Google Responds On Skewed Holocaust Search Results (bbc.com) 332
Google says it is "thinking deeply" about ways to improve search, after criticism over how some results -- including ones discussing the Holocaust -- were ranked. From a report on BBC: Searching for "did the Holocaust happen?" returned a top result that claimed it did not, as Guardian journalist Carole Cadwalladr reported. Now, the ranking has changed for US users. The page -- from white supremacist site Stormfront -- remains top in the UK. "This is a really challenging problem, and something we're thinking deeply about in terms of how we can do a better job," said a Google spokesman. "Search is a reflection of the content that exists on the web. The fact that hate sites may appear in search results in no way means that Google endorses these views."
Seems fine (Score:2, Insightful)
Seems fine to me. Don't hide shit, everything is working as intended.
Re:Seems fine (Score:5, Interesting)
The issue isn't with showing the result, it's with the ordering of the results. You would hope that more trustworthy results are ordered above less trustworthy ones.
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Re:Seems fine (Score:5, Insightful)
You would hope that more trustworthy results are ordered above less trustworthy ones.
The issue is how Google can measure trustworthiness. While the precise details of PageRank continue to be an ever-evolving secret, there are certain clearly stated ways to raise it. If you develop more content which is linked to by more sites, then your rank will rise. By now it is probable that the heuristics are clever enough to figure out whether a link is being cited positively or authoritatively, or the converse. Due to echo chambers and Dunning-Krueger, it's easily possible for this scheme to automatically result in such sites becoming highly ranked as a bunch of ignorant neo-Nazi shitheels jerk one another off in a sticky downward spiral of arrogance and hate.
What can Google actually do about it without exposing themselves to litigation in the future, though? If they outright flag sites as being hate sites, they might have to defend that decision in court in the future, and they then land in an extremely unenviable position — having to argue either that they are not influential, or that it's acceptable to wield their influence to diminish unpopular ideas.
Ideally, you'd base rank on the proper use of spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the comments left by regular visitors who praise the content, but that's too easy to game...
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Re:Seems fine (Score:4, Interesting)
Due to echo chambers and Dunning-Krueger, it's easily possible for this scheme to automatically result in such sites becoming highly ranked as a bunch of ignorant neo-Nazi shitheels jerk one another off in a sticky downward spiral of arrogance and hate.
This is true, but I think it understates the problem.
It's not just that fringe viewpoints are likely to generate lots of interlinked content, it's that they generate more content, period. Of all of the articles on the web that directly address the question "Did the Holocaust happen?" what percentage of them take the affirmative position? And how widely-linked are they? It's very low, because on this question the world is basically divided into two camps, one which knows that it did and doesn't see any need to argue the case, and one that believes it didn't and is highly motivated to prove that position precisely because it is not accepted by the vast majority. Although the former camp is dramatically larger, the latter is dramatically more prolific regarding the question. The more extreme the fringe viewpoint the more likely this is to happen, as long as there's a community dedicated to churning out support for it.
Of course, when you widen the scope to include all content that references the Holocaust, the mainstream view is overwhelmingly represented... but hardly any of that content addresses this specific question.
Ideally, search ranking on questions like this should consider the fact that the overwhelming content of articles that reference the topic assume the mainstream view, and then ranks content that takes the mainstream view over content that takes the fringe view, even though the mainstream view content may not seem to address the question directly. For example, in this case it would be good to give the top slot to the web site of one of the excellent Holocaust museums, which clearly provide a tremendous amount of evidence to support the reality of the event. The problem is that doing this in the general case almost requires that the search engine actually understand the question and the mainstream and fringe theories, and search engines simply aren't yet that smart.
This is an easy problem for a human, but a hard one for current AI. Because Google et al don't want to try to hand-tune responses to lots of questions, they want to find ways to get the AI to give the right answer. The average user of a search engine, though, doesn't understand that their question falls into a sort of "search uncanny valley" where the AI is smart enough to give highly on-topic responses, but not smart enough to understand that those responses are from crackpots. Instead they just see that "Google says the Holocaust didn't happen!".
Re:Seems fine (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not just that fringe viewpoints are likely to generate lots of interlinked content, it's that they generate more content, period.
My four year old son and I were talking about the moon, and he was shocked to learn people had been there. I wanted to show him the moon landing, so I went to youtube. But when you search "moon landing" you get the official footage and then pages and pages of "MOON LANDING HOAX" results. If you just went by the volume of material one would conclude the moon landing must be faked.
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Err, ok, you got me on THIS one....
How the hell is Google providing any listing in response to a query going to land them in court?
Whether it is a good result or a poor one (based on your own judgement)...they've not broken any laws that I know of...
Did we pass "search engine" laws here recently that I didn't hear about?
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The issue isn't with showing the result, it's with the ordering of the results. You would hope that more trustworthy results are ordered above less trustworthy ones.
No, the issue is with the question. Asking whether the holocaust occurred is not going to find a lot of answers defending that position, because it's not something that's in doubt except by kooks. It's like asking "can water be used for fuel?" or "was the moon landing a hoax?" and be surprised that you get results for sites that go against common wisdom.
Ask "what was holocaust?" or just "holocaust" and you'll get far better answers.
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It's like asking "can water be used for fuel?" or "was the moon landing a hoax?" and be surprised that you get results for sites that go against common wisdom.
Go to youtube and search "moon landing." Tell me what you find.
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Instead, what you need to do is present factual information and both points of view and let reader decide. Convincing is the way to get positive results, ostracizing and norm-policing leads to increasingly tribal and shallow-understanding believers.
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The Neo-nazis can do whatever they like. The problem these days is that fringe groups have figured out how to use mainstream Internet portals to further their ends. If all the Neo-nazis were on Stormfront, nobody would give a shit (except the FBI, which probably would be tracking IPs of those going to the site). The problem arises when Google, Facebook, Twitter and the like are used as vehicles to propagate this kookery and villainy, because it allows the various cranks and racists to borrow the goodwill of
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...because it allows the various cranks and racists to borrow the goodwill of these sites to create a veneer of respectability around what are ultimately noxious and vile views.
I just don't see anyone going "Oh, look, its on Twitter, so it must be true".
Social platforms allow like-minded people to connect. It doesn't have any additional power of persuasion that you are attributing to it.
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Tell that to Comet Ping Pong
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While I am not a holocaust denier by any means, it is [...]
Once again, I am not a holocaust denier but [...]
Please see http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/I... [rationalwiki.org]...
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The issue is that a) I am a neo-nazi and asking about holocaust and b) I am a normal person and asking about holocaust should produce two different ranked lists, but the question and search terms are the same.
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We could also just say 'fuck neo-nazi's and whatever they want'.
They can make their own search engine.
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They can make their own search engine.
This is not at all desirable outcome. You want to convince and educate based on facts, not on who can shout loudest.
You failed to consider consequences of what Nazoole popularity would do to our society. Sure, it is extremely unlikely, but we also thought Trump was extremely unlikely and look where we are.
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They can make their own search engine.
What, do you think you own Google?
How about a really damn obvious solution to this problem, if Google wants factual information about the Holocaust to result from that sort of query: They can make a page with that information themselves. Since they know exactly how PageRank works, they should be easily able to legitimately raise the visibility of their site.
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Surely the answer to "Did the holocaust happen?" is "Yes." whether the searcher is a neo-nazi or not.
The fact that as a neo-nazi wouldn't want that answer on the top of their search results doesn't make it wrong, or wrong to present it to them.
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a) State the facts - yes it did happen b) Acknowledge there are controversial opinions and revisionists views c) Affirm that controversy is manufactured and explain its source.
Google search just returned b). Not good. Just a) would be slight improvement, but complete solution requires a+b+c.
Business is business! (Score:2)
I think Google's preferred fix would be for the opposite-of-denialists to buy more advertising.
It's not Google's responsibility... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think I have a reasonable expectation that ranking of search results should be based in some part on whether the site is telling the truth or a pack of lies. Otherwise the value of the search results rapidly diminish.
In this case as the Holocaust is an extremely well documented verifiable fact including hundreds of personal testimonies by people on both sides of the crime, then ranking a site first which denies the crime took place is in the vast majority of peoples mind a problem.
In various parts of the
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And who will watch the people who tweak the search results to tell "the truth"? Who gets to arbitrate? Will they black hole the global warming deniers or promote them to the top? Is Snowden a hero or a villain? Do you want Google to decide that for you?
You may say they should only step in when the truth is certain, but remember, people have odd ideas about what that may be. To the fundamentalist, creation is so obviously true even the evolutionists must know it in their hearts and choose to lie.
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Actually it is Google's responsibility in this case. If you read TFA (I know...) it seems that people have been deliberately trying to force denial sites to the top of the rankings using common SEO tricks. Google is constantly trying to fight spammers and people who subvert its algorithms, because Google's stated aim is to be like the computer on Star Trek - a natural language interface to the totality of human knowledge.
Since holocaust denial is not the mainstream view or the one held by most historians, a
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Deciding what is real is hard for many (Score:5, Insightful)
You the reader must take responsibility for deciding what is real and what isn't on the internets.
People are incredibly bad at doing this. If you need an example I refer you to The Bible. People have been mistaking that tome of mostly fictional stories as reality for centuries. You think they are going to stop being credulous just because somebody tells them a tall tale on the internet? Not likely.
Sometimes we need a responsible party to stand up and tell the facts. No reason Google can't serve that role in a case like this. Arguably it would be irresponsible for them not to insist that their search engine provide actual true facts instead of made up bigotry.
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I do not EVER and will not EVER need a "responsible" party to get in between me and information, right or wrong. I'm sad so many people disagree with that, but if they want to only view whitewashed information, then that is there choice.
First, let me just note that Google IS already "getting in between you and information." You're accepting that its search ranking algorithms are a useful way of culling information for you, which means you're accepting the implicit "values" of that algorithm. E.g., sites that have more links often get ranked higher. By using a search engine, you're accepting that distortion of the raw data -- perhaps some folks want a search engine that will help them find stuff that is NOT so well-known or highly linked
Algorithms are human choices (Score:2)
Search engines shouldn't give a shit what they are indexing
No but the people who design the algorithms definitely should. A search engine that returns false, misleading, or harmful results is worse than useless. Every search algorithm is simply a choice made by people about what to search for. If you want false "information" that's up to you but I want actual facts, not some asshole's version of truthiness.
Short of actual malicious websites that try to break your computer/device, just index and provide results. I do not EVER and will not EVER need a "responsible" party to get in between me and information, right or wrong.
Bullshit. You have responsible parties between you and information all the time. Scientists tell you how the world works. Engineers give you information ab
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You the reader must take responsibility for deciding what is real and what isn't on the internets. Do not require that anyone do that for you otherwise they eventually will when you don't want them to. If you need a warning label to avoid suffocating yourself on the plastic bag that is the world wide web then just turn around and walk away from whatever device you're using to access it.
I disagree, strongly.
The problem is that the nature of search engines is that they tend to seriously overrate fringe viewpoints (because hardly anyone bothers to write articles supporting mainstream perspectives), but the average search engine user has no idea that this is the case. In addition, human psychology weights frequency of observation heavily when deciding what is true. This tendency can be overcome, but (a) it's really hard, (b) it requires people to train themselves to value statistical and ot
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Stop pretending that you're mad because people wanted it fixed. You're mad because Google did fix it, which is entirely their prerogative.
"But mah unhinged conspiracy theories deserve to been seen! It's censorship!"
Poor little racists, snap snap snap!
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What if the slope got real slippery! What then!
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content on the web (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3)
Why is it the top result? (Score:2)
If it's historically the most popular page people visit after entering that query, then the algorithm seems to be working as intended. It's not up to the operator of the search engine to censor a result that is legitimately returned by the engine (ie. page has not been hijacked or the popularity is the result of some automated SEO or other artificial skewing of the result) just because it makes people uncomfortable. I know, Google isn't the government, and they don't have to have any page on their site blah
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No they are looking to make truth in a web page a factor in it's ranking. So if I search for information on whether the Holocaust happened then the top ranked page should be one that acknowledges that the Holocaust happened (because it did) and not one full of lies.
The Holocaust is within living memory, whether it took place is not up for debate.
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"I appreciate the quashing of porn and viagra spam, but punishing racist conspiracy theory SEO is going too far!"
These people are a parody of themselves.
What, Google is not magic??? (Score:2)
Soooo disappointing.
In other news, search engines find what other people put out there, and page-rank sorts according to the links to the content.
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Won't somebody think of the Nazis!
When it is SEO marketing scum getting punished for gaming the search engine, no bats an eye.
When it is actual white supremacists get their page rank tweaked, all the supposedly not racist alt-righters lose their fucking minds.
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The criticism is wrongly targeted: If it is legal to have these sites online, it is not the purpose of a search-engines to make any moral judgments or judgments as to truth. If it is illegal to have these sites online, then remove them. Anything else is exceptionally dangerous.
Search-engine "optimization" is something different though. That is an attack on the workings of the search-engine.
Let's think about this differently. (Score:2)
Let's think about this differently.
Don't get me wrong, we all know those results should be "correct."
But remember, and this is the core discussion to be had, how do you know:
1 - If any of your top results are correct? Should you really take Google's top position over your own critical thinking and compare-and-contrast of other articles?
2 - If Google can "choose" what's correct, even with the most noble of intentions, then what's to say they won't do it for other--less noble--purposes? Now th
truthy results vs truthful results (Score:5, Interesting)
Google's stated goal has always been "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." Which in the past has always meant returning the results that people were looking for. They now face the problem of truthiness which has disproven the fundamental theory behind Google, that feedback loops from users selecting links will correctly identify which information should be returned. In short, Google has to figure out how to counter the self-delusion of the internet and it's users. It's no wonder they are thinking about it deeply because they are going to need create something like IBM's WATSON to sort reality from delusion.
Re:truthy results vs truthful results (Score:5, Interesting)
Fixing this requires educating the population, teaching them history, exposing them to different people so they realize that others are not that different from themselves. But that requires work and effort. It seems governments would rather take the easy way out and try to cover up the problem, rather than actually fix it. Even if you think hate speech doesn't deserve free speech rights, the solution is to go after the websites and individuals promoting hate speech. Knock them off the web or suspend their accounts. Then they'll disappear from the Google results naturally. No need to mess with the ranking algorithms.
Cynic's view (Score:3)
I am cynic and believe this is Google's plot to acclimate public to skewing the search results. Ad revenue is down, and they are not making any money from indexed search. So they plan to intentionally break your search algorithm. Highlight sensationalist results. Push for "curated results" as a solution. Then monetize all search results by charging for favorable decision, so Pepsi doesn't show as a top search result when googling for Coke.
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It is very clear that described problem is malfunction of search ranking algorithm, you don't fix it by making it impossible to find offending searches, you fix it by making it rank result appropriately.
And just how do you propose to create a "ranking algorithm" that fixes this? Granted, we don't know all the details of Google's ranking system, but we do know something about it [wikipedia.org]. We know Google depends on number and quality of links to pages to help determine the ranking and importance of pages.
Any such system is not going to converge to "truth" -- it will converge to popularity. If Holocaust deniers become popular enough and share their information enough, any ranking system that depends on popularity
What else would Google alter? (Score:2)
While I can not blame them for trying to make sure, truth about Holocaust trumps the lies about same, I can't help but wonder, what else they will (and already have) manually altered to better suit an agenda... Because truth may be a victim rather than a victor next time...
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What we need is education about how to use Google as a tool to support critical thinking and the analysis of evidence. Not to just click on the top link and assume whatever is in there is "the answer." Maybe Google should focus more on educating its users about how their system works and how to evaluate the quality of in
And what of comp.risk? (Score:2)
I read comp.risk for the first time in years last week (an old Usenet fav), mainly to see what they had to say of the election tampering. One of the articles lashed out at Google and how they should be ashamed of themselves.
If you search for the world is flat, Google will prove it is.
someone beat me to it (Score:2)
My thanks to:
http://www.didtheholocausthapp... [didtheholo...happen.org]
Re:oh, great (Score:4, Insightful)
Ancient history... you do know that people that there are people still alive today that were IN THE FUCKING HOLOCAUST?
Re: oh, great (Score:2)
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Questioning what?
Do you mean questioning the Holocaust?
Or questioning Google's ranking issues?
If you mean the former, then yes, it's a very, very strong indication that you are a neo-nazi, because only neo-nazis make any sort of point of questioning something so abundantly, exhaustively and tragically well documented.
If you mean the latter, then no, it doesn't make you a neo-nazi. But if you believe Stormfront is correctly ranked in these results, that might.
Re:oh, great (Score:5, Insightful)
Is stormfront doing better SEO than all the other sites?
Then without some bespoke editorial control of search they are correctly ranked.
And this is where the slippery slope happens...
If Google delists a site that is not illegal (even if distasteful) then you have made the search less a reflection of the web.
If Google tweaks page rank to lower the value of their SEO (and applies it globally) then fine I guess.
While I can point and yell "slippery slope" as well as Chicken Little yelled that the sky was falling, I have no decent answer what to do about it.
I would think that ideally Google would put the Wiki page about the Holocaust as the first result, then natural page rank after that? (And yeah, there's that damnable slope again). I don't envy Google in situations like this.
-nB
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I have no decent answer what to do about it.
Have you considered that doing nothing about it is a valid action plan?
There are two valid reasons that I can think of to "do something about it"
1) There is an identifiable problem within the page rank algorithm.
2) The people upset about the consequences of a page rank algorithm without an identifiable problem have an uncomfortable amount of influence.
There might be other reasons, but these are the only two that I can think of, and with the second one the real problem just may be the surplus of infl
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AI, is not to the point where is has it own crap detector. They quickly absorb the psychoses of the searching public. Remember poor Tay. She was not raised right. This means it is absolutely appropriate to have human intervention in these rankings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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There's a difference between opinions and facts that are objectively false though.
But an awful lot of politically correct "facts" are objectively false. What do you think Huffington Post will do when the AI explains that women don't get 77 cents on the dollar for the same job a man does? Pretty sure they're not going to say "gee, that's actually a bullshit statistic we've been peddling, we'll stop now." Pretty sure they're going to demand Google "fix" the program and make it spout feminist propaganda for them.
Also, is it google's place to provide equal weight to people who advocate violence especially when they are gaming the algorithm?
"Advocating violence" shouldn't be disqualifying. The colonists advocated for v
Re:oh, great (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry that neo nazis are able to get accurate results back for their interests but I would be more sorry if google started weighing in more and more often on "truthiness".
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History should be questioned, just as any science.
But the chances that major events were recorded incorrectly diminishes to nearly zero as they are closer to the digital age. (The keyword is "major"... whether Trump ate Clinton's KFC bucket with silver utensils stolen from Taiwan by the Russians instead of fully gold forks lent from China doesn't qualify.) The most likely untruths from the last century lie in internal strategy, unrecorded thoughts, and secret locations. Not whether Hitler ordered genocid
Re:oh, great (Score:4, Insightful)
...The most likely untruths from the last century lie in internal strategy, unrecorded thoughts, and secret locations. Not whether Hitler ordered genocide.
Ah, but the issue even lies within the genocide itself, questioning the amount of actual deaths that occurred, as if arguing about gas chamber efficiency somehow dismisses Hitlers intent regardless of actual death tolls.
By laying the blanket of doubt over historical markers, the general masses can be convinced easily that events never took place, which I suspect is what will end up in the history books within the next half century, paving the way for repeat offenders.
Look at how bad fake news continues to rewrite the logfile. The only historical fact that will emerge out of the 21st century is showing how gullible the masses really were.
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The evidence that the Holocaust happened is overwhelming. You might as well question whether slavery really existed or whether people from Africa voluntarily came to America, worked on plantations of their own volition, and were actually well-paid for their efforts. It's easy to raise the latter as a "theory", but all historical evidence runs counter to it and the only people who would accept it (or "The Holocaust never actually happened") are racists, neo-nazis and the like.
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"The evidence that the Holocaust happened is overwhelming."
Then why do they throw people in jail merely for attempting to question it?
When I first found out about laws that prohibit questioning the "official" version of history, I made it a point to seek out & read some of these illegal ideas. Comments from anti-semites on obscure websites aside, I never found a single source that claimed The Holocaust never actually happened. What they do is challenge portions of that "overwhelming" evidence and rais
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People in Africa were already slaves; they were made slaves by black people.
The first legally recognized owner of slaves, under common law, in what would become the United States was Anthony Johnson, a black man.
Until Anthony Johnson, white people purchased African slaves and treated them instead as indentured servants, who would become freed men with their own land after a certain number of years of service; white men, such as the Irish, were also indentured servants in this way. White people were the last ones into the slave trade, and white people were then the ones who ultimately ended slavery.
So, yes. There was slavery, but you never get taught the whole story.
It sounds like you're trying to lay all the blame on slavery on black people. Yes, there was slavery in Africa, but the practice expanded greatly because of white Americans. Also, saying Anthony Johnson was the first legally recognized slaveowner is tricky because his case against a slave was the first ever brought to court even though he was not the first slave owner. There is plenty of evidence [wikipedia.org] of slavery before Johnson.
Re: oh, great (Score:3)
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This isn't even relevant to the person you're replying to. Nobody is questioning whether White People or Black People were better or worse slave owners, or more prevalent or less prevalent.
They weren't fucking volunteers, nor were they well paid.
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Questioning whether the holocaust happened?
I suppose it doesn't instantly make you a neo-nazi, you could just be brain dead, or you might be 10 years old and hadn't read anything on it yet.
I can't think of any other possibilities.
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I suppose it doesn't instantly make you a neo-nazi, you could just be brain dead, or you might be 10 years old and hadn't read anything on it yet. I can't think of any other possibilities.
Trump supporter
Sorry, I need a Venn Diagram...
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Keep doing this shit. Dems will never win another election.
Or you could do a quick fact check. (Score:3)
So basically they wiped out 2/3 the Jewish population in Europe. I'd call that a Holocaust. You sir an an imbecile. You fashion yourself an iconoclast by questioning doctrine, but don't really have any true evidence to support your skepticism.
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The number isn't just 'Jews', for starters. There's a whole crap ton of other demographics that got rolled up into the total death count.
I do 100% believe the figure, within a margin of error (which is completely fucking irrelevant).
I can now think of another possibility. Pedantic dipshits.
Re:oh, great (Score:4, Insightful)
The evidence for the Holocaust is enormous. It's one thing to ask "How do scholars and historians arrive at the figures?" But when the question amounts to a thinly coded "The Holocaust was a fraud", then it's not really questioning at all, but simply a rhetorical device used by Holocaust Deniers.
Re:oh, great (Score:5, Funny)
So questioning the existence of the Holocaust] instantly makes you a neo-nazi?
I understand how you feel. For years, I've been saying that there's no such thing as Calvin Coolidge. I mean, perhaps it's forgivable that people thought so at the time, but the preponderance of research done by the respected anticalvinologists at nottoocoolidge.biz has since proven conclusively not only that Calvin Coolidge was not the 30th president, but also that he was never even born, and indeed that there never even was a 30th president. We skipped directly from 29 to 31.
Everybody knows that. That's just basic leap year math, people. Get your heads out of the sand, denialists.
Re:oh, great (Score:5, Insightful)
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but the credibility of these people is utterly destroyed by the political pressures surrounding the supposed events. Not to mention that they are advocating for the side that won.
Eastern Inferno [google.com]. War memoir of a soldier who not only fought for but died for the losing side. Mentions not only the summary executions of civilians but of also knowing about Einsatzgruppen and personally witnessing what is quite possibly the massacre at Babi Yar (as well as how it made him sick watching all those civilians being murdered).
Re:oh, great (Score:5, Interesting)
As a boomer I've met both Holocaust survivors (the grandparents of friends) and Germans who weren't Nazis, but supported the regime as patriotic citizens. I've even seen sat at the dinner table with Jews and Germans who lived through the era as they discussed their families' experiences. There was no agenda other than to make sense of an almost unimaginable catastrophe.
And what you don't understand, because you've probably never paid attention to the testimony, much less witnessed it, is how personal that catastrophe was. The Holocaust wasn't some political abstraction, it was having everything your family worked for and stood for stolen; it was having your parents and siblings ripped away; it was experiencing personal suffering, deprivation, and exploitation.
At the hands of smug, self-righteous bureaucrats who had the gall to write "Arbeit Macht Frei" over the gates of the labor camps.
And on the flip side for ordinary Germans it was going along because patriotic gullibility was easy. Hoping for the best was a the path of least resistance. It was also a path to a national catastrophe [wikipedia.org]:
Great Carthage drove three wars. After the first one it was still powerful. After the second one it was still inhabitable. After the third one it was no longer possible to find her. -- Bertolt Brecht
What we are losing is the personal memory of the banality of evil, of how ordinary people can enable and empower the depraved. We flatter ourselves we are better than those Germans who maybe didn't vote for the Nazis, but allowed themselves to be swept up by the vicious, inane bigotries of Nazi propaganda. We assume that we are smarter. Or at the very least nicer people.
We're not. We're not better, and I can tell you from personal experience we aren't nicer or smarter than the Germans who let the Nazis shove their nation's hand into the meat grinder of WW2. The people who went along were pleasant, cultured, educated people who read the papers and loved their families and were good to their neighbors, but in the end let the hope that Nazis weren't really that bad turn them into suckers.
We aren't better or wiser than them. But what we should be is forewarned. And there people who'd prefer we weren't. [wikipedia.org]
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They still haven't fixed it here in Iceland.
It's strange, I would have thought that their algorithm would be location-indifferent. Perhaps that was just naive of me.
The Pattern is Developing (Score:5, Insightful)
They came to lower the page ranks of the Holocaust Denier sites, but I said nothing, because I was not a holocaust denier.
They came to lower the page ranks of the Intelligent Design sites, but I said nothing because I didn't believe in Intelligent Design.
They came to lower the page ranks of the Climate Change Denier sites, but I said nothing, because I was not a Climate Change Denier.
They came to lower the page ranks of the Pro-Electoral College Sites, I but said nothing because I believe in One Vote for Each American.
They came to lower the page ranks of the Pro-Gun Ownership Sites, but I said nothing, because I believe in stricter gun control.
They came to lower the page ranks of the Life Begins at Conception sites, but I said nothing because I believed that life begins at birth.
They came to lower the page ranks of the Anti-Assisted Suicide Sites, but I said nothing because I believe assisted suicide is okay.
They came to lower the page ranks of the Anti-One Payer Healthcare sites, but I said nothing because I believe in single payer healthcare.
They came to lower the page ranks of the Sugary Drinks and Fatty Foods sites, but I said nothing because I believe everyone should be eating healthy.
They came to lower the page ranks of the Meat and Dairy Industry sites, but I said nothing because I believe meat and dairy are unhealthy.
They came to lower the page ranks of the Alcohol Industry sites, but I said nothing because I stopped drinking a few years ago. Just in time, right??
They came to lower the page ranks of the Legal Marijuana Industry sites, but I said nothing, because I didn't want my boss to know I smoked weed.
They came to lower the page ranks of the Humor and Satire sites, but I said... wait, what???
They came to lower the page ranks of every few remaining sites outside the walled gardens of a few mega-corporations allied with a global Nanny State with vested interests in controlling what people could read, and I said, "Hey, Now! Wait a minute! What about my Apple Gadget Blog?! Nobody can find my Apple Gadget Blog anymore!
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blablablablabla
They came to lower the page ranks of every few remaining sites outside the walled gardens of a few mega-corporations allied with a global Nanny State with vested interests in controlling what people could read,
and then I got as mad as hell! I wasn't going to take this anymore! So I opened up my window and stuck my head out and...
Changed my browser's search engine.
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The second part we had recently, I think several times. Watson starting to swear and that Microsoft Nazi killer teenage girl chatterbot come to mind.
Better AI is not even on the horizon though, as AI is still not something we have in any meaningful way. Got to have a thing before you can improve it.
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And incidentally, suppressing free speech is not a good idea, regardless of how stupid that speech may be.
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Yes, while we want truth to win, the way to do that is not to suppress falsehoods. What would the reactions be if all sites claiming there's life after death were censored because it's obviously bullshit?
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Well, yes. But the techniques that can be used to achieve that (censorship, coercion, propaganda, religion, laws, penalties, ...) are dual-purpose and completely free of any inherent morality. In the past, whenever these were used, they were abused, and that is going to happen in the future as well. Allowing unrestricted free speech (well, with some limits as to inciting violence and slander targeted at individuals that are not public figures) is not a good solution. It is a pretty bad solution. But it is t
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You would also need to suppress all sites that claim there is _no_ live after death, because that is just as obviously bullshit. The actual scientific fact at this time is "nobody knows". Don't like that? Too bad.
Incidentally, and I think your and my example shows that nicely, the core problem with any kind of censorship is that as soon as you have a decision process on what is "true" and what is not, that process is open to manipulation.
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Because what I want to see when I look up the Holocaust is Stormfront. This is the equivalent of looking up Big Bang cosmology in an encyclopedia, but the first article you find being electric universe nonsense.
I'll stick to Google, thanks.
Doing nothing is still an action (Score:2)
Google should just shut up, and continue to serve pages according to some automated relevancy criteria. In particular, they should leave politics, beliefs and such emotionally loaded criteria out of the algorithm.
Why? So some bigoted blowhard can warp those search criteria to propagate a pack of lies about a genocide? A search engine that returns nothing but falsehoods is worse than useless. It can actually be actively harmful.
It's a VERY slippery slope.
Spare me. The slippery slope argument is almost always complete nonsense. I could make the same argument in reverse that Google is supporting bigoted speech by NOT fixing their search algorithm. Why should we believe that act is not intentional? Even inaction is still an action in this