
Google Shopping is no longer filtering all searches containing “gun” - DanAndersen
https://www.google.com/search?output=search&tbm=shop&q=guns
======
zombieprocesses
It is insane that google did that in the first place. The amount of censorship
creeping into google the last few years is rather disappointing.

We need more competition in search and technology. Google would never have
done this when they were fighting yahoo, excite, altavista and dozens of other
search engines for their survival.

Now that they are a near monopoly, they are playing "political police man"?

There is too much politics seeping into tech.

Google should be displaying results that the user wants, not what they want
the user to see.

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LethargicStud
I'm actually in support of this. It's very important to separate content
providers from entities that make things more discoverable. Google's job is to
help me find what I'm looking for, not to decide what I can or cannot buy. I
see this analogous to Cloudflare not supporting a site because they don't
agree with the content.

~~~
maxerickson
Note that it is extensively filtering the results.

Earlier a bunch of searches were returning items that violate their policy (
[https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150004](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150004)
) and so they started blocking keywords entirely.

Now they aren't blocking keywords but have reduced the number of items in the
results that violate their policy. It's wack-a-mole though:
[https://www.google.com/search?output=search&tbm=shop&q=black...](https://www.google.com/search?output=search&tbm=shop&q=black+powder)

Triggering spell check is a fun pattern:

[https://www.google.com/search?output=search&tbm=shop&q=trigg...](https://www.google.com/search?output=search&tbm=shop&q=trigger+grou)

At the moment the second result there is AR-15 parts, while "trigger group" is
blocked as a search term.

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mkempe
We know where it starts. Where does it end? What business value are such
search filters achieving for Google?

Wouldn't that kind of action lead to a growing number of users losing trust in
their search results? e.g. if they manipulate the outcome of searches for a
kind of object which one has a right to purchase and keep; would they do the
same for certain ideas which one has a right to express and read; or for sets
of people which one has a right to vote for?

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DanAndersen
Followup on an earlier discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16474102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16474102)

Earlier today it was noticed that Google Shopping was filtering all searches
containing the string "gun" (and various other firearm-related terms). This
led to some amusing issues where search terms like "burgundy" were being
blocked as well. As the day went on, the filter first was adapted to not apply
to phrases that were part of words, but was still being applied to the word
"gun" in isolation. As of an hour or so ago, it looks like the filter has been
disabled. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future and if
there will be any official statement from Google.

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godgod
Google censors. Use duckduckgo or an alternative.

