Is Santorum's "Google Problem" a Google Problem? 775
theodp writes "Fortune contributor Dan Mitchell argues that GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum's 'Google problem' isn't Google's problem at all. 'The fact that searching for 'santorum' puts the profane, anti-Rick Santorum site SpreadingSantorum.com (NSFW) at the top of Google's search results,' insists Mitchell, 'is not an example of a "Google bomb," despite the widespread use of that term to describe the result.' In the same camp is Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan, who also says that Santorum has a search engine problem, not a Google problem. 'It's just that everyone fixates on Google,' Sullivan adds. Which is perhaps to be expected, since Google is the King of Search and also has ties to SpreadingSantorum creator Dan Savage, having featured the sex-advice columnist in Google's The-web-is-what-you-make-of-it Chrome ad campaign (for Savage's admirable It Gets Better Project, not SpreadingSantorum). So, considering Google's vaunted search quality guidelines, is some kind of change in order? Sullivan, while making it clear he opposes Santorum's views, nonetheless suggests Google is long overdue to implement a disclaimer for the 'Santorum' search results. 'They are going to confuse some people,' he explains, 'who will assume Google's trying to advance a political agenda with its search results.'"
Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
...they should try winning over hearts and minds (and clicks) instead of censoring something they find politically inexpedient.
Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:1, Insightful)
I think no one should take Savage's opinions when it comes to anti-bullying because of what he has done here. It just spreads the message, "Be tolerant of my views, but I will be completely intolerant of yours and harass you if I disagree with you."
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tolerance of bigotry is counterproductive. Dan Savage has been remarkably restrained considering the very real threat that Santorum poses.
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:5, Insightful)
He's a political figure with public presence, he has exposed and his being chastised and lampooned was really well-deserved, based on statements made in public meant for the public.
The website exposes neither his private life nor anything else that would make it bullying.
Simply put, poltiicans have to put up with criticism, and if they're total bastards, they will get really harsh criticism...
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe it's just the google algorithm at work.
I find it interesting that a Christian-Taliban like Santorum would cry about cyberbullying when he thinks raped women should see a resulting pregnancy as a gift from god and that the Catholic Church paedophile priest is primarily a Homosexual problem rather than one of opportunity.
I see one bully here and the top google result is what I would term "blowback". If I felt sorry for anyone, it would be for his children and anyone else with that name who has nothing to do with it.
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling out scumbags like Santorum who attack CIVIL RIGHTS is hardly "bullying".
Santorum is pure "Christian Taliban", that is all.
Re:Sounds like (Score:5, Insightful)
Legal Action (Score:3, Insightful)
So....doesn't he know a lawyer or two to address the site in question?
Santorum Has Other Issues (Score:5, Insightful)
Santorum's biggest issue is not Google but his political policies. He appeals to a very small population of rural conservative religious voters. He has zero appeal to moderate republicans which means he could never get elected. I mean the fact that a washout like Mitt Romney is leading just lets you know how awful the Republican candidates are.
Santorum's choice (Score:5, Insightful)
Rick Santorum has chosen, for whatever reason, to make gay marriage a centerpiece of his campaign. That's fine, and it certainly gets him a lot of mileage with the far right. But it also comes with a downside. When you chose to single out a particular group as your enemy, you're going to have to deal with them fighting back. And if humor is one of the few weapons they have, you can expect a lot of jokes. So man up and get over yourself. It's not like Dan Savage was the one who started this fight.
No policing neologisms (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not a search engine's responsibility to police our neologisms. Santorum is a word now used by the common public, and it requires no editorializing by third parties. As the original article points out:
The news is better for searches for Rick Santorum's full name, rather than just the word "santorum." In that case, his official site ranks tops.
So in other words, if I'm looking for a person, I write the person's name in and find the person. If I'm looking for a thing, I type said thing in and find it.
For example, would anybody be annoyed if a google search of the word "houston" showed Houston, TX as the first hit, instead of Whitney Houston?
Now as to why Santorum and santorum came to be connected is another matter. But that's something for a different conversation, which the columnist fails to grasp.
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
And no, we shouldn't ignore the anti-bullying message just because someone who supports it is an ass.
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more an example of Internet Bullying.
A good case could be made that Santorum started it by preaching intolerance.
Santorum's problem is a Santorum problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it isn't.
1. Rick Santorum is a public figure. A high school kid (which is usually what "cyberbullying" refers to) is generally not. If he wanted to avoid criticism, he could have simply retired quite comfortably to his home in Pennsylvania.
2. The website and Spreading Santorum campaign were created in response to things Rick Santorum has said in his official capacity as a United States Senator on the floor of the US Senate. If you're a public official, statements like that are clearly fair game for criticism and/or satire.
3. Bullying is typically done by somewhat powerful people to a powerless or marginalized person. Rick Santorum is neither powerless nor marginalized.
4. Rick Santorum's stated position regarding homosexuality is that he would use the power of the government to try to force homosexual people to either not be gay or not exist. That a prominant gay man responded by trying to prevent him from taking power seems like self-preservation as much as anything else.
Sorry, the claim along the lines of "poor widdle Ricky getting bullied by mean Dan Savage" is simply ludicrous.
Agreed. Search engines show what people think. (Score:4, Insightful)
At least, that's the basic idea behind both Google and other engines: show results that aggregate the opinions or outlook of many people. Authoritative links are ones which many people use, useless links are one that no one uses.
The whole thing with Santorum is that, actually, there is a very large segment of people that despise what he stands for. This group is at least competing with (if not more powerful than) the population of people that think he's a sane politician worth listening to.
The disconnect here is mass media. According to the rules they have adopted, candidates are to be taken seriously when they hit a certain (small) proportion of support, at least if they are right-wing candidates, and open mockery or confrontation are simply not done. Hence, Santorum is a "real candidate" and shouldn't have this level of opposition.
But that's not reality. I agree: a disclaimer would implicitly say that the voice of the people is political... which is rather obvious and useless, since it's always true.
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we amend or possibly construct a corollary to Godwin's Law about usage of the word "Taliban" since it's use tends to indicate the person is a Koshevik, but eventually it will find wider usage as a replacement for a demonizing term the person disagrees with.
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:5, Insightful)
Namecalling != criticism.
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not really a fan of Santorum, but whether or not you care for his views, it's a terrible way to make a point for someone who wants to make a thoughtful decision about who they should elect. It's the equivalent of schoolyard name calling. While I can understand how it got there in Google's search, and I understand why Savage did it (it's amusing and does appeal to the bathroom humor crowd), I wouldn't mind at all if it went away.
And really, there may be people in the US who actually act like the equivalent of the Taliban, but if you believe that any candidate currently running on any major, and most minor, party tickets is like the actual Taliban, you're either displaying ignorance or a complete lack of perspective. Knowing what the real Taliban does to people makes me borderline disgusted when I hear the term used flippantly like that.
If we would prefer to not have the government in the bedroom, perhaps we should help by taking the anal sex jokes out of the political equation.
Re:Santorum Has Other Issues (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean the fact that a washout like Mitt Romney is leading just lets you know how awful the Republican candidates are.
How many troll points do I get for pointing out that despite that, Ron Paul is still fourth behind Romney, Santorum and Gingrich? I'll go put on the popcorn...
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:5, Insightful)
Santorum is the bully.
He tried to use his political power to dehumanize gay people, and did things like comparing gay sex to having sex with dogs. Dan Savage's response, as a gay person, one of the people Santorum was bullying, was to fight back.
Santorum was never not one of the people with power. And God forbid if he were to become President, he would have more power than anyone. He is not a victim. He is a victimizer.
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:4, Insightful)
If we would prefer to not have the government in the bedroom, perhaps we should help by taking the anal sex jokes out of the political equation.
If you take the anal sex out of politics....
There has GOT to be a great line in there somewhere. It's just too damn early for me to think of it.
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoa, whoa, whoa there. What Dan Savage is doing is explicitly in line with the definition of tolerance. Is Dan Savage trying to make Rick Santorum's speech a crime? Is Dan Savage trying to make sure that Rick Santorum does not have equal protection under the law? Is Dan Savage trying to deny Rick Santorum his civil rights?
No. Those things would be intolerant. Those are the things Rick Santorum is doing to Dan Savage.
Dan Savage, on the other hand, is behaving exactly in line with what tolerance means: he recognizes the opposition view, discusses it honestly, understands it, and uses speech only to properly characterize it as wrong. That is tolerance.
If Rick wants to show Dan tolerance, this is how he can do it: I, Rick Santorum, think that homosexual acts are morally wrong. However, I will not try to subjugate homosexuals, I will not deny them the right to marry or participate in society in any way. The only thing I will do is tell people that I really honestly do believe that people should not have sex with members of their gender. That is tolerance, and Rick would do well to follow Dan's lead on learning what the word means.
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. For example, they could better disambiguate between Santorum the tool and santorum the frothy mixture of blood, semen and feces.
Can we please stop expecting that corporations will create some grand compromise that will satisfy everyone? Just because this Dan Savage guy came up with the strongest political advertising campaign of the last few centuries.
SuperPACs are now spending hundreds of millions of dollars to do what Dan Savage did with a little website and a lot of ingenuity. Maybe that's the problem. Dan Savage was able to affect the political fortunes of a political opponent without spending the requisite money and the people in power just hate that guerrilla, DIY shit because it calls into question the nice neat setup they've got for themselves. Should every politician who is on the losing end of a grassroots campaign now force the very fabric of space and time to change so that he can retrieve his good name?
Santorum got exactly as he deserved. He attacked a group of people relentlessly and the grassroots, the real grassroots, got him back. The only reason this is an issue now is because there's a chance he could be the Republican candidate because the first guy they picked turned out to be a cross between an undertaker and Louis XV.
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:5, Insightful)
deliberately trying to game the search engine to have your results on top
No gaming involved. Google's search results are based on how popular a particular link is. People find the sexual meaning of santorum [spreadingsantorum.com] to be worth linking to. As pointed out in the article this isn't a Google bomb like linking "miserable failure" to "George H. W. Bush" was.
However, a person's name definitely belongs to them.
No it doesn't unless they have a unique name and have trademarked it. Plenty of Santorums, and santorum, in the world apart from one ludicrously anti-gay presidential wannabe.
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a profound difference between tolerating someone's personal beliefs and tolerating someone's trying to impose their personal beliefs on others.
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
You should look up the word, because you obviously don't understand what it means. To tolerate something, by definition, means you don't agree with it. If you agree with it, then you support it.
People who say what you say, are attempting to use language in such a way to validate hateful and wrong opinions. By telling you so, I am expressing my opposition to your very bad mental acrobatics, which have led to your ethically bankrupt conclusion. Now, if I stop here, after telling you that you are a douchebag, then that is tolerance. If I come arrest you, or deny you civil rights, or try to exclude you from society, then that is not tolerance. Luckily, I tolerate douchebags like you.
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you really so dense? Do you not see the difference between gratuitous insults versus rational discourse and argument?
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
While the "civil rights movement" as a proper noun refers to the events you refer to, that is hardly the beginning and end of civil rights.
Gay marriage is a civil rights issue. Freedom to express your love for another human and raise a family and share in the legal protections extended to straight couples/families is a civil rights issue.
You are wrong.
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
But I guarantee you he didn't undergo anything as publicly humiliating as his own malicious and hate-filled public attack on Rick Santorum.
Really? You can guarantee that?
All those kids that kill themselves year after year over bullying and harassment must just be imagining their torments, I guess.
Santorum is a piece of shit that is reaping what he's sown. If his statements were about blacks, instead of homosexuals, there would be no one defending him, but because homophobia is the most acceptable form of bigotry in the far right, it's poor Santorum and the big bad Google. Dan Savage didn't attack Santorum because he's a Christian. Savage attacked Santorum because he's a bigot. There are plenty of Christians out there that are not bigots trying to shove religious considerations into secular laws.
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance
Probably not. Savage can probably be described as "obstinately devoted to his opinions", but that's a rather incomplete definition of the word, which would apply to almost all people. The rest of the definition, which twice uses the word "intolerant", does not describe Savage, who is not intolerant. You will know Dan Savage has become intolerant when he calls for heterosexuals to be denied civil rights, which would be quite a turnaround for him.
Re:Santorum's choice (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole incident reminds me of a playground bully running to tell the teachers that a victim dared to fight back.
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand the problem. The status quo is maintained with the gay marriage too.
The same people that were allowed to marry before, still can marry. The benefits from marriage have not changed to them in any way. So for them, nothing changes. The status quo is upheld.
Why are they making a fuss about something what in no conceivable way has anything to do with them? They weren't interested in having a gay marriage before, they still don't want to be married to someone from the same sex, gay marriage does not affect them in any way. They are just trying to meddle in other peoples life with for no reason.
PS: I come from a country where a religious marriage ceremony is not recognized anyway. If you want your marriage to be recognized, you have to show a governmental certificate of marriage. Anything else is invalid. So any argument about how some religions define marriage is completely beside the point here.
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's been a few years since "Taliban" has been used synecdochally to mean a group of people with deep, disgusting, violent, and hateful religious beliefs. I don't think it's usually used to mean "very bad group of people" in the general sense, the way Nazi is used, although there is some obvious overlap.
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:4, Insightful)
I think, if I were the Santorum Campaign, that I'd be far less worried about the fact that some smartass linked the candidate's name with $upleasantact, than that apparently this linkage is apparently far more popular than my official campaign pages. Google results report, essentially, what is there, not what we want to be there. Apparently Sanatorum's Internet presence is so extensive and effective that a random parody get's more links that his actual site.
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:1, Insightful)
Tag Clouds FAIL. Dan Mitchell FAIL. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd imagine that google has considered tag clouds far more deeply than Fortune's Dan Mitchell, well frankly I'd imagine they prototyped it even.
I'd further expect they vetoed tag clouds on the basis that any tag cloud they might produce can be better implemented by assigning the correct weighting for results.
In fact, you'll recall that google once offered "similar" results, which provided exactly what Dan Mitchell wants, but I'd imagine Google has good reason when they removed it.
In short, Google has already spent millions on the algorithm exploring exactly this algorithm via their similar button, which they ultimately discarded.
Btw, you'll also notice that Rick Santorum's wikipedia page comes up fairly high no matter how hard we try creating additional frothy content top push it down. Isn't this indicative that google has done a very good job identifying the two meanings of Santorum?
Re:Maybe... (Score:3, Insightful)
The Dan Savage 'SpreadingSantorum' site and concept has been around for many years longer than this jackass and his presidential bid. It's also more accurate than his campaign materials as far as what he wants to do to this country, and his electability is correctly reflected at SpreadingSantorum. It's not Google's fault - it's not ANYONE's fault but his own. The results you get are correct, Google is doing it's job.
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Legal Action (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats my logic, sparky. You dont seem to have any.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullying requires one entity that is more powerful than another using its power to abuse the weaker entity. Santorum, by definition, can't be bullied by gay people, at least not in this context.
Re:Maybe... (Score:0, Insightful)
> I just want to know what's going to happen when the Russian Link Farmers figure out that they can sell
> the ability to put any candidate they want, on top of the results.
Don't worry, they can't. Many try, some succeed for a brief moment but all fail. If Google (and the few other remaining search engines) weren't totally on board with Savage's antics his little SEO effort would have been blackholed to the bottom of the results years ago just like anyone else who has tried and failed to place and keep a search result at the top of the rankings that isn't useful to Google's valued eyeballs who drive in the revenue.
Thought experiment. Imagine somebody pulling this stunt with another politician with a fairly unigue name. Say the current POTUS. It wouldn't matter how many link farms they had, how many crowdsourced users got in on the act, that site would go to the bottom of the search rankings just as soon as somebody at Google noticed it and would remain there, just like they do anyone who they deem to be abusing their rankings. And they should, the conspicious exception here is what is striking.
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:5, Insightful)
Republicans do that shit all the time. They are all about controlling the language of politics, with terms like "entitlements", "welfare queens", "big government", "tax and spend", "family values" (my personal favorite), "illegals", etc. They are all about name-calling and implied or explicit insulting of large swathes of people. Why does that get a pass, but when one of the marginalized fights back, all the sudden it's "bullying" and "childishness"? Isn't it childish of Santorum to say the terrible things he said about gay people? That gets a pass. You seem to want the opposition, which is marginalized and has less power than the establishment, not to get all uppity and try to fight back. They should just respectfully disagree and politely educate people. Of course, they should. How dare they be able to use the same weapons that the establishment gets to use! Look, this isn't some dinnertime argument about whether Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus, it's the real world, where these powerful people get up and make laws and statements that *directly affect* the lives of millions of marginalized people, and they get away with it. You ask the marginalized people to use a much smaller arsenal, when they are already at a disadvantage. That is simply unfair and unreasonable and frankly, makes you look kind of like a bigot.
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would I throw a fit over the purest form of democracy you can have?
Santorum doesn't have a Google problem. He has a people problem. The truth is that most people don't like what Santorum represents. Thus the unflattering comparisons.
Although ANY search is bound to feature detractors. They are a highly relevant part of anything you're looking for.
Some people just can't handle Democracy. So the reaction of Santorum and his supporters is no big surprise.
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
1) express your love for another human
There is nothing preventing gay couples from expressing their love for one another. The government doesn't deal in "love".
1. Other than the whole "Lawrence v. Texas was wrong" plank Santorum stands on.
2) raise a family
There is nothing preventing gay couples from raising a family. Rosie O'Donnel is gay. She has adopted children. Many gay couples have had their own children through a surrogate mother or sperm donor.
2. Other than the fact that homosexuals are bared from adoption in many states (NY being one exception, along with 17 others. 6 make it explicitly illegal, the remainder have no clear law either way). Also, lack of marriage creates issues with custody and most aspects of family law.
3) share in the legal protections extended to straight couples/families
This is why many states have adopted the idea of "Civil Unions", which would give gay couples all the rights, benefits, and responsibilities of marriage. The idea was turned down because it was not called "marriage", even though there is absolutely no law preventing gay couples from having a wedding ceremony or calling themselves married.
3. Barring a new supreme court ruling on the subject, civil unions are de jure unequal to marriage are they are not guaranteed to cross state lines. Marriage is one of the few cases where the full faith and credit clause works exactly as written. A legal marriage in any state is required to be recognized by any other state.
But if you really want to get literal, blacks have the same rights as everyone else. There is no law that states that blacks can't get married. The law only refers to which race they are allowed to marry.
Please explain how these are not equivalent and why anti-same-sex-marriage laws should not join anti-miscegenation laws on the scrap heap of history.
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Good point. From now on, an incompetent affirmative action hire will be known as an "obama".
And an incompetent legacy admission will be known as a "bush".
And here's the rub - if you can get enough people to agree with you and use those terms, why wouldn't The Search Engines start returning those definitions as results?
The article shows a lack of research - Santorum hasn't had this problem for a few months; he's had it for nearly a decade now - "santorum" was redefined back in 2003. That's nearly ten years of that definition being bounced around, shared, accumulating hits and links and all that other cred that search engines look for. Of course it's going to rank higher.
If there's a lesson, it's that (a) politicians should be held accountable to their views, and (b) it's a pity this doesn't happen to them more.
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
SpreadingSantorum has not become popular due to google bombing. It has become popular over the MANY YEARS it has been around because it was more popular than anything the asshole from which it takes its name has been doing. Now that he wants to run for POTUS, he finds it inconvenient that the negatives of what he has said and done in the past are more popularly searched than his actual actions, campaign promises, and political tenets(which are by all accounts still as bigoted and ignorant as they were years ago when Savage created SpreadingSantorum).
Why is this anyone's fault but his own? If he hadn't been so bastardly evil years back when this all started, there would be nothing to contend. But he couldn't keep his right-wing christian extremist mouth shut.
This would be like Hitler searching google and complaining that the first link that showed up was the Wiki article for Nazis.
Re:Maybe... (Score:3, Insightful)
You seem to be calling for Google to manipulate and censor its search results based on a type of discourse you find unappetizing. That makes you even worse than Santorum (his opinions are backward and ridiculous, whereas yours drive toward the collapse of free society).
Amazing how fine the line is between being a mature adult (calling for reasonable discourse) and a boot-licking despot-lover (calling for censorship of the Internet and manipulation of search). So fine that you apparently just stepped over it.
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your thought experiment is actually an exercise in creative writing, as you have nothing to base that assertion on other than your imagination. It might happen that way, it might not, but to claim one or the other is clearly farcical.
Dan Savage can't help it if his website is tooled up to be more search-engine-friendly than Santorum's. Suggesting that someone step in and arbitrarily rationalise the order of search results seems ridiculously disproportionate when Santorum has the tools to do it himself if he simply stopped pissing off so many people the world over with his childish, ignorant comments and dubious moral standing.
There's fraudulent page-rank abuse, and then there's simply popular, which is what Savage's site is. You can check Alexa.com and see for yourself.
I guess Wikipedia are in on it too, as their site ranks higher than Santorum's own, too. Face it: Santorum started a fight in a medium with people far more knowledgeable about said medium, and is getting his ass handed to him. That's his problem, surely, and no-one else's. Expecting Google to rush around picking up his trash for him is ridiculous.
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:4, Insightful)
Your mental exercise is flawed; but let's go with it. If someone took Obama's actual words and actual vulgar, racist profanity and turned it around into an over-the-top satiric(sp?) response that was more disgusting (but not by an order of a magnitude) then what Obama actually said, and turned it into some huge online campaign which got to the top of the search results -- I'd see no problem with it, either. Its not bullying.
Politicians are not just people. They choose the public space, they put themselves on the pulpit. Their speech is magnified already without the internet: moreover, their power is magnified beyond what any individual has. They can effect change that directly endangers people's liberty and safety.
That someone manages to take the internet and use it to counter the hate-machine that supports this politician (the Tea Party and "conservative" movement which are all for smaller government doing less-- except when it comes to government involvement in sex, where it needs to be bigger and do more) is not an act of "bullying".
A bully uses superior power to beat down someone weaker. A United States Senator does not qualify as someone needing protection from the mean, awful, big bad brutes on the playground. Who are being just *mean*.
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:5, Insightful)
Your position is one of hypocrisy and is in direct support of bullying.
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing Santorum is being criticized over relates directly to the derogatory term used by Savage. Santorum doesn't like buttsex, so a definition was chosen which deliberately highlights this area of contention, and is shocking enough to make people pay attention. Fair enough if Dan Savage had a problem with Santorum over some tax returns he filed back in 2002, that wouldn't make sense, but calling out a homophobe in a way that makes homophobes uncomfortable is fucking GENIUS, hence the site being ranked so highly.
We were dragged down the "immature road" the moment this Santorum jackass decided the Bible was fo' reals. He and his hate-filled views are to blame for this, no-one else.
Re:Sounds like (Score:4, Insightful)
This is all true to an extent (though an incumbent President can loose, but they do have a solid advantage).
But we are also a nation which has a fundamentalist minority that drives the election process of one of our two major parties.
They aren't the Christian Taliban because the Taliban was actually in power, so could do what it wanted. The difference is these people can't. That doesn't mean they don't want to.
These people would be happy to criminalize sex that didn't conform to their view of Correct (all the while preaching of "personal liberty" and "freedom"). They would not stone the woman for being raped, but they'd call her a whore who asked for it because she didn't dress appropriately. They would teach only what is religiously acceptable in schools, including mandating prayer (except for the Jews, who are the only ones who would not have to go). They would go back to segregation at best (if not outright slavery, which was also in the bible).
Fortunately, most Americans are not this vile. Even most Republicans. Unfortunately, this minority has enthusiasm and a will-to-power like no one else, so is always out there on election day, always donating, always working -- so the Republicans have to kowtow to them. There is a certain subset of their beliefs-- fiscal conservatism-- which resonates with a lot of the sane Republicans, and a lot of moderates (and even some Democrats), and so lately they've been trumpeting that and getting a lot of support in the "Tea Party" movement.
But their fundamentalism, the ultimately theocratic Republic they actually want, the "social conservatism" that almost everyone outside of their minority rejects, is never very far away. They just don't say it too loud, and say only the least bigoted things they can get away with. Currently, homophobia is the most socially acceptable form of bigotry, so they're all about that.
That doesn't mean they wouldn't put the blacks in their place if they could. They are just sane enough to keep that talk mostly quiet (but its quite telling when someone brings a mic to rallies...).
Alas. Our parties are engines for elections more then ideological political groupings, and this minority has rooted itself very deeply into the engine of one of the them. That's scary as all hell, but they are a long way to becoming the Christian Taliban. That doesn't mean they don't *wish* they had that power.
Most Christians by far are still fair-minded, decent people who may even disagree with things like homosexuality and even vote against gay marriage -- but they don't long for the day before Lawrence vs Texas was ruled when gay sex was an actual crime. There's a huge difference between Fundamentalist Christianity and mainstream Christianity. Just like there's a huge difference between Fundamentalist Islam and mainstream Islam.
The fundamentalists in the Christian world are just not in actual power. (Thank God. History tells us what happens when they do get in power).
Re:Cyberbullying (Score:5, Insightful)
Google's search results are based on how popular a link is under the assumption that if a link is popular, it contains useful content.
Wrong.
The assumption is that if a link is popular, it is more likely to be what a person searching for that term wants to find. Which is a completely separate question from whether the content is "useful". Only a fraction of internet searches are for something "useful", and trying to restrict search responses to what is useful would be contrary to what the user wants.
For a great many people googling "Santorum", the hilarious take-down of his bigotted views is exactly what they wanted to find.
If you just google "Santorum" because you want to know more about the guy, then finding out what the Internet thinks of him is quite relevant.
If you are interested in "useful" information about his campaign or platform, then googling "Santorum campaign" or "Santorum Presidential Candidate" or so on would provide specifically that information.
That's gaming the search engine--that's what it means to game a search engine.
No it isn't. To game the search engine would mean to make a link appear more popular than it really is. If the link is legitimately popular, then that's not gaming the system, even if the link's popularity does not imply whatever else you might assume about the link.
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because I don't want my 12-year-old daughter to see that definition if she suddenly takes an interest in my disgust at the primary returns.
-1, think of the chiiiildren.
There are plenty of things about politics that are dirtier and more disgusting by far than Dan Savage's mock definition of "Santorum," and you're worried about your kid running into a joke that's probably mild by comparison to what she hears at school every day? Maybe it will make her wonder what a person would have to do to make a large group of people to start using his name like that. Call it a teachable moment.
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want my 12-year-old daughter to see that definition
Please don't perpetuate your prudery into the next generation.
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you search for a keyword which has multiple meanings, you are unlikely to want all the top results to be based of the same meaning. Google being an information provider is doing the right thing by listing the popular meanings when you search for just that keyword alone. After all who in the world searches for santorum alone?
1) People looking for Rick Santorum - Google's results serves them
2) People looking for information on the notorious definition (it is provably newsworthy) - Google's results serves them too.
The more people talk about this, the more likely the meaning will spread and be adopted. You may think it's "gay" and "awful"[1], but good luck convincing more than 180,000 sites to stop listing that definition.
[1] Meanings of these words have also changed over the years.
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Kill "Dan Savage" (Score:4, Insightful)
He said a bunch of stuff that offended people, and the offended people didn't just sit idle and take it. Why should he get protection from the consequences of his own speech?
Re:Maybe... (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't want my 12-year-old daughter to see that definition
Please don't perpetuate your prudery into the next generation.
Please do not dictate how I should raise my children.
Re:Maybe... (Score:4, Insightful)
Please don't perpetuate your prudery into the next generation.
Please do not dictate how I should raise my children.
Please understand that the next generation is not made of just your children.
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mainly because Rick Santorum said that he believes that if anti-sodomy laws are unconstitutional than so are anti-incest and anti-bestiality laws. He is probably correct.
No, he is definitely not correct that if a law against consensual intercourse between adults is unconstitutional, that laws against the rape of animals or family members also is. Nor is it the case that striking down anti-sodomy laws will result in the striking of statutory rape laws. Or any other comparison to things that aren't taking place between consenting adults.
This is why anti-sodomy laws have been struck down, but none of these other things have. Because the Court is fully capable of distinguishing these very different things.
Santorum was deliberately trying to equate homosexuals with child abusers and present a 'slippery slope' argument that since these things are the same in kind, legalizing one will lead to legalizing the rest.
This is utter B.S. But apparently some people buy it.
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
There you go again, making stuff up for which there is zero evidence.
The "Santorum is a frothy mixture of semen, shit and blood which results from energetic anal sex" phenomenon pre-dates the man's presidential candidacy by years. When Dan Savage's wonderfully effective campaign to associate a hateful human being with an icky substance, he did so not knowing that years later the Republican Party would be so desperate as to actually put him forward as a presidential candidate.
So no, Google is not "counter-endorsing a presidential candidate" because when the grassroots campaign happened, he was no presidential candidate, he was a back-bench politician who had no realistic prospects.
Face it, Google didn't have anything to do with the "Santorum is a frothy mixture..." campaign. After all, Google isn't the only search engine in which the creative and apt comparison can be found. Even wikipedia mentions it now. It's not about "search results" anymore, lgw. It's part of the English language, and it should be an object lesson for hateful people. Comedy and creativity will triumph in the end, which is appropriate because the end is where you find santorum.
bad parenting (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want my 12-year-old daughter to see that definition
Please don't perpetuate your prudery into the next generation.
Please do not dictate how I should raise my children.
Here is what is wrong with the country: The world doesn't revolve around you. You expect the rest of the world to censor things that you don't like. I don't like Rick Santorum. He is a bigoted asshole who isn't fit to lead a Sunday school kindergarten, let alone the most powerful country in the free world.
But you know what? I put up with his stupid bullshit, because that is the agreement we have here in America. He is free to say whatever he wants to. And people are free to mock his hateful views. That is one of the things that makes America a worthwhile country. We have room for everyone and their views. And it seems that a sizable number of people seem to think that Rick Santorum needs to be mocked. Don't like the content? Don't use the Internet. Nobody is forcing you to.
Also, is it that horrible to learn what anal sex is? Some people like putting their penis in other people's anus, oh no! Get over it.
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Because I don't want my 12-year-old daughter to see that definition if she suddenly takes an interest in my disgust at the primary returns."
Well I don't want my 12-year-old daughter to be exposed to the repulsive, hate filled views Rick Santorum espouses and which Dan Savage was responding to with the 'redefinition' campaign, but since I don't get to stop Rick from spewing vile hatred, I'd rather my daughter discover that she lives in a society where a lot of people find Rick's attitudes reprehensible, even if it leads to a couple of awkward questions about sex.
Re:Savage is anti-bullying? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's not at all symmetric.
One group wants the freedom to live their own life according to their own preferences. The other wants to deny that choice to those people. These are very different things.
You are free to believe that homosexuality is an abomination. You are free to teach your children that homosexual marriage is a sin. Whether or not James and Matthew can marry each other, you are free to believe what you like and to marry the opposite-gendered person of your choice. All of this is completely OK, even when gay marriage is legal.
On the other hand, you seem to want to tell James and Matthew that because you don't agree with their choice, that they are not allowed to make it. You are denying them the freedom to make their own personal choices, and you are denying them the civil rights and protections that come from legally-recognized marriage.
The only thing you're denied by their attempts to fight for their freedom is that you may occasionally be made uncomfortable. You may have to explain to your kids that some people in the world choose to live and believe differently than you do. You may have to work harder to spread your belief that, even though it's legal, homosexuality is wrong. You know what? You have to deal with these already. Living as part of a free society means that sometimes you don't get everything just the way you like it. You're already free to live as you choose, and yet you want to deny that to others based on your belief. That is simply not OK.
Stop trying to force me to accept people that want to view porn in a public library in front of children.
That is a very different debate, one I'm not discussing here.
However, only one side is trying to change laws to match those views.
This is patently false.