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Bing disables “trending” feature after wildly inappropriate results:
Microsoft has shut down a feature in its Bing search engine that shows popular articles from major websites after Ars Technica reported that the feature was showing wildly inappropriate results from the stock photo site Shutterstock. How inappropriate? Well, here are a couple of screenshots I took on Wednesday morning after a reader tipped me off to the problem:
[screenshots presenting Bing's Trending carousel]
This is what I saw after searching Bing for "Shutterstock." These weren't the very top results—I scrolled down a bit before taking these screenshots—but this "trending articles" carousel appeared on the first page.
I wasn't about to click on a link to "boys erection" without talking to a lawyer first. So my editor advised our tipster to notify the FBI, while I emailed Microsoft and Shutterstock to see if they could explain what was going on.
Happily, Microsoft and Shutterstock confirmed that there was no child porn here. The "boys erection" video is an entirely wholesome video of a boy "erecting" a tent. The "big tits stock video" link went to a video of a bird called a tit. There's nothing pornographic about the "mature mom and young son" video—though it was easy to assume otherwise given the titles of the other links.
[...] As the name suggests, this "trending articles" carousel is supposed to highlight articles on a website (Shutterstock in this case) that are most popular at the moment. Microsoft didn't just shut it down for Shutterstock. It has disabled the feature for all websites.
[...] While Microsoft says it takes full responsibility for not filtering out these results, the company says that all the data—including phrases like "boys erection" and "big tits"—came from Shutterstock's website. The titles shown in these results are not the titles shown on the corresponding video pages. The tent video, for example, is labeled "caucasian dad and son assembling tent on holiday outdoors," not "boys erection."
(Score: 4, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 26 2020, @02:08PM (9 children)
What I saw looks like simple-minded sophomoric humor. But, tight-asses everywhere see everything in the worst possible light.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2020, @02:17PM (2 children)
From your comment, it's clear that you are a child pornographer who mutilates and eats his victims.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2020, @03:03PM (1 child)
He doesn't even have a pornograph.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2020, @10:09PM
Doesn't know who to read one, that's all.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Booga1 on Sunday April 26 2020, @02:35PM (1 child)
Yeah, the "big tits" bird thing is a classic joke, right up there with boobies...
Either someone at Bing or Shutterstock is playing some kind of joke, or there's some sort of "Bing bombing" going on. Sorta like there was with "Google bombing" where search terms were rigged by either third parties or some SEO gone wrong [wikipedia.org] with hilarious results.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2020, @03:05PM
Somebody uses Bing?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2020, @06:39PM
dang it Internet, ya got me again!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2020, @08:04PM (2 children)
Look at the actual results. One is obviously dirty, one is clean, and one is a double entendre. And even the biggest idiot isn't going to think there is actual pornography, especially of children, on shutterstock.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 26 2020, @08:24PM (1 child)
Oh, which one is "dirty"? The little girl peeing? Somehow, I don't see that as "dirty". From the text, the child has her hands folded and/or lying in her lap. No genitalia are visible. I'm at a loss here - most of us have used potties when we were children, with adults present. Many of us adults have tended to the needs of children learning to use the potty. Many, or most of you will one day potty train your own children. Is this "dirty"?
Only if the photographer focused on the child's genitalia would the photo be "dirty" IMHO. So, the photo is actually in a gray area, something you might not want to share with just everybody, but not dirty. But, the Puritans I mentioned will most definitely find the photo to be "inappropriate".
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2020, @08:58PM
I don't mean the videos literally. I meant the title as displayed on first glance. On each carousel, one has a clean title, one has a dirty title, and one is a double entedre. That further informs your theory, people have to be putting some of that crap in on purpose in order to generate such a obvious difference in results and textual interpretation from the same algorithm, which is probably based on search frequency and click-through. For example, the big tits and bird connection, has to be from people searching for "tits" and clicking on the bird. Or "erection" and clicking on tents. Otherwise, the reinforcement isn't there.