Google Will Soon Blur Explicit Images By Default in Search Results (theverge.com) 67
Google is introducing a new online safety feature to help users avoid inadvertently seeing graphically violent or pornographic images while using its search engine. From a report: Announced as part of the company's Safer Internet Day event on Tuesday, the new default setting enabled for everyone will automatically blur explicit images that appear in search results, even for users that don't have SafeSearch enabled. Google has confirmed to The Verge that, should they wish, signed-in users over 18 will be able to disable the blur setting entirely after it launches in "the coming months."
Bing! (Score:4)
Yandex is good too, but who knows what those Russians are doing with my search history.
Re: (Score:2)
MS-Wank (MS-Power-Point taken already)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Google should weaponize that (Score:2)
Google's marketing team is missing a golden opportunity here to weaponize this to the detriment of its competitors.
"Google for finding the nearest Golden Arches with Google Maps-integrated Search, Bing for finding the latest Golden Shower movies."
Re: (Score:2)
It's not superior for porn, it's actually worse IMO. Google will show you the same stuff but you have to word your searches more carefully, because their search is refined enough to filter out unintended pornographic results (like somebody searching for "bikini" might not be interested in seeing explicit content, they might just be searching for bikinis to buy or the Atoll it's named after.) Bing on the other hand just vomits out whatever pictures with keywords match.
As long as it's a setting I can turn off
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
So... no more searching in private mode then?
Google has no clue about this Internet thing.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Signed-in users will be able to disable... (Score:2)
Exactly. Consent to tracking, or get crapified results.
Re: (Score:2)
Thus goes even a fascade of anonymity on the Internet. Now they officially know what you search for.
Google search continues to go downhill (Score:2)
We are art lovers here, we don't want our Delacroix, Goya, Modigliani etc searches censored.
If I have to sign in to do a proper search, I'll avoid Google search (I've already started using more DuckDuckGo and - gasp - Bing lately anyway).
Re: (Score:2)
I moved to DuckDuckGo about 2 years ago and use Google maybe once a month now.
Meh (Score:2)
Finally Google can satisfy my fetish (Score:5, Funny)
I only get off on blurred images of naked peoples.
Aaaaaah.
Re: (Score:2)
Wait.
I hope this isn't another Google project I'm going to make a lot of use of, and then they're going to cancel it after 5 minutes ?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Pixelated ? Eeuw, you sicko.
Gaussian is what we nice people do.
Re:Finally Google can satisfy my fetish (Score:5, Funny)
The real advantage of Japanese porn is that with the naughty bits blurred out, you can safely watch it around children, on public transportation, at the airport, or elsewhere that porn consumption might normally be frowned upon.
Re: (Score:2)
Those same dirty old men make schoolgirls wear short skirts in winter by mandating them as part of the uniform. These are the men running the country. Kind shows you how useless the upper caste is.
Re: (Score:2)
This is a result of the British missionaries arriving and complaining about what was a more enlightened culture with respect to erotica. Take a look at some of the old Japanese wood-cut prints. The missionaries complained about art depicting "insertions". So now you get pictures where the act is pretty obvious. But there's a tiny black bar blocking only the location of the insertion.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. And it seems school-girl underwear inspection by teachers in Japan is actually a real thing. I thought for a long time that this was just a somewhat bizarre fetish fantasy. The blurring in Jav porn really makes no sense except as a figurative fig-leaf.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sometimes you can't unsee some things, sometimes its all nice and rosy then you come across that one image this is like wtf and you can't unsee it.
What they need is a slider to adjust the amount of explicitness needed to blur the image. Sider goes from 'softporn' -> 'that's even possible?'.
Re: (Score:2)
There's more, so Slider goes from 'softporn' -> 'that's even possible?' -> 'Hollywood Actor' -> 'Trump in Russia'
Re: (Score:2)
That's a whole new meaning to pixel-peeping.
Wait... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Or legit "explicit" images - eg medical. Although I suppose blurring them in search results is OK as you will see them uncensored when you click through to the medical/... site.
Re:Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
And that is exactly it. They want people to log-in so they can do more spying and profiling.
Why is this news? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
you can turn off the feature.
Only if you're signed into google
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Why is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are incorrect.
What you are describing is already a feature of every major search engine: SafeSearch. They currently do, and are entirely capable of, enabling a no-explicit-photos policy by default, with an opt-in for explicit results. It's existed for years. Many school and corporate web proxies can force this setting on via a checkbox, and Google itself could force the setting to be reverted to "on" after every search in a session, if they wished.
What they are doing now, is requiring someone to login with an account, tell Google you're 18 (I hope kids never figure out how to do that) and then running the search.
This is data-mining, for-the-children-placating garbage.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Google collecting a kink profile on someone, what could the harm be in that?
Maybe Google wants to become more active in politics in the future. Collecting compromising info on people is sort-of a requirement for that these days.
Re: (Score:1)
It seems like the appropriate default behavior.
No, the "appropriate default behavior" is to immediately call the police, have a SWAT team barge in and arrest you for violating the religious Morales of others. /s
If you are trying to do normal searches in public places (or using public terminals), having any explicit images that you inadvertently encounter be blurred seems pretty desirable.
Google, and every other search engine out there, already has an opt-in feature for explicit images. Forcing someone to login to be able to view uncensored material is requiring tracking of people's perceived offenses to the big and powerful. I.e. It's to create a list of people for future punishment. No sub-age-of-majority asshole is going to c
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
No, you've got it all backwards. The current situation is that SafeSearch exists and is on by default for any user who is not logged in; the children are safe from seeing boobs accidentally. Anybody searching on a machine that is not sufficiently locked down by the network admin can turn SafeSearch off and find whatever Google might have, without having to associate their Google login with their private searches. Anyone who doesn't want to see anything explicit can just leave SafeSearch turned on. There is
Re: (Score:2)
who don't know why that's a bad idea will just lie about their ages to get around the block and create a Google account that has way too much information about the explicit things they were curious about
Thought of this earlier, but in that regard a better question to ask Google, and a few congress critters, would be:
"Why is Google collecting information on the sexual kinks and preferences of young children and demanding that information be deanonymized by default?" "If we assume they are upholding their duty to their shareholders, who is trying to buy that information off of Google and how much is Google profiting off of the sexual kinks and preferences of young children?"
Let Google spin that one. I'l
Re: (Score:2)
By your logic, if I want to use a public internet terminal, I have to login in order to avoid seeing unintended explicit content?
Or you could just leave SafeSearch on. Which is the default, is how the explicit images are filtered to begin with, and doesn't require login to use. Key tidbit there: Any image that isn't already flagged by SafeSearch, probably won't get blurred by the new system either. (Easiest way to check which images to blur is to use the SafeSearch metadata.) If that's the case, this new system doesn't offer any more protection to a logged out user than the current SafeSearch checkbox. Making it entirely pointless f
Re: (Score:2)
Not really. The appropriate behavior is to return the most accurate results for what the user is searching for, regardless of whatever the search term may our may not be. I'm quite capable of deciding for myself what is appropriate for my own eyes. I'm equally capable of not searching for or watching porn in public. (By the way, blocking just searches won't stop the sort of people who *would* watch porn in public from doing so. They can just go straight to pornhub or wherever.). And in general, I don't
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Who cares if there are explicit images in explicit searches? That's kind of the point. If the search algorithm were perfect, this would be silly, but since it isn't, blurring explicit images seems like a good choice.
But you're missing the point. It's not whether you can search for explicit images, or whether explicit images are blurred by default.
It's that under Google's new policy, you can ONLY view explicit images by giving Google permission to track your search history.
Even if they don't do anything with the data (which is unlikely), it's stonking massive invasion of privacy, and as soon as users realize that they can't search for potentially explicit images anonymously, I predict a mass exodus from Google's search
Re: (Score:2)
exactly this. google and search engines in general should be as absolutely transparent as possible.
Re: (Score:2)
no. it's bullshit.
google is like a pesky little insect following you around the internet keeping notes on everything you see and search for. using private mode at least gave you the illusion of the being able to separate your 'above board' (for lack of a better term) activity with things you'd rather keep to yourself.
entrusting so much of our online activity to a FUCKING ADVERTISING company is absolutely retarded. these little piggies have their fingers in just about everything.
now if they had an exceptio
I assume this is why (Score:2)
... signed-in users over 18 will be able to disable the blur setting...
Re: (Score:2)
So will signed-in users have an "ultra high resolution" option?
Re: (Score:2)
Yup, Google said the quiet part out loud.
I remember (Score:3)
I remember when Google was actually a cool company. Now they're just a turd in the punch bowl.
Re: (Score:2)
It has been a long time since they were cool.
Ohh. Thanks, nanny state google! (Score:2)
For protecting me from the vicious genitalia out to attack me on the internet.
What about multiple accounts (Score:2)
I own at least 3 separate Google accounts:
- One exclusively for my phone.
- One exclusively for google searches on my desktop.
- One+ for other purposes.
The Google serach account is only used on a separate instance of an sandbox browser so that my sometimes-dodgy searches don't propagate to my other accounts. If this change goes ahead, it will mean that my account separation will be turned useless overnight.
What's next? (Score:2)
I'm sure they won't stop at "explicit", which in itself is sper ambiguous. What's next on the censorship to-do list? Dating sites? Cybersecurity training? Access to medical advice? There are plenty of potentially adult-only topics which are only adult-only by law but wich should be available to anyone.
Why else? (Score:1)
going down the slippery slope (Score:2)
even if I have safe search disabled?!
I see google is going down the slippery slope of ignoring my decisions and is censoring me for my own good. Thanks for nothing!
Re: (Score:2)
Given that they've been ignoring your specific search criteria for about a decade now, it's just more of the same.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, since I have stopped using Google a couple of years ago, they have stopped ignoring my search criteria. Kind of a hidden functionality, really.
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, they're not censoring you.
They're just recording your every search. Which to be fair, they probably are already in Incognito mode, now they're just being blatant about it.
This should be fun (Score:2)
That's why you use bing (Score:1)
So basically force people to sign in? (Score:2)
And then profile their porn-habits? Methinks Google is not acting smart here. Incidentally, with DuckDuckGo you can just switch off save search and no login required.
Re: (Score:2)
They’re just VERY careful about monetizing that specific info. If my interest in legos gets sold by google/facebook and lego ads start popping up elsewhere, I dont care much. If a single ad for my (insert fetish here) mysteriously shows up in my work browser, you can rest assured that I will NEVER trust that company
Big Foot (Score:2)
Google says the quiet part out loud (Score:2)
Google has confirmed to The Verge that, should they wish, signed-in users over 18 will be able to disable the blur setting entirely after it launches in "the coming months."
Yet another attempt to make people sign into Google to use it.