{"id":4419,"date":"2016-12-04T18:34:26","date_gmt":"2016-12-04T18:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnjohnston.info\/blog\/?p=4419"},"modified":"2016-12-04T18:34:26","modified_gmt":"2016-12-04T18:34:26","slug":"evil-auto-complete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnjohnston.info\/blog\/evil-auto-complete\/","title":{"rendered":"Evil Auto Complete?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are also evil women. I didn\u2019t go looking for them either. This is what I type: \u201ca-r-e w-o-m-e-n\u201d. And Google offers me just two choices, the first of which is: \u201cAre women evil?\u201d I press return. Yes, they are. Every one of the 10 results \u201cconfirms\u201d that they are, including the top one, from a site called sheddingoftheego.com, which is boxed out and highlighted: \u201cEvery woman has some degree of prostitute in her. Every woman has a little evil in her\u2026 Women don\u2019t love men, they love what they can do for them. It is within reason to say women feel attraction but they cannot love men.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

from: Google, democracy and the truth about internet search | Technology | The Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve long been fascinated by google auto completes<\/a> but never though of deeper implications.<\/p>\n

I read this in the Observer this morning. Thanks to @LillyLyle<\/a> for digging out the link I couldn’t find (via @IanStuart66)<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I use google all of the time and do pay attention to the auto completes as they often seem to help in refining a search. Sometimes this is just to avoid suggestions, sometime better. I’d not thought about the darker side.<\/p>\n

On reading the article I first didn’t think that I paid much attention to auto suggestions (like adverts). I cast my mind back to yesterday when I was searching for a way to draw ‘irregular rectangles’ with JavaScript. I didn’t really find what I wanted, but burrowed down several rabbit holes steered by the suggestions.<\/p>\n

I am used to the top google results having some sort of authority. Google a film get IMDB or Wikipedia. This gives pause.<\/p>\n

Featured image captured with LICEcap<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Running my auto complete script<\/a> leads to a few possible\u00a0questions…<\/p>\n

\"is_google\"<\/a><\/p>\n