Why are search engines getting involved in censorship? I understand that they need to blank out certain sites as required by law, but omitting them entirely is a bad move. When I perform a search I want it to search the web, not the approved-web.
Because they're afraid of having iy forced down their throats. Pre-emptive complicance with regulations that don't exist yet is a way for businesses to maintain their autonomy in uncertain regulatory climates. Cf. antibiotic use in animal factory farming.
This is pretty brutal, because in the end these "chilling effects" versions of censorship can be much harsher than any actual government censorship (which would be constrained by the First Amendment and judicially reviewable).
Same reason the ESRB came to be. Government basically said "Figure this crap out, or we will" and publishers and devs came together to hammer out the rating system.
That's actually really interesting. I wonder how much of it is baked into the algorithm and how much reflects the demographics of each engine's users?
Edit: Wow you got a lot of downvotes fast. I honestly don't know if you're trying to advance a viewpoint or not, and I think you pointed out a very interesting split in the behavior of major engines that's worthy of taking a look at.
The comment is probably downvoted because it's a popular conspiracy theory that Google blocks bad suggestions about specific people the "liberal establishment" supports. In reality Google hides all bad suggestions about people. You can see the same difference in recommendations for "donald trump is a".
More importantly, you're on a site full of liberals, and people here downvote because they disagree with somebody, not because the content itself is low quality.
I, for one, think that regardless of your political views (I didn't even know who George Soros was), this comment was very high quality.
I disagree that that's the explanation in this case. I've definitely noticed the liberal bias in other comments, but this is just beating the dead horse of a conspiracy theory.
I downvoted because I spent hours looking into the related theory that Google was trying to influence the election by only showing positive autosuggestions about Clinton, only to conclude that the algorithm generally doesn't autosuggest negative things or allegations of crimes. (You can try with figures like OJ Simpson, Bill Cosby, etc.)
So, like the tired old discussions we have all the time (but Go doesn't have generics!, "if you're not the market, you're the product", etc), I downvoted since I don't think it was related to the discussion, particular interesting, or insightful.
The comment is implying things that aren't true. This is why it's low quality and downvoted. The fact that you don't know who Soros is doesn't change that.
This sounds like a very bad reason for downvoting. The post didn't say anything regarding that conspiracy theory - so the most damning thing is the particular name used. That's a lot of interpretation, which might end up being correct, but answering as m3ta did is a much better response.
Yep - note how I imply it does show autocomplete suggestions if I just type "George Soros" ;)
What are your (relevant) DDG settings? Country is set to "All Regions" and Safe Search is on for me, but changing either doesn't change anything for me.
Interestingly, for me Google gave me "is dead", DDG and Bing gave me... nothing. The suggestions didn't even pop up. THis is in Germany, but for the .com domains.
What is being censored? Maybe they should have a disclaimer about only putting forward non-controversial search recommendations to be transparent but, to my knowledge, you have no right to know what other people search for on google.
I'm not really getting significantly different results in any of them: a mixture of pro-refugee philantropist and nazi sympathiser links from websites with wildly opposing views, roughly 80% overlap in website links even.
Would it matter if one's filter bubble is more on the left or right here? I'm Dutch, living in Sweden and left-leaning - presumably the biggest contributors to any filter bubble that applies here.
Without getting into a discussion of politics itself, could people who do see a difference share their experience, and what they expect the search engines to infer about their political leanings?
The only difference is that I get some Swedish suggestions mixed in with Bing, and that DDG shows no suggestions at all (but without "is" they are similar again).
This makes me wonder: has anyone ever looked at per-country filter bubbles?
Google filters out negative auto-completes. Try the same thing with Trump or any controversial figure, like Martin Shkreli.
For example, when typing in "Martin Shkreli is a" on Google, the only auto-complete is "Martin Shkreli is actually good". Try the same on Bing and DDG, you will see all of the negative auto-completes you'd expect.
Don't think any of those websites were taken offline. There are always going to be other channels for those news sites to flourish.
You can resist. You can use a different search engine. You can use other resources to get information out there. There is a myriad of different options. They're not all 'easy', but they're not impractical either.
I'm failing to see how this is going to be an "approved web".
Web freedom have gone 'softly' which is the best way to do something outrageous I suppose. Softly and slowly.
Soon, posting articles about illegal states or economic boycotting will deduct your social popularity on social media. It really isn't too far away. Just replace points with 'recommendations' or 'popular' and it will be done.
Social points seems too draconian. Recommendations is better. What we thought was years away has already begun.
Why are search engines getting involved in censorship?
Censorship is a strong and emotive word, and I think using it in cases like this devalues its significance. Modern search engines consider a huge number of factors, many of them subjectively chosen, when deciding what to present on their results pages. In general, they have no obligation to provide any specific service to any specific visitor.
In most contexts, actively helping someone to break the law is frowned upon, or even against the law in itself. The big online services have a very cosy deal legally speaking at the moment, getting away with a lot of things that might otherwise be legally suspect because of special safe harbour rules and the like, which in turn means they can make a great deal of money by doing things automatically without the kind of human intervention and risks that would otherwise apply. It is unlikely to be in their interests to push their luck, because it isn't inherently necessary to give them such a beneficial treatment, and few people other than their shareholders would shed a tear if the climate changed and their running costs went up dramatically as a result.
A more positive point is that people who complain about other restrictive measures, like DRM and the laws that make breaking it illegal, often claim that it would be more effective for content producers to offer better legal channels for accessing that content. Promoting legitimate, reliable sources of good quality content is surely in the interests of any search engine.
In short, it's entirely reasonable for a major corporate player like Google or Microsoft to steer clear of supporting illegal activities and to promote legal sources for material online.
The DMCA (specifically safe harbor) has been a god send to businesses like Google, Facebook, many of Microsofts ventures etc.. This what AirBNB is currently using as their defense in the court cases they are having with cities, most notably San Fransisco. I read a great article about this not long ago:
Its what allows so much of the internet to be the way it is, but abusing it or pushing it too hard could have serious negative consequences..this will be something to watch.
So you're good with just displaying porn / alcohol / drug / cigarette ads at the top then right? Kids use google too. And don't use blockers, because that's censorship.
There's something quite telling of the need to resort to VPNs to access sites that should be accessible. A VPN isn't really a solution to the wider problem that is powerful piracy lobbyist.
I see this response all the time but fail to see how it addresses the real problem.
> I see this response all the time but fail to see how it addresses the real problem.
It's being pragmatic rather than an idealist. Politics sucks, and nothing may change even if you do the right thing or in this case, specially if you do the right thing since your opponents don't give a shit about such concepts.
I fail to see how this is censorship. They're not censoring content that you are able to access legitimately nor are they stopping you from finding content that you agree or disagree with. They aren't stopping facts from coming to light. They aren't stifling news sites.
They're stifling an illegal act of procuring content that is within the confines of the current law, agree with it or not, thats all these sites allow you to do.
I don't think for instance, pirate bay has ever been known for its breaking news on current events.
Edit: For what its worth, these are private companies after all. So 'censorship' in terms of a legal or constitutional definition under freedom of speech, would not apply here anyway.
Also, it doesn't sound like they're making blanket removals of a blacklist, they're just factoring copyright violations into their ranking algorithms. I'm surprised they weren't already doing this, as it seems like not doing so would cross the line from "we can't be responsible for what our links point to" to "we are actively ignoring illegal use of our platform".
If you don't like this, it's clearly just a symptom of copyright laws you don't like, and not really an issue with the search engines.
> I fail to see how this is censorship... They're not censoring content that you are able to access legitimately
Legitimately doesn't come into it.
censorship
noun
"the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that
are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security."
Yes, it is a censorship. It is manipulating the output in order to not provide an information, that would be otherwise available, caused by interest of some third party.
To expand on the topic:
1) it is not illegal to tell other people where to find bootleg software or media,
2) in many countries it is legal to download such software or media (and they pay for the privilege in the form of an extra fee on their blank media, memory cards and hard drives, whether they do it or not)
3) what is illegal is to distribute software or media without the consent of the rights owners.
Point 3) is an issue between those sites that do it and the rights owners, nothing between the end users or search engines. Neither of them do 3) themselves.
Are you OK then with Google removing sites that are spam, or sites that aren't mobile friendly, or removing a site from the top 10 page one results? Are you good with children being presented with porn/cigarette/alcohol/whatever advertising/results? At what point does "censorship" fall off, and common sense take over.
Nobody of us might like spam, but there is obviously something that keeps these in the business. What? Eradicate that, remove their cash flow.
I might not like sites that aren't mobile friendly, but fortunately, when I'm not in a mood so scroll around it, I can always close it. No need for Google to step in.
I also do not like children being presented with porn/cigarette/alcohol/whatever advertising/results. But - these result do not come themselves, they are initiated, usually by those children. There is more need for parenting, than for Google protection. If it really bothers you, most routers allow for filtering the web, and some ISPs provide that as a service - for those interested, as it should be.
The problem with common sense vs censorship is: where you draw the line? That's the hard question, and easily abused one at that. Especially by entities like Google, who are not a harmless protector of innocent or knight in shiny armor. They are businesses, who have interest that may not align with yours, especially in the long run.
Which is also why you're free to take your business elsewhere.
There are a myriad of search engines out there. They have competition.
I would say Google's right to do what google wants to do trumps any real arguments against them doing this here. I doubt they'll have any notable downtick in users.
Of course, you right to have an opinion on their practices is valid, i hope its not coming across as if its not, i just wanted to focus on the realities of the situation for the broader reading audience
Also 38 (and also born in communist country, censorship was rampant there), for me this is censorship.
And arguments for it are similar to the usual "think of the children" way of thinking which eventually leads to harder censorship, more surveillance and generally poor place to live.
And they aren't censoring anything. I mention legitimately in the context of the article. True censorship would be say...stopping all Reuters news from showing up in google searches might be a decent example. It get murky in the real world because google is a private company and isn't bound by censorship laws the same way the government is.
Should it be? Different question all together, but currently it is not.
As a relative blanket statement, since thats what we're making here, its not a free speech issue. I believe most western countries that hold the embodiment of free speech, largely exempt private entities from being adhered to the same free speech laws as the government is. There are caveats and things in every country, and I'm not educated enough on that to list all the exemptions and caveats, but broadly speaking, I believe this to be true in most western countries that hold free speech as a right and/or common law
So i still wouldn't say they're stopping free speech by not including a website in a google search. You can argue, and I think rightly, that it would stifle the freedom of information to be discovered that wants to be discovered and consumed in that way, however, its not actually silencing or shutting down the website it may be censoring and/or not including, and it is still accessible.
Its not 'my speech' either. Illegally downloading and spreading content isn't speech in the first place, and the courts have ruled as such, as do the laws we currently have in place reflect that.
At the end of the day, I'm not seeing much of a justification for people getting content illegally.
If it is legal it not for Google to decide, but given government. They should not interfere. If government says that given site is illegal they can take it down for that particular government/country. (just like github is doing for the Russians - https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns)
The courts, the laws, and the judicial system have decided what is and isn't legal. Should they filter results by country? Sure! and I'm not saying they shouldn't.
The government has made its decisions on this many times. They're largely following the patterns laid out in those lawsuits cases laws etc.
Can't imagine anyone disagreeing the sites they are banning don't distribute illegal content as a primary reason why people visit them in the first place.
I'd say thats a good (and strong) litmus test for this sort of thing.
It depends on how they determine which websites are piracy websites. For example, if they go by how many DMCA takeout requests a site receives, then someone could file frivolous DMCA takeout requests against a site they want to censor.
Imagine if China force google from showing any sites that mention "Tiananmen Square", because that is the law in China.
And now no one in the world would have a way to find it in google, because one country didn't want it to be found.
They're likely complying with the laws where they do business in this case. censorship? You bet! Government sanctioned censorship.
They're a private company doing business in China. They're going to have to make a decision: Either subvert the 'man' or comply with the law.
While i would choose subvert the 'man', I would not say i'm doing it because its legal.
Different arguments. Also worth noting: These voluntary actions are also legal. They're also private businesses in the USA, and they are free to do this with impunity.
One can always take their business elsewhere, or otherwise get information in other ways. They aren't stopping you from accessing anything.
> They're not censoring content that you are able to access legitimately.
I think you meant "They're not censoring content that you aren't able to access legitimately".
This is bullshit. There are a lot of things you can't buy (especially in smaller countries) but which are available on pirate sites. Heck, you can't even watch Netflix own shows in some countries using Netflix because Netflix geoblocked them.
You are right to believe this is hogwash. I'll concede that all day.
However, you knowingly are getting content that the content rights holders have deemed is not going to be published in x area. Netflix has a right (and some would say a duty) to enforce whats in their contractual deals with content/rights holders in pursuant with being able to do the business they do.
So the question is: you can't get that content, that much is clear. Why does that mean you should be able to pirate that content because its not distributed in the way you like it to be? This isn't medical care. This isn't news stories. Its TV shows and music and movies. These are pleasure items after all.
Does that mean you are entitled to this content because they don't offer it in a way you find acceptable?
Edit: really any content getting downloaded illegally (colloquially known as pirated) I haven't ever seen someone argue that the content say, saved a life, or was so important to x that it had to be done.
Lets be real: what we're talking about here isn't subverting a totalitarian regime and allowing citizens to talk on the world stage. I reckon most if not all of these sites just shuffle illegal copies of digital goods.
Nope. That is definitely not true. There are legal (or for ease of understanding) legitimate channels for getting content. If you are unable to procure that content using those means....that means you don't access that content.
Some countries allow such content, so Google shouldn't remove it from results in such countries.
E.g. in Poland if you have bought a copy of given software, you can download if also from the site and use whichever version you prefer (but only one) - this is a fare use case.
Example would be if given software is in a poor way DRM protected and you would like to run it on an OS that doesn't support DRM.
Or in the days of games distributed on CDs, we were downloading those pirated versions (while owning a proper one) because they didn't require a CD to be always in the computer.
Perhaps. They are making blanket filters because its going to mostly apply in most countries google does business in.
You could argue that they should apply it to a country by country specifics, sure. Though i fail to see how its google's problem if you can or can't find a website per se. They are, yes a search engine, and that is what google.com's primary purpose of use is. What they aren't saying, nor have they really ever guaranteed, is that they will give you unfiltered results. Its actually quite the contrary. It's google's indexing and filter algorithms that make it so effective in the first place.
With all that said, there is always an alternative. Google's a private company. They can't shut down these websites. They aren't even attempting to do that. They are just making casual access more complicated I suppose more than anything.
Its within their right to do that.
(Notice how no one seems to be scoffing at Bing, its all about what Google does or doesn't do)
>Edit: For what its worth, these are private companies after all. So 'censorship' in terms of a legal or constitutional definition under freedom of speech, would not apply here anyway.
Nope. it did not. I was simply pre-emptively shoring up my argument for those who may throw out a strict legal or constitutional definition of censorship.
Just trying to get ahead of misconceptions, or admittedly, what I believe to be common misconceptions.
I'm actually kinda suprised this hasn't happened already. I wish one of those distributed search engines was in a usable and useful state already. That can't be an impossible problem to solve eventhough it does seem really difficult.
Although, the elephant in the room is most piracy happens under their roof, at least for music. I used to "steal" music on p2p. Now I just "watch" youtube.
I would argue however that in some instances its a bit ambiguous if it is 'stealing' in that way with Youtube. While i think there are obvious examples of this (user freemusc69 certainly is NOT the legitimate copyright holder or the artist known as Kayne West, for instance), I do not believe official music video uploads like those from Vevo to youtube on behalf the recording artist or the record label are piracy in the same respect....or why would they even bother?
I think the bigger problem the music industry has with youtube is semi-legitimate: They used the non-official uploads as a leverage to get them to sign en masse for Google Play Music / Youtube Music Key instead of doing the proper thing and enforcing the DMCA take downs of the music at scale. They could easily do most of this algorithmically by doing sample checks with automated software and it would likely work most of the time (plus, they could work with rights holders/publishers/record companies to maintain a 'white list' of channels that wouldn't be scanned if they're uploaded by the channel owner unless an actual DMCA complaint was filed against that channel and it turned out to be legitimate).
Like most things, the real story is very complicated, and there isn't usually a good vs bad side as the water is very murky in the details.
I believe they do what you described, but it's not perfect. In order to do it, they need to know what a song sounds like and who owns that sound. If the owner hasn't uploaded it, then they can't take down copies. They also have the problem that the copyright on a certain song might have expired, and therefore one uploader can't claim copyright to every recording (but will try). Another thing is that they will sometimes catch someone for just having a snippet of a song in a video (fair use). The result is that they can't just take every matching video down, they have to hold it in dispute, which means it will stay up for a while.
I wouldn't expect it to be perfect i suppose. I didn't mean to imply that it would be.
I would say having some experience with the actual business of distributing music, that alot of distributors that are used to say, get your content on iTunes and the like en masse, do have the capability of allowing a service to 'sample' a song and do a lot of pre-checks of verification in that way.
They could tap into that ecosystem for legitimacy. It certainly does get harder beyond that though.
>They could easily do most of this algorithmically by doing sample checks with automated software and it would likely work most of the time (plus, they could work with rights holders/publishers/record companies to maintain a 'white list' of channels that wouldn't be scanned if they're uploaded by the channel owner unless an actual DMCA complaint was filed against that channel and it turned out to be legitimate).
The largest argument against google making an autonomous car is the fact that they have zero capability to automatically and reliably detect copyright violations on their services.
I think a lot of the torrent clients already have search built in. Personally, I hope these anti-piracy measures just push stuff underground and people could just organize sneaker-net lan-parties to share content, or allow poor people to sell bootleg HDD's on the street corner just like they used to sell pirated DVD's. This day and age you can buy 30-50 terabyte NAS systems for ~1-2k. Rather than try to find a particular album, show, or movie, it's more economical to just take all of them.
An Uber is a service, and they can and should refuse to provide service for those they wish not to support. It's murkier with Google/Tessa where the car is your property.
In another reality it's easier to offer services people want, made available by technological developments, than spend billions of dollars in lobbying to force people to use antiquated modes of purchase.
I've paid Steam and Spotify for 13 and 9 years respectively to not have to do any work in getting games and music.
Now if only the movie (and to a lesser extent TV) industry caught on.
That's how people find EVERYTHING. Which is why paying $10,000 for the dot com version of your company doesn't mean much, when you can get the .whatever for much less.
It might not be the main motivation, but it's certainly a legitimate concern. Malware does get distributed via illegal content sharing sites. Those sites do get used for phishing and card fraud.
While I can't say I'm full of sympathy for pirates who get hoist by their own petard, plenty of innocent people also get hurt because they don't realise the site they are visiting is not kosher. It was high up on their favourite search engine, after all!
Sending their users to those dangerous sources is hardly in any search engine's best interests, regardless of any other incentives that may be at work here.
I'm 100% certain that users searching for content will still be taken to fake pirate sites still advertising non-existent downloads or hosting malicious files to hijack their computer.
I can see Google/Bing thinking that this kind of traffic does not generate much income anyway, so might as well bow to the pressure and censor it.
I think they haven't fully factored in the longer term losses they might incur when people might look for, find, and switch to an alternative good-enough uncensored search engine, e.g. Yandex.
These are usually spread by word of mouth, rather than Googling. Of course, Google and Microsoft own a browser and can block them client-side, but that will only cause people to switch to alternative browsers. Finally, an OS-level block or even hardware-level block could be attempted. I think we'll be heading into that direction at some point.
1) This could open up the market again for search engines (ie - "we don't censor your search, so use us instead of the other guys".
2) How long until you try to search for "{name of research paper} pdf" and you only get links back to the pay-for-access sites for research papers?
Personally I think this is BS, but I understand why they are doing it. It won't stop piracy or other illegal crap - it will just move it elsewhere, like it always has. If you want the stuff, you can find it. You always have, you always will.
The second one, though, bothers me. All too often, I read an article about a research paper I want to read, only to be paywalled by one of the big research paper companies. But usually - if the paper is older than 6 months or so - I can google for it, and find a copy (sometimes a draft). In many cases, it will be off of one of the researcher's sites or blogs. Other times, it will be in an FTP archive somewhere, or linked by someone else.
It really bothers me when for a research paper, I am asked to pay anywhere from $25.00 USD or more for a PDF, as an interested individual or hobbyist. Researchers are also expected to do the same, but are largely insulated from it by their institutions, who shell out big $$$ for a subscription to the services (so for the researcher, they don't see the cost - though most know about it otherwise - plus they usually have to pay thru the nose themselves just to get it on the path to publishing!).
I have found that sometimes - in certain cases - finding the author(s) of a paper and emailing them asking for a copy (stating that I am a hobbyist interested in their work) generally works well enough to get a copy sent to me (and sometimes much more).
Ultimately - I wouldn't be surprised to see Google and Bing do this after a few threats from the publishing companies...
This could be positive for 'ethical' pirates. i.e. non-scam sites. Usually the more dubious torrent sites or similar seem to rank quite highly. Reverting to word of mouth could increase the likelihood of trustworthy sites maintaining their prominence.
Everything above is written with the full knowledge that there is some irony in talking about ethics and trustworthiness in relation to copyright infringement. Nonetheless - I think the terms still carry some validity in context.
Am I missing something here, because it doesn't sound like they are going to censor the content, just score them lower.
Search will always be biased, it's inherent to the problem space. Word appearance, cross linking, and every other metric used to sort and score results are always going to optimize certain things over others.
So in this case it's a matter of ethics, and I find it hard for anyone to morally suggest that illegal content should score higher and be considered more relevant, unless you want to debate over the legality of it.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 205 ms ] threadTo me this is a form of censorship together with the recent removal of fake news sites.
The approved web is what we'll have eventually with little resistance.
type "George Soros is " (with the trailing space)
Compare and contrast
Edit: Wow you got a lot of downvotes fast. I honestly don't know if you're trying to advance a viewpoint or not, and I think you pointed out a very interesting split in the behavior of major engines that's worthy of taking a look at.
I, for one, think that regardless of your political views (I didn't even know who George Soros was), this comment was very high quality.
I downvoted because I spent hours looking into the related theory that Google was trying to influence the election by only showing positive autosuggestions about Clinton, only to conclude that the algorithm generally doesn't autosuggest negative things or allegations of crimes. (You can try with figures like OJ Simpson, Bill Cosby, etc.)
So, like the tired old discussions we have all the time (but Go doesn't have generics!, "if you're not the market, you're the product", etc), I downvoted since I don't think it was related to the discussion, particular interesting, or insightful.
Google gives me bland stuff like "..is how old" and "..is he dead."
Bing gives me "..is so evil" and "..is a convicted felon."
Duckduckgo "wins" with "..is the antichrist" and "..is satan."
Which is even stranger, shouldn't we all see the exact same thing with DDG?
What are your (relevant) DDG settings? Country is set to "All Regions" and Safe Search is on for me, but changing either doesn't change anything for me.
https://duckduckgo.com/settings
"Browser Preferred Language" (English-US in my case)
Safe Search "On"
Instant Answers "On"
Auto Suggest "On"
Would it matter if one's filter bubble is more on the left or right here? I'm Dutch, living in Sweden and left-leaning - presumably the biggest contributors to any filter bubble that applies here.
Without getting into a discussion of politics itself, could people who do see a difference share their experience, and what they expect the search engines to infer about their political leanings?
This makes me wonder: has anyone ever looked at per-country filter bubbles?
For example, when typing in "Martin Shkreli is a" on Google, the only auto-complete is "Martin Shkreli is actually good". Try the same on Bing and DDG, you will see all of the negative auto-completes you'd expect.
You can resist. You can use a different search engine. You can use other resources to get information out there. There is a myriad of different options. They're not all 'easy', but they're not impractical either.
I'm failing to see how this is going to be an "approved web".
Soon, posting articles about illegal states or economic boycotting will deduct your social popularity on social media. It really isn't too far away. Just replace points with 'recommendations' or 'popular' and it will be done.
Social points seems too draconian. Recommendations is better. What we thought was years away has already begun.
Censorship is a strong and emotive word, and I think using it in cases like this devalues its significance. Modern search engines consider a huge number of factors, many of them subjectively chosen, when deciding what to present on their results pages. In general, they have no obligation to provide any specific service to any specific visitor.
In most contexts, actively helping someone to break the law is frowned upon, or even against the law in itself. The big online services have a very cosy deal legally speaking at the moment, getting away with a lot of things that might otherwise be legally suspect because of special safe harbour rules and the like, which in turn means they can make a great deal of money by doing things automatically without the kind of human intervention and risks that would otherwise apply. It is unlikely to be in their interests to push their luck, because it isn't inherently necessary to give them such a beneficial treatment, and few people other than their shareholders would shed a tear if the climate changed and their running costs went up dramatically as a result.
A more positive point is that people who complain about other restrictive measures, like DRM and the laws that make breaking it illegal, often claim that it would be more effective for content producers to offer better legal channels for accessing that content. Promoting legitimate, reliable sources of good quality content is surely in the interests of any search engine.
In short, it's entirely reasonable for a major corporate player like Google or Microsoft to steer clear of supporting illegal activities and to promote legal sources for material online.
https://backchannel.com/the-most-important-law-in-tech-has-a...
Wired also has an older article talking about this too:
https://www.wired.com/2008/10/ten-years-later/
Its what allows so much of the internet to be the way it is, but abusing it or pushing it too hard could have serious negative consequences..this will be something to watch.
It feels or seem the p2p era has seen its time at least for us in the UK, because of censorship and legitimate alternatives.
The lobbyist have finally influenced far enough.
And promptly unblocked by using a different DNS server or a VPN, both things no longer limited to the realm of the computer-savvy.
I see this response all the time but fail to see how it addresses the real problem.
It's being pragmatic rather than an idealist. Politics sucks, and nothing may change even if you do the right thing or in this case, specially if you do the right thing since your opponents don't give a shit about such concepts.
It's sad and it's dumb, but that's human nature.
They're stifling an illegal act of procuring content that is within the confines of the current law, agree with it or not, thats all these sites allow you to do.
I don't think for instance, pirate bay has ever been known for its breaking news on current events.
Edit: For what its worth, these are private companies after all. So 'censorship' in terms of a legal or constitutional definition under freedom of speech, would not apply here anyway.
If you don't like this, it's clearly just a symptom of copyright laws you don't like, and not really an issue with the search engines.
Legitimately doesn't come into it.
Side note, I'd like to hear the age of people who argue either side of this topic.
Yes, it is a censorship. It is manipulating the output in order to not provide an information, that would be otherwise available, caused by interest of some third party.
To expand on the topic:
1) it is not illegal to tell other people where to find bootleg software or media,
2) in many countries it is legal to download such software or media (and they pay for the privilege in the form of an extra fee on their blank media, memory cards and hard drives, whether they do it or not)
3) what is illegal is to distribute software or media without the consent of the rights owners.
Point 3) is an issue between those sites that do it and the rights owners, nothing between the end users or search engines. Neither of them do 3) themselves.
Nobody of us might like spam, but there is obviously something that keeps these in the business. What? Eradicate that, remove their cash flow.
I might not like sites that aren't mobile friendly, but fortunately, when I'm not in a mood so scroll around it, I can always close it. No need for Google to step in.
I also do not like children being presented with porn/cigarette/alcohol/whatever advertising/results. But - these result do not come themselves, they are initiated, usually by those children. There is more need for parenting, than for Google protection. If it really bothers you, most routers allow for filtering the web, and some ISPs provide that as a service - for those interested, as it should be.
The problem with common sense vs censorship is: where you draw the line? That's the hard question, and easily abused one at that. Especially by entities like Google, who are not a harmless protector of innocent or knight in shiny armor. They are businesses, who have interest that may not align with yours, especially in the long run.
There are a myriad of search engines out there. They have competition.
I would say Google's right to do what google wants to do trumps any real arguments against them doing this here. I doubt they'll have any notable downtick in users.
Of course, you right to have an opinion on their practices is valid, i hope its not coming across as if its not, i just wanted to focus on the realities of the situation for the broader reading audience
And arguments for it are similar to the usual "think of the children" way of thinking which eventually leads to harder censorship, more surveillance and generally poor place to live.
Should it be? Different question all together, but currently it is not.
Then you feel sorry for not having resistet.
So i still wouldn't say they're stopping free speech by not including a website in a google search. You can argue, and I think rightly, that it would stifle the freedom of information to be discovered that wants to be discovered and consumed in that way, however, its not actually silencing or shutting down the website it may be censoring and/or not including, and it is still accessible.
Its not 'my speech' either. Illegally downloading and spreading content isn't speech in the first place, and the courts have ruled as such, as do the laws we currently have in place reflect that.
At the end of the day, I'm not seeing much of a justification for people getting content illegally.
The government has made its decisions on this many times. They're largely following the patterns laid out in those lawsuits cases laws etc.
Can't imagine anyone disagreeing the sites they are banning don't distribute illegal content as a primary reason why people visit them in the first place.
I'd say thats a good (and strong) litmus test for this sort of thing.
Is that censorship to you?
They're a private company doing business in China. They're going to have to make a decision: Either subvert the 'man' or comply with the law.
While i would choose subvert the 'man', I would not say i'm doing it because its legal.
Different arguments. Also worth noting: These voluntary actions are also legal. They're also private businesses in the USA, and they are free to do this with impunity.
One can always take their business elsewhere, or otherwise get information in other ways. They aren't stopping you from accessing anything.
I think you meant "They're not censoring content that you aren't able to access legitimately".
This is bullshit. There are a lot of things you can't buy (especially in smaller countries) but which are available on pirate sites. Heck, you can't even watch Netflix own shows in some countries using Netflix because Netflix geoblocked them.
However, you knowingly are getting content that the content rights holders have deemed is not going to be published in x area. Netflix has a right (and some would say a duty) to enforce whats in their contractual deals with content/rights holders in pursuant with being able to do the business they do.
So the question is: you can't get that content, that much is clear. Why does that mean you should be able to pirate that content because its not distributed in the way you like it to be? This isn't medical care. This isn't news stories. Its TV shows and music and movies. These are pleasure items after all.
Does that mean you are entitled to this content because they don't offer it in a way you find acceptable?
Edit: really any content getting downloaded illegally (colloquially known as pirated) I haven't ever seen someone argue that the content say, saved a life, or was so important to x that it had to be done.
Lets be real: what we're talking about here isn't subverting a totalitarian regime and allowing citizens to talk on the world stage. I reckon most if not all of these sites just shuffle illegal copies of digital goods.
What we used to call 'going without'.
E.g. in Poland if you have bought a copy of given software, you can download if also from the site and use whichever version you prefer (but only one) - this is a fare use case.
Example would be if given software is in a poor way DRM protected and you would like to run it on an OS that doesn't support DRM.
Or in the days of games distributed on CDs, we were downloading those pirated versions (while owning a proper one) because they didn't require a CD to be always in the computer.
You could argue that they should apply it to a country by country specifics, sure. Though i fail to see how its google's problem if you can or can't find a website per se. They are, yes a search engine, and that is what google.com's primary purpose of use is. What they aren't saying, nor have they really ever guaranteed, is that they will give you unfiltered results. Its actually quite the contrary. It's google's indexing and filter algorithms that make it so effective in the first place.
With all that said, there is always an alternative. Google's a private company. They can't shut down these websites. They aren't even attempting to do that. They are just making casual access more complicated I suppose more than anything.
Its within their right to do that.
(Notice how no one seems to be scoffing at Bing, its all about what Google does or doesn't do)
The article never claimed it was unconstitutional
Just trying to get ahead of misconceptions, or admittedly, what I believe to be common misconceptions.
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/05/05/what-music-piracy...
I think the bigger problem the music industry has with youtube is semi-legitimate: They used the non-official uploads as a leverage to get them to sign en masse for Google Play Music / Youtube Music Key instead of doing the proper thing and enforcing the DMCA take downs of the music at scale. They could easily do most of this algorithmically by doing sample checks with automated software and it would likely work most of the time (plus, they could work with rights holders/publishers/record companies to maintain a 'white list' of channels that wouldn't be scanned if they're uploaded by the channel owner unless an actual DMCA complaint was filed against that channel and it turned out to be legitimate).
Like most things, the real story is very complicated, and there isn't usually a good vs bad side as the water is very murky in the details.
I would say having some experience with the actual business of distributing music, that alot of distributors that are used to say, get your content on iTunes and the like en masse, do have the capability of allowing a service to 'sample' a song and do a lot of pre-checks of verification in that way.
They could tap into that ecosystem for legitimacy. It certainly does get harder beyond that though.
The largest argument against google making an autonomous car is the fact that they have zero capability to automatically and reliably detect copyright violations on their services.
The more content on youtube, the better for them ...
There's a short story im not able to find, that has this very idea as a plot.
I've paid Steam and Spotify for 13 and 9 years respectively to not have to do any work in getting games and music.
Now if only the movie (and to a lesser extent TV) industry caught on.
I'm 100% certain that was the main motivation for the change. /s
While I can't say I'm full of sympathy for pirates who get hoist by their own petard, plenty of innocent people also get hurt because they don't realise the site they are visiting is not kosher. It was high up on their favourite search engine, after all!
Sending their users to those dangerous sources is hardly in any search engine's best interests, regardless of any other incentives that may be at work here.
Exactly like it is now.
I think they haven't fully factored in the longer term losses they might incur when people might look for, find, and switch to an alternative good-enough uncensored search engine, e.g. Yandex.
1) This could open up the market again for search engines (ie - "we don't censor your search, so use us instead of the other guys".
2) How long until you try to search for "{name of research paper} pdf" and you only get links back to the pay-for-access sites for research papers?
Personally I think this is BS, but I understand why they are doing it. It won't stop piracy or other illegal crap - it will just move it elsewhere, like it always has. If you want the stuff, you can find it. You always have, you always will.
The second one, though, bothers me. All too often, I read an article about a research paper I want to read, only to be paywalled by one of the big research paper companies. But usually - if the paper is older than 6 months or so - I can google for it, and find a copy (sometimes a draft). In many cases, it will be off of one of the researcher's sites or blogs. Other times, it will be in an FTP archive somewhere, or linked by someone else.
It really bothers me when for a research paper, I am asked to pay anywhere from $25.00 USD or more for a PDF, as an interested individual or hobbyist. Researchers are also expected to do the same, but are largely insulated from it by their institutions, who shell out big $$$ for a subscription to the services (so for the researcher, they don't see the cost - though most know about it otherwise - plus they usually have to pay thru the nose themselves just to get it on the path to publishing!).
I have found that sometimes - in certain cases - finding the author(s) of a paper and emailing them asking for a copy (stating that I am a hobbyist interested in their work) generally works well enough to get a copy sent to me (and sometimes much more).
Ultimately - I wouldn't be surprised to see Google and Bing do this after a few threats from the publishing companies...
Everything above is written with the full knowledge that there is some irony in talking about ethics and trustworthiness in relation to copyright infringement. Nonetheless - I think the terms still carry some validity in context.
Search will always be biased, it's inherent to the problem space. Word appearance, cross linking, and every other metric used to sort and score results are always going to optimize certain things over others.
So in this case it's a matter of ethics, and I find it hard for anyone to morally suggest that illegal content should score higher and be considered more relevant, unless you want to debate over the legality of it.