By Jo Best, 14 April 2004 16:15
NEWS Google has defended its stance over the anti-Semitic website that tops its rankings, saying that however distasteful the site may be, it will have to stay to preserve the ranking system's objectivity.
It's the search results for the word "Jew" that are causing all the problems for the online giant the site that ranks first is anti-Semitic Jewwatch.com, which links to other anti-Jewish sites and lists various supposed Jewish conspiracies.
Google has publicly declared that it finds the site distasteful, but because the company's rankings are determined by algorithms and not people, Google believes that removing the offensive site will call into question the search engine's objectivity. Its current policy is only to intervene in cases where a site's content is illegal.
The legal niceties of the situation, however, vary from country to country. While the Jewwatch site may be allowed under the US's constitutional First Amendment right to free speech, the German and French versions of Google won't show the site in any search results due to legislation banning race-hate websites.
Although Google says it has no plans to take down the site, anti-Jewwatch websites and petitions have been created, calling for the site's removal and demonstrating the strength of feeling surrounding the issue. The email forwards that have been circulating on the internet this week have been requesting 50,000 signatures to force Google to change its mind. That target was beaten yesterday.
Google, however, maintains that no amount of signatures will lead to a change of heart. Sergey Brin, Google's founder and Jewish himself, told Reuters that he found the site offensive but didnt believe the site should be taken down.
"I certainly am very offended by the site but the objectivity of our rankings is one of our very important principles," he said.
Comments
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1. Bob McNair
Googles ranking system sucks anyway.
I run a small business in my spare time, which hires out PA equipment in Dorset and Southern England. Try a search for those details on MSN search, Alltheweb, and several others we are at the top as you would expect from the relevance of our tags to the search string. Google?? nowhere to be seen for pages and pages below complete twaddle of no relevance to the search enquiry. Googles "algorithm" is cr*p if I were to pay them however!!!! (and have hundreds of sites link to me (as this one probably does) a different matter I bet.
The outcome? I dont use Google, wouldnt reccomend it, and have a link to a nice "efficient" search engine on my home page (put it there after they ranked me at the top before you get conspiracy theories!)
2. anonymous
If Google can't take it down, then maybe Jewish communities can try and get their sites to the top of the search engines instead? Maybe one site with lots of different URLs, some, similar to the offensive ones, so some readers might go there in order to read more balanced arguments. You can't pretend it's not happening, but if you tackle it head on and challenge them in the same arena, then hopefully, their arguments will fall apart. You could also publicise the ISPs who host the site and see if they have any other racist connections. If they start getting enough bad press, they might take it down anyway. These racists sites have obviously played the system to get to the top of the list, so there's no reason legitimate sites cannot do the same.
3. Haydn Rees
You get what you look for.
People on either side of any issue use language in a highly specific way - Pro-life/Pro-choice, Unionist/Republican.
Assume that there is a battle for the semantic connotation of certain highly charged words. You think its your work. The people on the other side of the arguement use it as a perjorative.
If you look on an algoritmically driven search engine, and according to the algorithm, you are not winning the arguement, blaming the search engine is an error of perception (dumb).
If you don't like the way another group of people use one of your power words, deal with that. Don't get your knickers in a bunch with the messenger.
4. anonymous
Why would anyone give any publicity to race hate groups? It only encourages them.
5. Nicholas Tee
Good on you Google!!!
I and many others are becoming sick and tired of the least little bit of criticsm about anything Jewish being classified as Anti-Semitic. Everything that disagrees in the slightest way with anything Jewish is now described as being Anti-Semitic. When are those people that use this term so liberally going to going to wake up to the fact that their inability to take any form of criticism can lead to a strong dislike.
Isn't it about time they woke up and grew up.
I'm sick of it. And I guess if that makes me Anti Semitic - then so be it.
Criticism is just part of life!!!
6. anonymous
I think its ridiculous to be aiming anger at Google, surely its the actual site creators that should be getting the Flack?
7. Haydn Rees
Google 101...
Google does not give publicity to race hate groups. Google indexes a site, and counts the number of links into the site (how it does it is Rocket Science). It ranks its answers on how close they are to your question. It reflects reality.
People work out how it's algorithms works, and modify their web pages to muck up how the system records them, to their advantage.
Google makes no moral or value judgement. That's your job. It records what's there. That's it's job. I think that this is a good disposition of labour.
If you suggest Google should censor anything, or compromise its level playing field, you misunderstand the medium of the Internet, you attribute Google with far more power than it has, surrender your own power to the race hate groups, and frankly miss the point.
This is incredibly accelerated Dawinian selection in action - not with genes, but ideas. If Pro-Jewish, Pro-Choice, or Pro-Democracy ideas are flawed, not compelling enough, not well enough argued, not energetically enough expresed, etc. they get wiped out by something more powerful.
So how do you think you can win?
a) Surrender the arguement, moan, and take out a court order against Google.
b) Argue more passionately, intelligently, compellingly, publically, and frequently than the race hate groups.
Finally, you get what you look for; if you're looking for race hate, that's what you'll get. If you're looking for love, peace and harmony, and that's what you'll get.
8. anonymous
In that case I will not use Google Copernic is as good if not better
9. anonymous
JewWatch has stuff that could come right out of an encyclopedia, some slightly angry with Jews, and some that thinks Jews are vile, vicious, and hateful. But, so is the stuff you get on any Jewish site; much of it is downright anti-gentile. Abe Foxman, and many other Jews, can't say two sentences without calling someone "anti-semite, bigot, racist, white supremacist, holocaust denier, or Nazi." And they never define these words! JewWatch does.