January 5, 2007
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Man, Google really hates those niggers. Seriously, if one searches for racist jokes, Google helpfully points one to www.racist-jokes.com, where one can read quite a number of jokes that play on just the sort of racial stereotypes that one is probably looking for if one searches for "racist jokes." So far, so good, Google. It seems that your top search result is a useful one for that search phrase.
What's a bit unsettling is the portion directly beneath that first result, where Google has gone the extra mile for its users, by breaking down the racist jokes from www.racist-jokes.com into various categories. Google helpfully points one to the section on "Niggers," where one can hear such gems as,
Why does L.A. have so many fags and N.Y. so many niggers? L.A. had first choice!
And then there's the section on "Jews," where Google helpfully points one to gutbusters like,
"What's Hitlers least favorite planet? 'Jewpiter'"
And none of you gays or Middle Easterners should feel left out, because Google also points to sections about "Arabs" and "Fags." But that's not all the site has. We wouldn't want to leave out the "Gooks," and certainly not the "Spics." So, you know... thank you Google. I'd hate for someone to have to go to the joke site's homepage before proceeding directly to the minority for which they have an ignorant hatred. It would be so inconvenient to have to make that extra click. Curiously, despite the existence of many jokes about white people, the site leaves out that particular group. I guess "white people" is just such a small minority as not to warrant inclusion.
Posted at January 5, 2007 6:56 PM | Comments (8)
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It is not as if there is a guy sitting at Googleplex making those racist categories. The whole of the search site works by algorithm.If the same keyword is talked about in more than one 'dominating sense', they are broken down by category,as you got here..
All this info, just to stop you from painting Google with a racist brush...
Posted by: Anand at January 6, 2007 3:56 AM
It's not as if I'm suggesting in earnest that Google is racist. I know that it's automatic, and I think search engines should be content-agnostic. Nevertheless, Google does not break everything down into categories like that; they have certain categories of terms for which they don't do it, in order not to have it look like Google is in any way "suggesting" certain categories of content. For instance, a Google search for "porn" doesn't turn up helpful category breakdowns of "Amateur," "Pornstars," "Voyeur," "Hardcore," "Anal," "Teen..." I suspect that's because Google has blacklisted those terms.
So I find it humorous that they would have blacklisted those terms, but not obvious racial slurs. But at the same time, I recognize that they can't possibly think of every highly offensive term in order to blacklist it and decline to provide extra metadata. I'm guessing that if the right person were aware of the search about which I posted, those categories would be blacklisted pretty quickly.
But I don't even think they should be blacklisted. I just find it funny that they arent.
Posted by: Barzelay at January 6, 2007 4:05 AM
Wait...Google wasn't made specifically to feed my ravenous hunger for racist jokes? What else can it do?
Posted by: cooper at January 7, 2007 4:10 PM
I found this very interesting as well Barzy, but I must wonder, does it have anything to do with the html of the site to make it do that because I have noticed Google do it in much less humorous ways.
-Z-
Posted by: Zeeshan at January 7, 2007 11:12 PM
y'know, this begs the question: Why were you searching for "racist jokes" in the first place?
Posted by: Ben at January 8, 2007 6:54 AM
Yeah, aren't you racist enough to come up with your own, racism-sissy?
Wait, you weren't hanging out with Alex at all were you?
Posted by: Chris Santoro at January 9, 2007 2:17 PM
Actually, to answer Ben's and Chris's questions, this search was conducted with Alex. I think it went something like this: Alex, eager to tell us about some racist joke he knows, starts that conversation with "So... anyone know any good racist jokes?" I said, "I don't know any racist ones, but I heard a pretty damn funny one today. How do you make a lemon come? Lick its clit."
And then there was a long pause while they tried to find the joke in that, and then finally realized there wasn't any, and started to laugh. So then Alex asked again, "Well, anyone know any racist ones?" And then Adam, who had his computer out, googled it and pointed out the site to us, as well as the odd Google metadata about which I blogged.
After we looked at a few shitty jokes on that site, Alex finally told his joke. "A black guy, a white guy, and a Mexican are all in a car together. Who is driving? A cop."
Posted by: Barzelay at January 10, 2007 1:31 AM
Zeeshan, yeah, it may have something to do with the HTML. I'm not sure what algorithm Google uses to identify signposts that can be used to construct meaningful metadata, but it probably has something to do with with HTML, or at least CSS (or XHTML, etc.). Again, I think it is good that Google does this, I just think it is funny.
Posted by: Barzelay at January 10, 2007 1:48 AM
