Last night, popular web portal Slashdot ran a member submitted article suggesting that search giant Google was censoring results on its image search page. Google has (correctly) been accused of censorship before, except previously it had been limited to countries like China. However, the implication here was the Google Images were not showing up for politically sensitive results; it was suggested that this was "another case of our administration confusing "National Security" with "Politically Undesirable". Examples given were Lynndie England, the woman who featured in many of the pictures from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
We contacted Google, who directed us to this response posted in the Slashdot comments :
"Hi All, Sergey asked me to pass this on: In short, there is no censorship here. We are embarrassed that our image index is not updated as frequently as it should be. Expect a refresh in the near future. In the meantime, you can just search on Google Web Search for [Abu Graib Photos] to get plenty of what you are looking for."
Clearly, a case of 2 and 2 making 7. However, it does highlight the apparent ease that false news can be propagated on the web via "submission based" sites. Negative coverage on such a large site as Slashdot can be very damaging for any company, especially with accusations of censorship. One would hope that Slashdot check there article submissions a little more carefully, and that Google update their image index very soon.
View: Slashdot.org
View: Google.com
We contacted Google, who directed us to this response posted in the Slashdot comments :
"Hi All, Sergey asked me to pass this on: In short, there is no censorship here. We are embarrassed that our image index is not updated as frequently as it should be. Expect a refresh in the near future. In the meantime, you can just search on Google Web Search for [Abu Graib Photos] to get plenty of what you are looking for."
Clearly, a case of 2 and 2 making 7. However, it does highlight the apparent ease that false news can be propagated on the web via "submission based" sites. Negative coverage on such a large site as Slashdot can be very damaging for any company, especially with accusations of censorship. One would hope that Slashdot check there article submissions a little more carefully, and that Google update their image index very soon.
View: Slashdot.org View: Google.com
Cont...
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That's like the pot calling the kettle black.
They corrected thier accusation at 5:45 p.m. last night. This shouldn't even be headline news. Or rather, it's headline news ONLY becouse you can take a jab at the competition.
Sure there is! Neowin is the first place I go, so I wouldn't have heard about this unless they had posted it here. Keep up the good work guys!
What an ignorant viewpoint. Neowin has no reason to criticise Slashdot and the story is of interest to a lot of people - it is important to show that mistakes can be made, rather than burying them and pretending news reporting is perfect.
it may be hard to believe this but Tom (Mr Magoo) is a frequent visitor and submits articles there too, he has no reason to dirty their site in the way you think.
Its completely valid, if anything it shows the power a site like /. has when stuff falls through the net that may not be entirely accurate (pun intended)
I wouldn't have heard about this EITHER unless they had posted it here. Keep up the good work guys!
Why?
For instance nearly all of the Abu Ghraib pictures are missing - they can't be too controversial if British newspapers can run them on the front pages and even IF they are Google shouldn't be deciding what is moral for us for see (read: censorship). If Google isn't "updated as frequently as it should be" on something as major as this, and which is over a month old, then there is something seriously wrong.
Google is great for somethings, but it is becoming increasingly unreliable for politically sensitive information/images. Even Ask Jeeves (ask.com) comes up with pictures of Lynndie England and Abu Ghraib photos - this would lead me to conclude that Google is either incompetent or censoring information. Heck, Ask Jeeves links to one of the controversial pictures of Abu Ghraib on the BBC website - Google is definitely searching the BBC website. Suspicious doesn't cover it.
Last edited by 2471 on 08 Nov 2004 - 14:05
your double post was removed
Last edited by 2 on 08 Nov 2004 - 14:06
Another example would be Sprint. There were rumours going around that they would be disabling the dial up networking profile for their bluetooth phones, like the Treo 650. An Orielly network blog called them out on it, stirring up questions, and someone from sprint's data group had to come on and publicly announce they would not be hindering any data access in any way, and promoted the fact that you can use bluetooth to connect to the internet using your phone as an option.
Sometimes a sounding board to a large audience gets things moving. That's a good thing.
I think the word you want there is apparent.
and even if you can prove it, its his site, and by joining you accept the rules, which give the mods the right to remove your comments.
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