Google tried to impose censorship with SafeSearch??

I just happened upon the following from Google's entry on Internet Counterattack:

I use Google all the time, and I admit here and now that I semi-regularly do "explicit terms" searches, so how come I never noticed this at all?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I had an inkling something was off (lots of trouble finding "racy" images of DVD covers) but was unaware of this.

What really confuses me is that I do not remember at any point since January and until to day that the SafeSearch function lost the "turn off" option, unlike what the above passage says had happened.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I feel like this is more appropriate for The Nunnery.

Yeah, I thought that was weird.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

"The Nunnery"?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

The Nunnery.

No? Unless people start specifically mentioning what they want to look up.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

... At first glance, that seemed like the most glaring case of misleading name. Then I find out via dictionary that the "misleading" part is actually a pre-existing slang-specific (though apparently obsolete) alternate sense of the word. Bravo, guys. Bravo.

edited 21st Nov '13 6:31:22 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Actually, this started back in December 2012. Link.

Yeah it was originally Fetishes but it was felt to bring a bad image, and well Get Thee to a Nunnery

I'll never understand that.

I mean, the content of the thread is pretty much exactly the same as far as I can tell, all changing the name did is make it more confusing/appear more wholesome to newcomers or people who don't get the reference. It's basically like trying to hide our shame behind a very thin sheet.

edited 21st Nov '13 8:05:18 PM by Mukora

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

@Mukora It is a bit that.

Well, the cutoff for what's too explicit got more stringent around the same time, but mainly site management was worried about having such a direct thread title drawing attention to itself.

Fresh-eyed movie blog

To be honest, I think I prefer it with the thin sheet over it. Makes it easier for me to ignore the thread

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

@Cassidy: Then why do I still see "Turn off SafeSearch" in the options menu? And yes, it works quite fine; heaps upon heaps of porno images and other such explicit stuff show up.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I think that people just associating safesearch with filtering explicit material forget the fact that google is doing this in a subtle way in order to make it unnoticeable. This just shows that google not just can but will attempt to censor their searches in unnoticeable ways. This by itself is a big problem as doing that kind of thing in secret makes you wonder what other stuff they will censor out in secret like this.

If you guys are going to accuse me of slippery slope argument mind looking at the Great Firewall of China: filtering porn is the excuse the PRC use to use internet filters that block things like the Tiananmen Square incident. This is something that is happening right now.

Until Google explains itself I'm going to switch to Bing.

edited 22nd Nov '13 4:38:59 PM by IraTheSquire

Wait, so what did Google censor then, if it wasn't sexually explicit images?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

My point is not "what Google actually censored" but "if Google is willing to censor as secretly as possible, what else are they going to censor without us knowing".

It's not what they censor, or that they censor at all that is the problem, but the act that they are willing to do it/try to do it in secret. That is not something we should encourage and is good grounds for boycotting Google.

At the very least, not even Iceland or Britain try censor porn/think about censoring porn without telling people.

Google has a habit of doing that. They do a lot without telling you about it.

what do you mean I didn't win, I ate more wet t-shirts than anyone else

And Google can get away with it because they're market leader. Bing is second-best, at around 11% share. Of course, Microsoft's Scroogled campaign might have a field day with this.

If that's the case they just crossed a line with censoring in secret. Censoring anything in secret is a big no-no for me for I cannot tell whether information has been cut off from me or not, and doing that in secret without me know violated my trust for Google of not going to with-hold information from me.

Also, note that the fact that Google is censoring the net itself is already non-explicit information, and by attempting to censorthat, ie keeping it under taps, it already crossed the line of "censoring only the porn".

More the reason to switch away from Google for it is obvious that it cannot be trusted with that kind of power.

edited 22nd Nov '13 6:06:33 PM by IraTheSquire

All the more reason to wonder just why the hell isn't anyone invoking the anti-monopoly laws on Google (and Microsoft, too).

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

@ Ira. I use Bing more than I use Google (mostly because I have a Windows 8.1 device and I use Bing Smart Search a lot), so that's for me.

@ Marq. Google has been done in for anti-competition in the EU, but this is a legally-grey area and I dunno if it could be prosecutable.

Given that the search term "porn video" returns over 717,000,000 results, I don't think that this is much of a hindrance to anybody's private time.

edited 22nd Nov '13 6:50:34 PM by TheBatPencil

And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)