Google and SPLC are both untrustworthy

Went to RCP five minutes ago, and it was a tossup which to read first: Google Scrubs Report on SPLC Link to Shooter From Search or Why Big Tech Will Lose the Censorship Wars. But since I am in a pessimistic mood today, I picked the first.

I could call this blog post "Why I use Duck-Duck-Go". Or maybe "Why you should use Duck-Duck-Go".

Excerpt from the piece:

Breitbart News has experienced similar censorship from Google, with the exact wording of Breitbart headlines failing to generate results on the first page of Google. Instead, the searches bring up results for websites that plagiarize the headlines and content of original Breitbart News stories.

In a comment to Breitbart News, Cernovich said he believed the SPLC went to Google to remove negative information about themselves.

“I wrote a truthful report, which relied on publicly available court records, about the SPLC’s connection to a mass shooter. Rather than demand a retraction, which they know they could not obtain, the SPLC clearly ran to Google to have them remove my report. Google is censoring truthful information at the behest of left wing organizations.”

Cernovich noted that the SPLC is a discredited organization, having been forced into a multi-million dollar settlement with the secularist campaigner Maajid Nawaz after it added the moderate Muslim to a list of “anti-Muslim extremists.”

Just to make sure you understand this, companies and organizations optimize keywords to bring up search results. So if I work in IT for Dick's Sporting Goods then I want the search phrase "camping gear" to bring up my company's site near the top. But I am not worrying about what happens if the user types the exact phrase Dick's Sporting Goods in because it will be the top hit naturally. In fact, I just keyed in "Rick's Sporting Goods" for fun and it brought up the DSG page.

So this is an instance where Google must have "hardcoded" a censoring block on this aricle even if you type in the exact title into the search bar How a Convicted Terrorist used the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Website to Identify Targets. I am calling this "hardcoding" for a reason. Allegedly only the top programmers work for Google and hardcoding, placing data inside programs, is a terrible practice. "Data belongs in a database!" Ohhhh... so there is a internal database table dedicated to blocking these sorts of things. Got it. Thank you for your cooperation.

Regardless how they are crippling their algorithm to suppress, or even hide, the search results which are inconvenient to their ideology, there is absolutely no way to claim this is not happening. Soon there will be a counter database out there with links to everything whose rank Google is adjusting deliberately. Of course this is not a new revelation, but someone with more smarts and resources than me might find out how to automate the population of such a database. Then we will see a true, high-tech counter weight to Big Search.

Oh, and check this out guys. I just Googled the title "Google Scrubs Mike Cernovich Report on SPLC Link to Mass Shooter from Search Results". Here is what can up:

If this topic is new, it can sometimes take time for results to be added by reliable sources. We are here treated to Google's disclaimer and suggestion that results from the search Google Scrubs Mike Cernovich Report on SPLC Link to Mass Shooter from Search Results are not reliable.

Hey, Google, this topic is not new, for your information. However this particular story is still developing.

Note to Google Plus Users: You're Screwed

Here's a message on the blogger control panel:

Following the announcement of Google+ API deprecation scheduled for March 2019, a number of changes will be made to Blogger’s Google+ integration on 4 February 2019.

Google+ widgets: Support for the “+1 Button”, “Google+ Followers” and “Google+ Badge” widgets in Layout will no longer be available. All instances of these widgets will be removed from your blog.

+1 buttons: The +1/G+ buttons and Google+ share links below blog posts and in the navigation bar will be removed.

Please note that if you have a custom template that includes Google+ features, you may need to update your template. Please contact your template supplier for advice.

Google+ Comments: Support for Google+ comments will be turned down, and all blogs using Google+ comments will be reverted back to using Blogger comments. Unfortunately, comments posted as Google+ comments cannot be migrated to Blogger and will no longer appear on your blog.

Not chuckling. "First they came for the Google+ users and I did not speak out because I did not use Google+...." I had mentioned nearly nine years ago that I was thinking about migrating, and I'm thinking about it again. But since I have trouble posting a new post even when I practically promise that I will, don't hold your breath. I would like to, though.

Of course I'm not really talking about speaking out. I am talking about getting out.

In case of the rapture... or Google...

Remember our old Dangerous Ideas posts from days of yore? Well, I give you the whole Google robot car debacle-waiting-to-happen.

I actually heard grown men discussing the benefits of driverless cars with serious faces the other day. "Of course," said one, "you'd have to make sure everyone else on the road has a special transmitting device so the driverless cars 'knows' about them." Oh great, I thought, so these things are blind as well as looking totally retarded?

Immediately I was reminded of a Jack Handey deep thought: "I wish a robot would get elected President. That way, when he came to town, we could all take a shot at him and not feel too bad." It might be fun to goof on these puppies, maybe spray paint the Apple logo on them, or tag them with that bumper sticker about the rapture, etc. But wear your ninja outfit; I'm sure they have wireless cams all over them with a lawyer or two on the other end.

And speaking of lawyers, I'm sure there are some ambulance chasers strategizing how you might sue the deep-pocketed GOOG over these marvels. Who would likely win a "she said / it said" case?

Don't know if this is Google bias or not

If you Google "potatoe" the results page has oodles of Dan Quayle references. There's no self-correction. On the other hand, Googling "Oiho" gives you the standard auto-correction, with the option to actually search on the Oiho misspelling which, at this point, yields 577,000 results.

My guess is that they are not going to relax their auto-correct to allow for this meme. At least not until the effect blows over. It is not cool to make fun of The Chosen One's many gaffes among the cool kids. Here's another good one from Free Republic's page:

Google FYI

Here are some Google searches in which this humble blog appears on the first page:

• prayer for bad dreams
• Tony Esolen
• Cantate Domino Canticum Novum
• Rod Dreher
• Malcolm Muggeridge Firing Line
• Tintoretto Cristo Risorgente
• Christopher Cuddy

I guess the biggest surprises to me are the fact that I'm no longer on page one for "bald women" and that I am on the first page for "Rod Dreher", which lands on this page. It definitely shows a loss of web presence. I mean, where's his Wikipedia page? Somewhere, but not on page one.

Need a Mosque in New York City?

Allah be praised for Google Maps, with which you can find a Mosque in NY City. Oh, look and see!


View Larger Map
Behold all the wondrous Mosques in New York City. We are always trying to help people of all faiths who come to our blog.

From the "Heh file"

Check out The Snob's analysis on Google's upcoming "Android" phone.

My Library On Google

This is pretty cool. I had a horrible cold last weekend, so I spent a lot of time entering books into Google's library database feature. What's neat is that some of the newer books are searchable, so if I remember reading something but I'm not sure which book it's in... presto! I can Google my own "dead tree" library!

I've only got it partially entered. My estimate is that my wife and I own maybe 700 or 800 books. Probably by year-end I'll have it completely loaded. I'm not going to post my comic book collection; if I did Bubba might break into my house to steal them.

This would be a great tool for small school or church libraries especially since it's free to the user to create a library. You just do a search on author or title, or you can enter the ISBN number. I did find that not all ISBN numbers are entered and there were a few books which I couldn't find, about 3 out of 284. Those were all from very small publishing companies, however.