As most of you are aware, when typing a search term in to Google, the omniscient search engine usually helps you with a slight assist: it lists a bunch of guesses for what it thinks you intend to type even before you are done typing. It prognosticates based on other people’s searches. Go try it yourself. Type in “Sepia” and see what suggestions it offers you.
Often times the suggestion are really silly, often times scary.
I simply could not believe that the following was true so I tried it myself. It was true. I found this at Digg.com today. Click to enlarge the image.
Understand what I am showing you here? Either by their own decision or at someone’s request, Google is actively suppressing its own suggestions feature when someone types in “Islam is…” None of the other religions seem to get such special treatment. Interestingly, the suggestions are also suppressed if someone types in “Christians are,” “Hindus are,” “Muslims are,” etc. My point? This sort of selective suppression is incredibly stupid. People, however bigoted in their intentions, should be able to search for anything they want. This is akin to a form of censorship in my view. It is also kind of patronizing. Does Google think followers of Islam need extra shielding from bad intentions? I don’t want this same treatment given to the other religions either. I should be able to search for hateful terms if I want to.
It looks like Wired.com saw the same Digg post I saw and decided to ask Google. Here is the response they received:
But Google says it’s just a software problem.
“This is a bug and we’re working to fix it as quickly as we can,” a Google spokesman told Wired.com.
The suggestion feature relies on your previous searches and searches from users globally. Google says it filters out “pornographic terms, dirty words, and hate and violence terms.”[link]
I’m not sure I buy the “software bug” explanation.
Well, far be it from me to speak up for Islam, but perhaps if we’re at the brink of a civilizational war, it makes sense to take a deep breath, pull back, and yes, compromise stuff like ‘free speech’ if in fact it will lessen the chances of an “all-will-lose” war. That is, I suppose the proposition behind the common philosopher’s joke “let justice be served though the heavens may fall”–the point being, let’s accept a little injustice if that’s what it takes to keep on keeping on. . . .that said, it would really bug me if I were a Muslim-American that they keep getting treated like the “special” kid in school. . . . but I’ll let them speak for themselves.
Does Google think followers of Islam need extra shielding from bad intentions?
i’m not sure it’s islam which is being shielded 🙂 ask denmark how blowback.
there are some suggestion’s that ireland’s broader blasphemy law is to prevent the nation from getting stuck in denmark’s situation: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/new-irish-blasphemy-law-broken/
PZ Myers tackled this over at Pharyngula. A number of commenters pointed out that although “Islam is…” yielded no suggestions, there were plenty available for “Allah is…”, (including “Allah is satan). I guess Google’s attempt at not offending only extended so far (not that I support any attempt at trying to protect people of any faith from offense).
Hmm, as a devotee of Oscar Wilde, I’d be pretty offended if evidence was that Google couldn’t find anything to say about me. After all, there’s only one thing worse than being talked about…
rahul, you might think differently if google did make some suggestions 🙂 you dodge some “interesting” conversations with co-workers….
? I don’t follow.
“Don’t offend Religion X laws” are bullshit. Wherever they are passed they are simply wrong. Words and thoughts should never be countered with calls for violence. In a perfect world everyone would be free to “insult” any religion they chose to without fear of bodily harm.
I’m thinking, 1. The squeaky gear gets the grease. Fatwa FTW. 2. The hindutva gang hasnt learnt to google search yet. 3. Where is Sarkozy when u need him.
abhi, remember that you’re expressing a very american viewpoint. freedom of speech is much more constrained by democratic consensus in most of the world. including in developed countries. re: “a perfect world,” kurt westergaard’s granddaughter went through something pretty traumatic because of the speech actions he took. i think he’d think the better of it at this point. pretty much zero surprise that google might have done this after the compromises they made with china.
Agree 100%. I’m just trying to say that if in fact there will be bodily harm, one might recalibrate.
a good compromise would be what they did for china, just restrict censorship by geography. anyway, the international norms are moving away from free criticism of religion, U.N. body adopts resolution on religious defamation: The U.N. Human Rights Council adopted the non-binding text, proposed by Pakistan on behalf of Islamic states, with a vote of 23 states in favor and 11 against, with 13 abstentions.
…
“Defamation of religious is a serious affront to human dignity leading to a restriction on the freedom of their adherents and incitement to religious violence,” the adopted text read, adding that “Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism.”
It called on states to ensure that religious places, sites, shrines and symbols are protected, to reinforce laws “to deny impunity” for those exhibiting intolerance of ethnic and religious minorities, and “to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs.”
google is evil
That’s messed up. What’s also funny is that the first suggestion for “Hinduism” is “monotheistic,” which is an echo of inverted Orientalist epistemology…
inverted Orientalist epistemology
can you unpack by what you mean here?
I think it means that Hinduism (like Jainism) needn’t be perverted into being Protestantized/monotheistized. . . . .
Understand what I am showing you here? Either by their own decision or at someone’s request
Maybe there was some threats from Muslim terrorists groups. Or they could be afraid of a lawsuit from CAIR or the ACLU.
Or they could be afraid of a lawsuit from CAIR or the ACLU.
isn’t this unfair to the ACLU? they’ve defended nazis.
I get search results for just ‘Islam’ but not in English, and for ‘Islam is’ I get nothing. Not sure what this means.
wrong generic target, you tard. can you show me a similar case by the free speech loving aclu??
On the bright side, at least Google has not bowed down to the Indian government like Yahoo and Bing have.
On a related note, here are Google suggestions for the US compared to those for India, for the word “removing”.
May be Google thought discretion is better part of valor. Otherwise also, I do not see a big deal. You can always type the missing word and get what you are looking for. Just because they do not offer you something on a platter does not mean they are censoring or restricting your freedom of speech.
That is not good news what the UN adopted. Even the Obama administration rejects this:
“The Obama administration on Monday came out strongly against efforts by Islamic nations to bar the defamation of religions, saying the moves would restrict free speech.
“Some claim that the best way to protect the freedom of religion is to implement so-called anti-defamation policies that would restrict freedom of expression and the freedom of religion,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters. “I strongly disagree.”
Clinton said the United States was opposed to negative depictions of specific faiths and would always fight against belief-based discrimination. But she said a person’s ability to practice their religion was entirely unrelated to another person’s right to free speech.
“The protection of speech about religion is particularly important since persons of different faith will inevitably hold divergent views on religious questions,” Clinton said. “These differences should be met with tolerance, not with the suppression of discourse.”
Her comments came as the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a 56-nation bloc of Islamic countries, is pressing the U.N. Human Rights Council to adopt a resolution that would broadly condemn the defamation of religion……”
The rest of the article is here http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33486054/ns/world_news-world_faith/
Even without this anti-free speech UN resolution, people are finding difficulties. Free speech is important if the situation is to be improved. Let all religions be freely discussed – this resolution could blur the distinction of criticism and defamation and end up silencing people:
http://www.ansamed.info/en/news/ME03.XAM17273.html
Suki, do you know what the ACLU does? Your statement is completely backward.
This really makes no difference. When one types in anything about Islam , you’ll always find an Islamic hate site within the first page of search results. Islam is the most hated religion.
Whaa? Of course, they’ve bent over backwards to appease the crazies so they can protect their business interests.
They are saying that there software automatically suppresses the “dirty words” etc. Is it possible that most of the top searches of Islam have dirty words attached to them?
I don’t really see how google not offering up search terms for Islam is an affront to freedom of speech as that right is understood under the U.S. Constitution (at least from a legal perspective). (1) how is not offering search terms censoring? you can still type and search for whatever you want (2) I don’t see how typing a search constitutes “speech” as it is legally understood, (3) Google is a private company (i.e. not the government), so it can censor whatever it wants without offending someones right to freedom of speech under the bill of rights.
I can’t speak for how other countries legally define freedom of speech because I am not familiar with their legal systems to the extent I am the U.S.
What is messed up here, is that it appears Google is giving unequal treatment to different faiths, by providing suggestions for some and not for others. Its problematic because its not fair to the other faiths. Its problematic to me personally as a Muslim, because then it allows all the Islamophobe bigots to come out of the woodwork and rail about how Muslims get special treatment and we are all a bunch of psychos who will riot if you can google search islam is..[fill in offensive blank]. I honestly don’t care what bigoted idiotic things people want to search on the internet, and I think most other muslims don’t either. Did someone ask them to do this? Or are they just trying to do it preemptively, and in the process making Muslims look like assholes?
Nada
It’s like when Yale’s press did not publish the Muhammad cartoons in the book they published on.. THE CARTOONS!, claiming that the cartoons were visible on the Internet and could easily be described in words, so it would be gratuitous to reprint them. Good stuff.
Nah. The government and large bureaucracies (like the Google) should stay out of it. But if you walk into a man’s house and start talking shit about his beliefs you clearly deserve a smack across the face. Not for blaspheming, but just for being a tactless douchenozzle.
not completely. The ACLU pretty good but they did support a lawsuit against the boy scouts (scouts vs dale) aimed at restricting their free speech rights, including religious speech.
Bang Gully wrote:
Are you sure about that? Back when I was in school, one of my acquaintances was an Afghan Muslim who would curry favor with white people by making fun of Hinduism. Heck, even Razib has admitted to doing this.
Also, the ACLU tried to suppress the free speech rights of the St patricks day parade organizers, so Suki has a point as they’ve clearly been compromised since thier heyday of skokie.
Back when I was in school, one of my acquaintances was an Afghan Muslim who would curry favor with white people by making fun of Hinduism.
in the USA hinduism = funny. islam = scary. ergo, attempts to protestanize hinduism to make it less funny.
Also, the ACLU tried to suppress the free speech rights of the St patricks day parade organizers, so Suki has a point as they’ve clearly been compromised since thier heyday of skokie.
wendy kaminer has complained that the ACLU is avoiding protecting unpopular speech recently for fundraising reasons. you can google the controversy, but prolly has to do with the new executive.
I don’t understand what “protestanize” means in that context.
I can attest, though, to Muslim and Christian Desi friends who did frequently throw Hinduism under the bus to curry favor with White folks. Customarily I attributed these things to ignorance rather than malice and assumed they shared the same baises and misinformation about us as White people did. Living in a Christian country it is understandable that they wouldn’t get the same kind of exposure to Hinduism as a Muslim or Christian growing up in India would. Occasionally, though, I would overhear terms like “rat worshipper” being dropped and my customary spirit of charity is, well, expunged.
yeah… i am not sure how worshipping a dead man on a stick is “normal” while worshipping in front of an idol is “wierd”…
Manju: Please stop your spinning about ACLU having some anti-christian agenda or not willing to defend the rights of christians to free speech.
The ACLU of Florida has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Christian students who were told they couldn’t wear t-shirts to school with the name of their church and a Bible verse on the front and “Islam is of the devil” on the back.
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/11/aclu_defends_christian_student.php
Suki: Did you see that? ACLU is defending the right of a Christian student to wear a tee shirt which says ‘Islam is of the devil’.
Suki: Has CAIR ever filed a lawsuit against anybody for saying anything negative against Islam?
i never mentioned any anti-christian agenda and I cited 2 cases. I think they’re position in effect is anti-discimnation laws should trump the free speech clause in some cases (or that the free speech clause should be read in ways not to conflict with anti-discrimination laws). Thats their motive as far as I can tell, not anti-christian sentiment….though its possible they’ve been influenced by leftist power theories and therefore Christianity should be afforded less protection (but I haven’t seen them make that argument, so its just speculation)
actually google seems to quit ‘assisting’ for “hindus are”, “jews are” and “hinduism is” as well, but it has no qualms suggesting that “christianity is bullshit” – so maybe there’s more to this than just the squeaky wheel getting the grease
I wish Google would take a consistent position on this. There is indeed a valid case that they could be inciting people to violence similar to how the Lashkar e Taiba and Co. do, so why can’t they simply censor all content critical of Islam?
No. “Hinduism is” does offer completion suggestions. “hindus are”, “christians are”, “muslims are” all do not have suggestions but “hinduism is” and “christianity is” do complete.
Entering “Jainism is ” also leads to no suggestions.
What’s the ETA on that ? ( I get asked that question immediately after I respond anything with ‘working on a fix’ as ‘quickly as we can’ )
yeah… i am not sure how worshipping a dead man on a stick is “normal” while worshipping in front of an idol is “wierd”…
it’s socialization. ancient roman pagans and early modern chinese both accused christians of cannibalism because of the eucharist. those of us socialized in the west don’t find it as strange, even if we’re not catholic or orthodox christians. similarly, muslims don’t consider circumambulation around the kaaba idolatry, though it probably would seem like it to them if you changed the context (imagine hindus congregating around a sacred locale).
that’s the problem with ‘blasphemy.’ a lot of religious practice seems silly from the outside, and common cultural norms aid in comprehension. a totally multicultural world is going to cause problems with keeping track of everyone’s particular offenses.
as for hindu protestantism, aryja samaj is away more popular in places like trinidad than in india. look what’s happening in queens: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/28/nyregion/28choir.html?_r=1
one minor point. from what i have heard from evangelical christians hinduism is straight up paganism to them. islam is a more complicated case, as there are aspects to it which are heretical. even if they don’t agree that allah = the triune god, unlike hinduism islam offensive in part because of analogies between the abrahamic religions. abrahamic religions have traditionally been even harder on heretics and heathens. this is evident when you look at the treatment of ismailis under the sunni aurangzeb vs. hindus.
I’m still not sure what you mean by it. The Arya Samaj is a reformist movement as well as an evangelistic one. Is it one or both of those aspects you’re referring to or something? And how would that make it less funny to Whitey?
Personally I think the evangelistic/missionary impulse with religions is the root cause of most inter-religious conflict. So even good natured missions and movements to convert or re-convert people as an attempt to balance out other people’s missionary activities should generally be viewed with extreme suspicion. And if someone is going to try to make a Hindu-focused evangelical movement, all that will do is stoke a sense of being threatened among cultural Christians.
Non-Abrahamics aren’t typically exclusivist. So it’s easy to insinuate yourself into their belief system and slowly replace their traditional modes of thought. Abrahamics have centuries of interaction with each other so they all play by the same rulebook with regard to what “religion” is. This lets them know the score when that sort of thing starts happening and they respond to it as a threat. In other words, if they are nicer to pagans it’s only because they think we’re easier to convert.
As for the Arunguzeb thing, don’t mistake his political actions as being the sum total of his actual beliefs. What he was able to do was constrained by his resources and competition. The harm he did inflict on Hindus led to widespread revolt, which means he had to try to tone down how hard he was willing to push. The Ismailis never had the level of political power or ability to challenge the Mughals that the Rajputs, Marathas, and other assorted Hindu rulers did.
I think SoS Hillary Clinton on behalf of the Obama administration said it best: #22 “Clinton said the United States was opposed to negative depictions of specific faiths and would always fight against belief-based discrimination. But she said a person’s ability to practice their religion was entirely unrelated to another person’s right to free speech.
“The protection of speech about religion is particularly important since persons of different faith will inevitably hold divergent views on religious questions,” Clinton said. “These differences should be met with tolerance, not with the suppression of discourse.””
That is true…and this is worse…
“…Evangelical Christian beliefs about non-Christian religions:
The Christian Scriptures (New Testament) clearly and repeatedly states that followers of other religions worship demons. One example is 1 Corinthians 10:20-21: “But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God…” Most conservative Christians believe that the Bible is inerrant when interpreted literally. Thus, many of them view other world religions as being partly or completely false, and either influenced by Satan or actually controlled by Satan. Thus, they see few differences among Hinduism, Buddhism, Satanism, Wicca, Neopaganism, and hundreds of other religions. All are viewed as involving demon worship that will prevent their followers from being saved, and will lead them directly to the pits of Hell. …” http://www.religioustolerance.org/hallo_ev.htm
The world must be a terrifying place for those who believe every other religion except theirs, and that too their particular denomination, is controlled by a supreme evil being, Satan.