
Google's top results for 'Did the Holocaust happen' now expunged of denial sites - yabatopia
http://searchengineland.com/google-holocaust-denial-site-gone-266353
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omarforgotpwd
This is very tricky moral and philosophical ground. Sure, from a practical
perspective most educated people believe the evidence that the holocaust did
happen and Google ranking conspiracy sites highly in a way lended Google's
credibility to those sites. The holocaust is a case I think most people can
agree on. But isn't it kind of a dark road to go down to silence a dissenting
opinion even if it is "crazy"? First this, then maybe people start demanding
they down rank the global warming deniers and then before you know it a
political party that is not in power, porn that is too weird, etc. Does Google
really want to be the one that has to decide what the truth is? Then again, do
we really want average people to be the ones to decide what the truth is?
That's the simplest course but is not working that well right now. This is a
tough question I don't think we have the answer to yet.

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aphextron
>But isn't it kind of a dark road to go down to silence a dissenting opinion
even if it is "crazy"?

No, it's not. This is what google does. They rank pages and present the most
valid search results for a given query. Returning easily falsifiable nonsense
as the first result for a common search is a bug, not a feature, and they've
now fixed it.

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kahrkunne
Even though I am convinced that the holocaust did happen, I'm not sure that
Google should be tweaking their algorithms until they show the results Google
wants you to see...

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euyyn
On the other hand, if you think about it, working on improving the quality of
a search engine's results is tweaking its algorithm until it shows the results
you think are better. A search engine that presents you with relevant, true
information on a subject you don't know about (or about which you might be
misinformed) sounds more quality IMO than one that doesn't. I hope the
algorithm is generic (instead of one-ofs for specific subjects).

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kahrkunne
For this specific example it's alright, but when Google starts responding to
public pressure by tweaking the algorithm to get rid of specific results, it's
not that big a step going from something like this to something more
questionable.

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konceptz
Did we forget what page rank was? A way to find relevant and accurate
information on the internet. This is why edu pages and pages with many
(reputable) citations were ranked higher. Remember this is not twitter where
popularity = truth.

I do agree that it's dangerous but it's not new; this is built into the DNA of
google searching.

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sytelus
Result of query _arguments against holocaust denial_ are much better. It's
hard to constantly defend against misinformation put out by deniers which then
can get viral and pollute the search result. As one website put it,

 _Holocaust deniers often mimic the forms and practices of scholars in order
to deceive the public about the nature of their views. They generally footnote
their writings by citing the publications of other Holocaust deniers and hold
pseudo-scholarly conventions._

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rahrahrah
I don't understand what the outrage around this is. Google's goal has always
been to organise all knowledge around a query box, and that's exactly what
it's doing. If it understands that the holocaust did happen, why should it
display that it didn't?

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Grangar
From a business perspective this is a bad choice. I'm not advocating showing
holocaust denial either, but this got them in a very bad spot: they've set the
precedent that they curate the truth. This opens them up to all sorts of
curation demands.

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wflann
Might some truths be incontrovertible beyond business reasons?

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aaron695
Any normal person searching for 'Did the Holocaust happen' wants a denial
site.

For Google to move it, would be not giving people the results they want for
political reasons.

I'd hope this is just due to the site having technical difficulties as some
have suggested.

