[red rocket]

Some nutcase on another board was claiming that the guy who shot those Amish girls was a Jew, so I typed "amish jew" into my Google search bar, and got this next to the results:



I was, like, WTF??? So I followed the link, which said this:

Originally Posted by Google

An explanation of our search results.

If you recently used Google to search for the word "Jew," you may have seen results that were very disturbing. We assure you that the views expressed by the sites in your results are not in any way endorsed by Google. We'd like to explain why you're seeing these results when you conduct this search.

A site's ranking in Google's search results is automatically determined by computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page's relevance to a given query. Sometimes subtleties of language cause anomalies to appear that cannot be predicted. A search for "Jew" brings up one such unexpected result.

If you use Google to search for "Judaism," "Jewish" or "Jewish people," the results are informative and relevant. So why is a search for "Jew" different? One reason is that the word "Jew" is often used in an anti-Semitic context. Jewish organizations are more likely to use the word "Jewish" when talking about members of their faith. The word has become somewhat charged linguistically, as noted on websites devoted to Jewish topics such as these:

http://shakti.trincoll.edu/~mendele/vol01/vol01.174
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/jonah081500.asp

Someone searching for information on Jewish people would be more likely to enter terms like "Judaism," "Jewish people," or "Jews" than the single word "Jew." In fact, prior to this incident, the word "Jew" only appeared about once in every 10 million search queries. Now it's likely that the great majority of searches on Google for "Jew" are by people who have heard about this issue and want to see the results for themselves.

Our search results are generated completely objectively and are independent of the beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google. Some people concerned about this issue have created online petitions to encourage us to remove particular links or otherwise adjust search results. Because of our objective and automated ranking system, Google cannot be influenced by these petitions. The only sites we omit are those we are legally compelled to remove or those maliciously attempting to manipulate our results.

We apologize for the upsetting nature of the experience you had using Google and appreciate your taking the time to inform us about it.

Sincerely,
The Google Team

p.s. You may be interested in some additional information the Anti-Defamation League has posted about this issue at http://www.adl.org/rumors/google_search_rumors.asp. In addition, we call your attention to Google's search results on this topic.

Even more WTF?!!?

First of all, the entire thing doesn't make any sense. There were no upsetting search results on the page, just the Google people telling me there were. It's not like I was bombarded with Nazi propaganda, or anything.

Secondly, there's nothing anti-Semitic about the word "Jew", and nobody should be expected to type in "Jewish religion" or "person of Jewish faith" or similar. If I want to read something about Christians or Muslims, I don't type in "religion", either.

Thirdly, note that I entered both "amish" and "jew" into the search bar. Result: no "sponsored results" apart from the offensiveness thing. Just for experiment, I also tried "jew" separately. Result: several sponsored results, pro-Jew, including one for jlove.

Lastly, how can it be a "sponsored result"? It's by Google, isn't it? They're sponsoring themselves, now?

[Big Mac]

I don't get the same result with that search. I only see what you're seeing when the keyword is "Jew." And the reason that link appears is because for quite some time the notoriously anti-Jewish site Jew Watch was the top hit resulting from that search. Now it's a Wikipedia article; Jew Watch is the second hit. Google got a lot of flack over that ranking, so it decided to post something to clarify why it was there.

[red rocket]

Originally Posted by Big Mac

I don't get the same result with that search. I only see what you're seeing when the keyword is "Jew."

It seems to change.* I did get the result at the time (around half an hour ago), now I don't. The number of sponsored links has also risen since.

*http://i12.tinypic.com/2iu836b.jpg

[lpkmckenna]

Google's response seems perfectly in order. Nothing to see here...

[Gossamer]

Originally Posted by red rocket

Secondly, there's nothing anti-Semitic about the word "Jew"

Ever watched an episode of South Park? They do a fine job of that.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna

Google's response seems perfectly in order. Nothing to see here...

Agreed.

[Sayf-Allah]

: wonders how this thread would have turned out if you'd replace "Jew" with "Muslim" :

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by Sayf-Allah

: wonders how this thread would have turned out if you'd replace "Jew" with "Muslim" :

I just tried it. When I used the search term "Muslim" there was nothing even remotely hateful in the first four pages. The first page explicitly dedicated to a terrorist organization appeared on Page 4, and it was not hateful either. By contrast, when I used the search term "Jew" the very third link on the first page -higher-ranked than any site except Wikipedia- was openly anti-Semitic, and was one of two such links on Page 1.

It is thought that rarely, if ever, do people carry a Google search beyond the first three pages. Google's own statistics seem to back this up. If this is true, then it would seem that even if one believes that this ad is necessary for the term "Jew", then by that same standard is is clearly not necessary for the term "Muslim" yet. Perhaps that will change in the future, or perhaps not, but the present seems pretty clear.

For the record, when I used the search term "christian," it took seven pages before I found anything remotely hateful or mocking, and that link (the last on the seventh page) was to bettybowers.com, a well-known parody. Personally I wouldn't count that as hateful, but I was trying to evaluate pages in the most paranoid light possible.

[Troll]

I agree that it's good that Google does that. However, they should be a bit more consequent. Type the n-word into Google and the SECOND hit you get is to a white extremist site. The offensive site on the "jew" search page is number 5. Surely Google are concerned about both pages?

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by Troll

I agree that it's good that Google does that. However, they should be a bit more consequent. Type the n-word into Google and the SECOND hit you get is to a white extremist site. The offensive site on the "jew" search page is number 5. Surely Google are concerned about both pages?

True, but there's a difference between the two terms. The n-word is commonly accepted as a slur, and so a reasonable person would expect to find hate speech when searching for it. By contrast, although slurs exist to refer to Jewish people, the word "Jew" isn't commonly thought of as one of them, and so a person might not expect to find hate speech when searching on that term.

[Troll]

Originally Posted by Millennium

True, but there's a difference between the two terms. The n-word is commonly accepted as a slur, and so a reasonable person would expect to find hate speech when searching for it. By contrast, although slurs exist to refer to Jewish people, the word "Jew" isn't commonly thought of as one of them, and so a person might not expect to find hate speech when searching on that term.

True, although Google doesn't do that argument any favours by saying "Someone searching for information on Jewish people would be more likely to enter terms like "Judaism," "Jewish people," or "Jews" than the single word "Jew.""