lucky" button: http://islam-is.com/ii
"This Site is temporarily shut down for non- payment.
Please have Pete Seda contact Datta Groover"
@Jewel Atkins
"I'm Feeling Lucky" returns the most popular site in the search. So e.g. if you type "Jihadwatch" and press this button, it will bring you straight here without first showing you all the results for "Jihadwatch". So when you click it on "islam is" its taking you to a site that is probably now closed (or under reconstruction). If you want to know which site it has taken you on, then click the back button and press "search" and the very first (now in different colour) is the site that it took you on.
"I'm Feeling Lucky" is useful if you do not want to bookmark the site but is otherwise quite popular and you want to visit it quite often e.g. Melanie Phillips, BBC, etc. However, Google is the only engine that provides this facility but it is said to be loosing the "click" money on it - so even more reason to use it.
Whenever I type ISLAM IS... the answer that comes up is: LAME.
ISLAM IS LAME.
You only need to add an E to it to reveal its essence.
A good exposition by Spencer overall, with one exception; he focuses the blame too much on Google's putative "Leftism", whereas the problem is likely much broader than that when we are dealing with a major international corporation. Were the problem confined to Leftism, which remains a minority throughout the West, a company like Google would be risking its capital and influence by going out on such a peripheral limb in terms of sociopolitical culture. Even if the cabal of skinny pasty white nerds who oversee Google are themselves Leftists they obviously have enough business savvy to know that, were the surrounding sociopolitical culture in which they have to sustain their business inimical to Leftism, they couldn't get away with insinuating their beliefs into their business practices. But, in fact, the surrounding sociopolitical culture is precisely not inimical to Leftism -- indeed, that surrounding sociopolitical culture, PC MC, is a quite conducive and agreeable medium for Leftism to acquire far more traction and influence than it would were the real world the way most Jihad Watchers seem to see it (i.e., a vast majority of ordinary folks like us, vs. a small but somehow powerful minority of those dastardly Leftards led, of course, by those Machiavellian "Elites").
It's rather ironic that I bring this criticism up, for in my first incarnation as a commenter some four years ago here at JW, I used to pester Spencer and Fitzgerald about how they were ignoring the main problem -- Leftism! But a strange and rare phenomenon happened to me along the way, known otherwise as changing one's mind. And my mind slowly adjusted to the odd but unavoidable fact I kept noticing over time -- that one conservative after another (not to mention one ordinary person after another) was more or less spouting the "Islam is peace" and "most Muslims are decent people" mantra (most infamously, Bush himself). Obviously, this indicated to me that our collective problem cannot be reduced to Leftism (nor, for this and other reasons, confined to some fiendish complot of Elites). And so began my years of analysis of a much broader, deeper, sociopolitical phenomenon which, for want of a better term (and if anyone has a better one, please let me know), I call PC MC.
Use Dogpile for your search engine. That works for me.
Dogpile
Here is what I got for "islamis Sh-t".
Several results to follow up on and this:
Results 1 - 10 of about 36,000,000 for islam religion is sh_t. (0.41 seconds
Now I am a computer novice does the above mean that 36 million searchs for "islam is Sh-t"???
Still no suggestions though.
I don't think Google is lying on this one. Nothing is returned for "Taoism is", "Jainism is", "Shintoism is", "Catholicism is", "Orthodoxy is", "Protestantism is", "Baptism is". At the same time I wouldn't be surprised if some Islamist site claimed Google was a zionist company, since suggestions for "Judaism is" also don't show up.
I don't think Google is lying on this one. Nothing is returned for "Taoism is", "Jainism is", "Shintoism is", "Catholicism is", "Orthodoxy is", "Protestantism is", "Baptism is". At the same time I wouldn't be surprised if some Islamist site claimed Google was a zionist company, since suggestions for "Judaism is" also don't show up.
Okay, I went to YouTube and in the search bar, I typed in "Islam is evil" and I got several hits:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=islam+is+evil&search_type=&aq=f
Also, Pat Condell's videos are still there. So I don't understand why Spencer would say that Google is a dhimmi? What exactly am I missing?
Angela, what you're missing is that the game we're playing is RISK and you're counting up your MONOPOLY money. Get with the program or at least understand what the issue being discussed is, because you clearly don't. If you type in (now don't get ahead of me here):
ISLAM IS
Stop! DON'T GO ANY FURTHER
Just type ISLAM IS
It won't suggest anything...
If you suggest for it, it's fine. But it won't suggest anything past ISLAM IS
THAT'S the issue.
As for Pat Condell, IMHO it could be that he's an equal opportunity offender. He slams All religion.
The Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF) did a post about this 10 days ago which includes screencaps:
Google is blocking negative search recommendations on Islam?
You should consider doing an article and promoting their work, as I learned about you from them since they promote your effort all the time.
Elanor : As for Pat Condell, IMHO it could be that he's an equal opportunity offender. He slams All religion.
You say that like it's a bad thing. He's an Atheist.
You'll find a lot of progressive, intelligent, independent thinkers are.
Oh no, definitely not a bad thing...I love Pat Condell. I was simply trying to explain why Google might not censor him so readily, as he equally slams all religions. Equally slamming all religions would seem to me to be very PC (in a twisted kinda way) for Google.
Does that make sense?
I find Robert's article on this issue does not address some major counterexamples to the simple hypothesis that Google is selectively blocking negative search suggestions regarding Islam. If the simple hypothesis is correct, Google should be blocking most such negative search phrases related to Islam. This is not the case, as was pointed out in the Telegraph article that was linked to in Robert's "Bridge for Sale!" article (on Jihadwatch) on this topic just recently. For example, the last lines of the Telegraph article stated, regarding Google's claim that it is not blocking negative search suggestions for Islam-related searches that
"Entering other search terms relating to Islam appears to support Google's claim. "Islam must" generates the suggested searches "be destroyed", "die", "be stopped", "end" and "go"."
And as I noted in the "Bridge for Sale!" thread, when I tried some searches myself, I found that
"...if I type in "Muhammad is," [note: include a space after is] the suggestions include "not a prophet," "false prophet," "satan," "the antichrist." (In contrast, "Jesus is" yields positive phrases and no insults etc.). Obviously then, Google is not blocking critical and even insulting search phrases about Islam."
One can try various example searches for oneself to find that Google is not simply blocking/suppressing negative search suggestions related to Islam.
Google may in fact be biased in favor of Islam in its search results and search suggestions. Then again, in a full assessment, and compared to the media generally, it may not be, and our perceptions here (i.e., among most of the Islam critics here at this site) may be biased due to selective sampling of examples.
Contrary to my initial impressions, I think that this problem with the lack of "Islam is" search suggestions does not constitute clear evidence of a Google bias in favor of Islam. A much more comprehensive case would have to made, testing a large sample of different search phrases, and comparing Google's results and suggestions to those obtained (a) without filtering or through (b) the filtering used by other search engines. It is not enough to pick one example that suggests Google is biased in search suggestions, while ignoring counterexamples.
Just checked it to see if this Google "bug" has been fixed. It has not. Bing and Yahoo don't seem to have this problem.
Kinana Khaybar wrote: "Contrary to my initial impressions, I think that this problem with the lack of "Islam is" search suggestions does not constitute clear evidence of a Google bias in favor of Islam."
I agree! I don't know why Spencer and his supporters are making such a big deal about it. If anything, Google is not the one to censor information or filter their search engines. Google even threatened China to quit that country because of its censorship and hacking practices.
"Google is not the one to censor information or filter their search engines. Google even threatened China to quit that country because of its censorship and hacking practices."
Actually, Google did accede to China's demand for censorship of certain subjects the government deemed offensive. The fact that they did this at all shows they are amenable to censorship if it suits their purposes, and that they have the technical capability to tune their own search engine to screen out anything they want. That Google had a change of heart after having Gmail hacked is good, but it doesn't prove anything about their willingness or nonwillingness to engage in a bit of censorship in support of their own political views, which is what the present fuss is about.
Google is being disingenuous in their treatment of this problem by not addressing the issue up front. If nothing else, one would think they would bend over backwards to demonstrate that Google searches can return results that are just as insulting to Islam as they are to other religions. They stand condemned by their manifest unwillingness to do this, as it makes them out, at the very least, to be cowards - and for those familiar with Islamic classifications, leads naturally to the charge that they are dhimmis.
I recommend switching to Ixquick. You will instantly find many listings on these topics, fair and ballanced. The privacy protections are excellent, too.
I say its time we all tell google to go jump in a lake. They are much more than satisfactorly replaceable.
LET'S BRING 'UM DOWN!