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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday September 25 2018, @06:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the subtle-influences dept.

Days after the Trump administration instituted a controversial travel ban in January 2017, Google employees discussed ways they might be able to tweak the company's search-related functions to show users how to contribute to pro-immigration organizations and contact lawmakers and government agencies, according to internal company emails.

The email traffic, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, shows that employees proposed ways to "leverage" search functions and take steps to counter what they considered to be "islamophobic, algorithmically biased results from search terms 'Islam', 'Muslim', 'Iran', etc." and "prejudiced, algorithmically biased search results from search terms 'Mexico', 'Hispanic', 'Latino', etc."

The email chain, while sprinkled with cautionary notes about engaging in political activity, suggests employees considered ways to harness the company's vast influence on the internet in response to the travel ban. Google said none of the ideas discussed were implemented.

"These emails were just a brainstorm of ideas, none of which were ever implemented," a company spokeswoman said in a statement. "Google has never manipulated its search results or modified any of its products to promote a particular political ideology—not in the current campaign season, not during the 2016 election, and not in the aftermath of President Trump's executive order on immigration. Our processes and policies would not have allowed for any manipulation of search results to promote political ideologies."

wsj.com/articles/google-workers-discussed-tweaking-search-function-to-counter-travel-ban-1537488472


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  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday September 25 2018, @09:00PM (3 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Tuesday September 25 2018, @09:00PM (#739867) Homepage Journal

    like providing a Site Description that is 160 characters or less so it's not truncated in the search results. That enables searches to more-effectively decide whether to visit the page.

    Using simple natural language words in URL pathnames like "../jam/strawberry.html" that are directly related to the content.

    Keyword stuffing hasn't worked in years.

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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:54PM (2 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:54PM (#740138) Journal

    > There really is a good kind of SEO

    IMO, no.

    They need to come up with a word that is not forever tainted.

    SEO stinks to high heaven of scam, deceit, gaming the system, and manipulation in order to perpetrate "dodgy" web sites.

    SEO is not the same thing as a best practice to make a site more transparent so that search engines can better classify it, and who would be interested in it.

    Just my opinion. But I'm not alone in that view. When I read about sites that want to practice SEO, I cringe, and might even stop reading if I haven't yet formed the opinion that the site in question is respectable and simply doesn't know how tainted SEO is.

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    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:48PM (1 child)

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:48PM (#740217) Homepage
      A stance that there's no such thing as good SEO is similar to a stance that there's no good SJWs. Superficially true, but there's the occasional Pankhurst or King. Any field that invites and encourages abuse and deceit is going to end up pretty toxic, but there's nothing that actually obliges you to corrupt yourself so.
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      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:22PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:22PM (#740358) Journal

        It's like a stance that there is no good SPAM.

        The word is entirely tarnished.

        Is it possible to legitimately use email in business? I think so.

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        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.