Video: Is Google protecting Islam?
posted at 9:30 am on January 12, 2010 by Ed Morrissey
I’ve seen this in e-mail threads for at least a week now, but when Fox & Friends, Mediaite, and the London Telegraph cover it, the question has gone mainstream. Google appears to be blocking search suggestions (but not searches) on the phrase “Islam is,” while allowing for all sorts of suggestions for all other religions:
Google’s search Suggest function treats Islam a bit differently from the other major religions of the world. It’s willing to suggest “Christianity is bullshit” or “Judaism is false,” but if you begin to ask what Islam is, it won’t suggest a thing.
Google says that this search oddity is a bug – and that its search gurus are working to fix it. But several days have passed since it was publicly uncovered.
As originally noticed by The Next Web blog, Suggest isn’t shy about suggesting search queries that put several major religions in a less-the-favorable light. If you type, “Christianity is” into Google’s search box, for instance, the web giant suggests queries such as “Christianity is bullshit,” “Christianity is not a religion,” “Christianity is a lie,” and “Christianity is fake” …
Google already has a bad reputation in the on-line world for playing footsie with the Chinese government in helping enforce their censorship, and lesser offenses such as not recognizing some holidays with special graphics while celebrating others. Google claims that this is a bug in their system and that they’re working to fix it. That explanation seems odd at first glance, though, since the problem only appears to afflict Islam, and not Taoism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and so on.
On the other hand, the actual searches work fine. Since that’s the main function of Google, and since the suggestion strings don’t interfere with the searches themselves, the bug explanation may make some sense. A search on “Islam is false” (a common suggestion for other religions) returns 13,600,000 links. If Google intended to “protect” Islam or enforce a standard of political correctness, restricting search suggestions seems the least effective way of doing so. This looks like a non-issue.
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Also, the code closes the recommendations by typing anything where a word with the suffix “ists” is followed by the word “are”, but they override the code when they choose to so they actually had to insert “Satanists are Christians” at the company. The code will even close the recommendations for “wrists are” because it ends “ists”.
Buddahpundit on January 12, 2010 at 11:41 AM
No, because ‘Istanbul is…’ brings up plenty of suggestions.
This is deliberate.
James on January 12, 2010 at 11:54 AM
Your quibble is with Snopes internet hoax page (cited above), not me. Take it up with them. Personally, I remain unconvinced that its not just a bug. And the burden of proof remains with the accusers. You need more evidence to prove your conspiracy theory… and more cowbell.
Terp Mole on January 12, 2010 at 11:58 AM
This is a pure CYA move by Google. If they did search suggestions for “Islam is…” then some nutjob in the Middle East somewhere (or CAIR maybe?) would go out claiming that Google is “suggesting” that Islam is all of the things that pop up.
Google isn’t trying to protect Islam, Google is protecting itself from a likely PR nightmare with Muslims. Who knows, maybe Google sees this as a security measure to prevent some whackjob from going after their employees for “suggesting” that Islam is false.
Seixon on January 12, 2010 at 12:01 PM
I gotta have more cowbell, baby!.
Terp Mole on January 12, 2010 at 12:03 PM
Then you obviously have no idea how software is made. The suggestions algorithm simply presents the top results starting with whatever you’ve typed in, based on the number of hits you’d get if you tried each suggestion.
Seeing as how “Islam is…” searches return millions of results, the algorithm should be presenting the top ones just like it does for everything else. Yet it does not.
When an automated algorithm is not producing what it is programmed to do, then a human must have actively prevented it from doing it. Easy as that.
Seixon on January 12, 2010 at 12:06 PM
Shortly after the climategate story broke, people noticed that Google’s auto-suggestion was fishy on that term as well. You’d type “climateg” and get “Climate guatemala”.
Watts Up With That
After people started blogging about it the auto-suggest fixed itself.
bluestatered on January 12, 2010 at 12:11 PM
I remember years ago when I wanted to check out Jihad Watch. I googled the name, and got everyone defamatory about the site, but no results that would directly take to the site.
I couldn’t believe it. I ended up using firefox to get there. I use Bing now. And I love it.
atheling on January 12, 2010 at 12:13 PM
Guess what? I got a fever! And the only prescription.. is more cowbell!!
Terp Mole on January 12, 2010 at 12:13 PM
Sheesh, my English.
… and got every site defamatory to the site…
…but no results that would directly take ME to the site!
atheling on January 12, 2010 at 12:14 PM
Islam sucks still works.
Connie on January 12, 2010 at 12:36 PM
I also switch back and forth from Ask to Yahoo and back again. I get anything I want to search for with those two and I avoid being “googlized”
Vntnrse on January 12, 2010 at 12:37 PM
I read an interview with Googles CEO a few days ago where he said the US is to blame for the worldwide recesion and Obama is just the greatest thing of all time. I don’t know why anybody uses Google anymore, Bing is better and doesn’t push it’s politics on you. I switched to it and haven’t looked back.
clearbluesky on January 12, 2010 at 12:57 PM
How many non issues make an “issue” when it comes to Islam?
patrick neid on January 12, 2010 at 1:10 PM
So does “is is”.
exception on January 12, 2010 at 1:38 PM
And this is proof that you have no refutation to those who are pointing out that it is more than a bug, but an actual programming decision.
Tim Burton on January 12, 2010 at 1:41 PM
The search works just fine. THAT’s a non-issue. But the “suggestion string” function being the way it is, is not a non-issue.
AlexB on January 12, 2010 at 1:47 PM
Ditto. I was a software developer, and I can’t imagine how this would be designed so that only “Islam is” has this problem. I don’t expect them to explain how their software works. However, if it’s really a bug, then they should know EVERY CASE that causes this problem. Let us know what the other cases are, and I think just about everyone would be satisfied.
viking999 on January 12, 2010 at 1:57 PM
Wrong! It is proof that those who see grand conspiracies in programming bugs are refuting the folks at Snopes (not me!)… and (btw) HotAir’s Ed Morrissey who apparently agrees with Snopes when he wrote above;
I gotta have more cowbell, baby!
Terp Mole on January 12, 2010 at 2:01 PM
Wrong. It definitely doesn’t return any “Bill Clinton” hits. Either google is conspiring to gag their search engine… or “is is” is a redundancy bug. This is a feature, not a problem.
I gotta have more cowbell, baby!
Terp Mole on January 12, 2010 at 2:05 PM
It sounds like creeping Sharia law…de facto.
Oil Can on January 12, 2010 at 2:06 PM
It’s even worse. I went to check a few options and entered various Islam terms and after about a dozen the gave me this wonderful lock out. Interesting fact is that they’re on terms state they’ll display a captcha before they lock you out. I didn’t get a captcha. They simply locked me out. I was gonna contact them but I thought, BS, I just start using Bing.
Sultry Beauty on January 12, 2010 at 2:16 PM
I assure you that my computer is not sending automated queries.
Sultry Beauty on January 12, 2010 at 2:18 PM
How do you know they’re not burying results? It’s a question of the corporations character.
- The Cat
P.S. Down with Big Search!
MirCat on January 12, 2010 at 2:58 PM
That’s from Carlson’s new site.
Ed you’re better than that. This is most certainly an issue and it’s sick Dhimmitude at its worst.
A rethink is in order Captain.
russcote on January 12, 2010 at 3:00 PM
That’s what I was trying to say.
shick on January 12, 2010 at 4:46 PM
Precisely. Though as some have pointed out, the filtering doesn’t seem to be very widespread. There are other anti-islamic starting phrases that get suggestions.
No, because other searches that start with IS will get suggestions. Try “Isaac is” or “Ishmael is”. I don’t know what is going on here but it isn’t a bug and it isn’t normal.
JackOfClubs on January 12, 2010 at 5:35 PM
Remember that doll that said that islam “is the light”? They said that that was just a bug, too.
JakeRightThought on January 12, 2010 at 6:13 PM
Read this yesterday, but decided to reread and post today. I agree I’m switching to Bing. A Bing search pulls up several suggestions for Islam and one for Christianity.
Bing’s suggestions for:
islam is
— evil
— the light
— the light baby doll
— a lie
— of the devil
christianity is
— false
Google’s suggestions for:
islam is
—
christianity is
— bullshit
— not a religion
— a lie
— false
— a cult
— wrong
— fake
— dying
— jewish
So, I see some type of bias here.
j_galt on January 13, 2010 at 12:48 PM
But I do like my GMail. Any suggestions for a better e-mail provider?
j_galt on January 13, 2010 at 12:49 PM
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