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Google Listed 'Nazism' as the Ideology of the California Republican Party (gizmodo.com) 490

Less than a week ago, if you searched for the California Republican Party on Google, you might have read that the political party's ideologies included conservatism, market liberalism, and nazism. The latter listing has since been removed, and Google is blaming the results on Wikipedia "vandalism." From a report: Vice first reported the inclusion of "Nazism" under ideologies in Google's knowledge panel -- the box that shows up to the right of search results. It's unclear how long the term had been there, but the tech giant removed it after being notified by the publication. "We regret that vandalism on Wikipedia briefly appeared on our search results," Google tweeted on Thursday in response to California congressman and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. "This was not the the result of a manual change by Google. We have systems in place that catch vandalism before it impacts search results, but occasionally errors get through, and that happened here."
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Google Listed 'Nazism' as the Ideology of the California Republican Party

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  • A slow death (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zippo01 ( 688802 ) on Thursday May 31, 2018 @04:52PM (#56707274)
    Google is making a lot of mistakes. They are slowly killing themselves. As is Facebook and a few others. I see regulation coming on them. they will continue down this path and slowly loose. You tube is another easy example to point to as a sequence of mistakes. They must remove themselves and just be an open and honest information provider. The moment they start "we know better then you" people will resist.
  • Clickbait Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31, 2018 @04:53PM (#56707278)

    Some jerk edited the Wikipedia page. Google served the information without knowing the content. Once discovered, the page and Google presentation were corrected.

    In other extremely important breaking news, it was discovered that a Facebook billboard had "penis" spray painted across it. Users are outraged that the company would display such language in their marketing material.

    • by Dwedit ( 232252 )

      They could still only allow content that has stayed up on the page for 3 days without changing.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by novakyu ( 636495 )

      And this is the company that wants us to put our future in its algorithms/AI?

      Sorry, either this is revealing Google at its most incompetent, or this is revealing Google's priorities (that is, preventing libel against the right is at the very bottom of its priorities, until something erupts). Either way, it doesn't cast Google in a favorable light.

  • by glenebob ( 414078 ) on Thursday May 31, 2018 @05:14PM (#56707396)

    Interesting that the vandalized version of the page only existed for about a minute, and Google somehow managed to run with it.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/ind... [wikipedia.org]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/ind... [wikipedia.org]

    • It could just be bad luck (or good luck if you're the vandal), you do it enough times, it's bound to happen at least once, or it could be someone having access to the logs and knowing when the Googlebot was actively indexing the site. The latter being the equivalent of following the Google street view car going around when it reached your town and going ahead of it to pose for it doing the "heil hitler" salute while wearing the Trump golfing outfit with a MAGA hat and a tiki torch in hand.

      • by novakyu ( 636495 )

        Um, who without access to Wikipedia's server logs or Google's internal information knows when Googlebot is actively indexing the site?

        My first guess would have been the vandal used Google's webmaster tool [google.com], but I don't think those are meant to respond to an indexing request within seconds.

    • by Jonathan P. Bennett ( 2872425 ) on Thursday May 31, 2018 @06:56PM (#56707728)

      Not so much. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/ind... [wikipedia.org] seems to be the edit that showed up on Google. It was up for a week before fixed.

  • by qe2e! ( 1141401 ) on Thursday May 31, 2018 @05:15PM (#56707402)
    If only Wikipedia had some kind of freely available edit history log, you could find out.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    https://www.jta.org/2018/05/06/news-opinion/neo-nazi-california-senate-candidate-barred-state-republican-party-convention

  • by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Thursday May 31, 2018 @05:40PM (#56707490) Journal
    You do know that this kind of pervasive propaganda actually makes you the ... oh, never mind.
  • At least not all of them, and I hear there are some very fine people on both sides [theatlantic.com].

  • People, hear me out (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Evtim ( 1022085 ) on Friday June 01, 2018 @04:21AM (#56709096)

    Synopsis: The division is not left/right; that is the wrong way of approaching the situation. Instead it is individualism versus tribalism.

    Here is the story:

    Stand and face (let’s say) North. Put your hands together and extend them pointing towards N. Now, open them 90 degrees each until they cut 180-degree arc. Your hands just described the spectrum of regular, let us call it sane (enough) politics. Quadrant I (looking top down) is the right wing, quadrant II is the left wing. You might color them if you like. Let’s say the left is red and the right is blue. Now, what about quadrant III and IV? Those are populated with people who have taken either side to the extreme.

    And here is an interesting fact – since we have numerous examples throughout the 20th century of both left and right going crazy (cross culture and cross race mind you!), we have very clear record of the tactics they applied. And they are largely the same! Labor camps – check, both the Nazis and the Commies did it. Group identity – check (superior race against everyone else in one case, the proletariat against everyone else in the other). Overreach of governmental meddling in people’s lives – check. Emphasis on “morality”, “patriotism”, “national pride” – check. Cult of personality – check. Stricter control of the populous, massive secret services and surveillance programs, emphasis on “reporting the undesirables” and “catching the enemy within” – check. Vilifying all who do not belong to said groups and do not sing endlessly the party line – check. So, the color of quadrants III and IV is mostly purple. Those people come from different quadrants but they end up in the same place (while hating each other viciously of course and completely not aware that they are the two sides of the same coin).

    So, it seems to me that the actual division we must be aware of is not along the line North – South but East – West. At one end – North stands the sovereignty of the individual and the idea that all systems and ideologies are eventually oppressive so no ideology should be allowed to trump individual human rights and dignity. Equality in front of the law (or God if you will), maximum freedom for the individual to follow his/her ambitions, talents, capabilities, etc. and equality of opportunity are the hallmarks of that ideology. On the other side is the group identity and the toxic tribalism. The individual is but a cog in the great machine of the state. The party line is everything. Everyone else is an enemy. In the pursue of our goals anything goes (because we are right!). “The goals of the group and the greater ways are transcendent and (I am the one that defines them) to embrace them is to achieve enlightenment” – chairman Sheng-ij Yang.

    And that is why, for instance, at the moment in the so-called intellectual dark web people as remote in their ideology as Richard Dawkins (fireproof atheist; top dog evolutionary biologists), Stephen Fry (gay; bleeding heart liberal and fireproof atheist who argues that the church is not a force for good; renaissance man), Ben Shapiro (conservative Jew who still thinks being gay is a sin) and Jordan Peterson (quite religious in his own way, fully aware of the dangers posed by people from quadrant III and IV) are allies and speak in one voice against the disappearance of freedom of speech, the cessation of a meaningful dialog between the left and right, the forceful and violent de-platform/shutting of/attacking stints by the extremists, the mainstream media fiasco and so on.I saw it with my own eyes and could hardly stop laughing – Shapiro for example was viciously attacked by both the alt-right and the commies who claimed he is one of the “others”. What can be more revealing than that?

    Final note: we absolutely need both sides of the argument to go forward. Either extreme breeds destruction and suffering, but the

"I have not the slightest confidence in 'spiritual manifestations.'" -- Robert G. Ingersoll

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