Google won’t dump offensive anti-Semitic site: Google is in a bad spot here. Searching for the word “jew” on Google returns an anti-semitic site in the top spot.
“I certainly am very offended by the site, but the objectivity of our rankings is one of our very important principles,” … “We don’t let our personal views — religious, political, ethical or otherwise — affect our results,” said Brin, who added that he is Jewish.
This harkens back to our discussion about NPOVs on Wikipedia. Perhaps this is a more polarizing example (who doesn’t like anti-semites?), but there are other shades of gray where Google has run into trouble before (e.g. — the Scientology brouhaha of a few months ago).
On a related note, the amount of publicity that site is getting off this mess is disheartening. This is the best thing to happen to them since David Duke.
Google: An explanation of our search results: Google bought their own AdWord for the "jew" search term and uses it to link to a page explaining why the first link is an anti-semitic site. If you're confused, here's the background of the problem. If you use Google to search for…
What would happen if you made a Wikipedia entry on yourself? I was browsing Wikipedia this morning, as I have a tendency to do (I started with Pontius Pilate and ended up at David Beckham — figure that one out), and I got to wondering what would happen if…
I am a moderator of the White Nationalist site Stormfront, and am also peripherally connected with the jewwatch controversy.
We are interested in this for obvious reasons.
Will the 'net allow itself to be censored?
Our bet is that they'll install an optional "hate filter" on their results, defaulting to "on".
In any case kudos to Brin, jewish himself, for saying no to hacking the search engine. That is integrity!!!
[comment edited to remove links to stuff I don't like -- no one said this site was a democracy... -- Deane]