[silexia]

It's hilarious that people say a search engine is censoring it's results... That is literally the entire point of a search engine!

A search engines goal is to take billions of webpages and try to "censor" 99.9999% of them.

If you don't like the results you get, switch search engines (there are tons of great options), or build your own. And yes, building your own is not that hard and there are a ton of tutorials online on how to do it.

[mc32]

Search engines typically surface what people search for based on some semi-secret sauce. That’s all good.

What’s not good is overriding those results not because of keyword bids, but because they deem the link inappropriate despite a lack of some oversight like a court injunction.

They simply don’t like one side of the conversation. It’s not as though people on the other side don’t have extreme opinions and have their sites black-holed.

[Jeff_Brown]

To elevate the kind of radical violent conspiratorial fringe that needs a separate platform to the status of "one side" of an implicitly two sided debate does a gross disservice to the variety of political opinion, and to the many reasonable conservative viewpoints that run into no difficulties expressing themselves in a more open forum like e.g. Twitter.

[ineedasername]

Right now it is entirely likely that people searching for 8chan are interested in it's news value, so surfacing news stories about it-- with the wikipedia results at the top providing a "what is 8chan" result-- is entirely possible that it's part of the "secret sauce"

Regardless, the true purpose of the "secret sauce" is to maximize use of the search engine to maximize ad impressions & revenue. It could very well be the case that putting the actual 8chan website at the top of the listings wouldn't actually do that. Advertisers are probably more likely to target attributes associated with people searching for 8chan-- news seekers-- rather than targeting 8chan itself. Just a guess though-- I'm essentially saying this behavior doesn't necessarily have to be Google messing with it's secret sauce (although that is entirely possible too)

[jjcon]

> That is literally the entire point of a search engine!

There is obviously a difference between censoring to push a political agenda and sorting results by relevancy based on a deterministic algorithm

> If you don't like the results you get, switch search engines

I think putting pressure on the existing DOJ antitrust case against google is a better alternative

[silexia]

Would you want the government to force you to host unsavory characters in your home that you disliked?

That is what you are asking the government to force Google to do.

If Google is doing something bad, then customers will switch to Bing or DuckDuckGo or one of many other options. If the government does something bad, you are out of luck. Don't rely on the government or it will become powerful enough to one day take something you love. It's better to rely on the free market to surface the best options.

[jjcon]

> Would you want the government to force you to host unsavory characters in your home that you disliked? That is what you are asking the government to force Google to do.

By supporting the antitrust case against google I am asking the government to force people to put unsavory characters in their homes?

I’m sorry that just doesn’t track... at all.

I do support the free market, and to have that we the people have opted to prevent megacorps from stifling competition and wielding their powers unjustly.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> Would you want the government to force you to host unsavory characters in your home that you disliked?

Google is a company, not a private residence. The government has a long history of forcing companies to host people that those companies would rather not (it is illegal, for instance, to refuse to rent to hispanics, even if you've decided that they're unsavory).

[jariel]

Algorithms are not censorship - and - there isn't effective competition in search.

I support Angela Merkel's view that these entities can't take decisions to censor information entirely upon their own volition.

As the OP pointed out, we need a better way.

[silexia]

A mere 20 years ago Google did not exist at all. Within 5 years of its start it was extremely popular. Things happen even faster online now. If a search engine that was much better than Google came out, Google would be dropped by almost everyone within a year.

If you give the government the power to decide who a private business has to allow in, that's a power you will probably never get back. And the government is far more likely to use it in nefarious ways than a private corporation can.

[jariel]

"If there were a better product it would win" is really a little naive, it's like saying "if a startup just built a new Jumbo Jet, the would win that Trillion dollar market".

Many industries have huge natural barriers - and more importantly - systematic barriers built by incumbents. Android, Chrome are 'moats' that are used to ensure Google wins. No other search engine could develop enough momentum to build the quality necessary while up against those moats and natural barriers.

"If you give the government the power to decide who a private business has to allow in, that's a power you will probably never get back. "

Right now, you have absolutely zero power over how Google implements their policies, ergo, nor you nor I have any power to 'give away'. While I don't always entirely trust how government intervenes and there are risks, I trust them more than I do large corporations.

Your arguments don't work because they are so general that they also work against every other government regulation. No FTC? No FDA? No FCC and 'Net Neutrality'? No Privacy Laws? No worker regulations?

These basic arguments about gov vs. private practice generally become moot in the face of nuanced reality.

Part of the role of government is to help ensure a competitive landscape, to enforce anti-trust and to regulate where necessary. That's why they exist.