Google's dangerous bid to block 'hate speech'

[mountaineer]

Google's dangerous bid to block 'hate speech'
Dec. 31, 2015
Orange County Register
Daniel Hickey

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt recently announced that Google should pursue efforts to “build tools to help de-escalate tensions in social media – sort of like spell-checkers, but for hate and harassment.”

While that sounds like a fine and noble goal in what has become a free-for-all online world, it is also 100 percent impossible.

Google’s attempt at censoring “hate speech” – which still has yet to receive a formal definition – is dangerous in a number of ways. Because everyone has their own definition of “hate speech,” expecting a group of algorithms in a computer program to define what even human beings may disagree on, is inevitably doomed. Of course, this also places the programmer in ultimate control over what is disfavored speech. Who does Google designate as the “ultimate decider”?

There are other aspects of this concept that Google must consider. While we all are revolted by hateful speech, even efforts to combat it would be stifled by the attempt. How can people fight hateful speech when they cannot directly quote it while writing about it? How can the media report on real-world events if their reporting could be deemed “hate speech”?

Our society receives over 90 percent of its news online, whether through social media or online news sources. Stifling Americans’ access to news that directly impacts them creates an ill-informed country with blinders on to societal problems.

If Google executives deemed Donald Trump’s push to ban Muslim immigration as “hate speech,” news websites who quoted Trump would be penalized from search engines as well.

One would assume that any reasonable study of the subject would require examples to be provided to instruct the reader of what the author intends to abhor, but those quotations also would likely trigger the algorithms banning those guidelines.

While terrorists are successfully exploiting online communications, Internet companies have had a difficult time separating their dangerous activities from efforts by those fighting against them. A case can be made that the videos used by terrorist organizations to instill fear are also the same videos some people may and do use to motivate terrorist opposition.

But there remains an even greater issue for Google to confront. Censorship by Google for even the best intentions threatens to balkanize the Internet, much like the news media have been over the past decade or so. Efforts to differentiate Google by censoring speech will likely drive users to competing search engines such as Yahoo or Bing. It may – and I say will – drive away from Google users who do not want their speech censored, much as the cable news media have balkanized viewers to prefer CNN or Fox News exclusively.

Or worse, Google could control what information Americans receive, just as North Korea and China control the information their citizens receive.

This algorithm change will have negative repercussions. As they say, the road to hell is paved with noble intentions.

Daniel Hickey is director of creative advertising at Hickey Marketing Group, LLC, based in Redlands.

[mountaineer]

If Google executives deemed Donald Trump’s push to ban Muslim immigration as “hate speech,” news websites who quoted Trump would be penalized from search engines as well.

I think we're already there.

Someone Made a Google Chrome Filter to Block Donald Trump From Your Internet
TIME

It comes with three settings — mild, aggressive and vindictive

Few people have dominated the media — particularly online — in 2015 like Donald Trump has. Mentions of the business mogul and Republican presidential candidate are nearly impossible to escape on the Internet, but a new Google Chrome extension called the Trump Filter aims to change that.

The add-on is available in the Chrome web store and has three adjustable levels of filtration — mild, aggressive and vindictive — for the level Donald Trump references that it finds and eliminates from one’s web browsing experience, CNNMoney reports.

The filter was created by Brooklyn-based self-proclaimed “Internet Mathemagician” Rob Spectre, who says he created it not at the behest of any political entity (or anyone else) but “out of a profound sense of annoyance and patriotic duty.”

Spectre’s goal behind the extension’s creation is reportedly to transfer the spotlight from Trump to other candidates, as well as the issues America is facing in the lead-up to next year’s presidential election.

“I hope folks will take this opportunity to learn more about the wide field of candidates out there,” he told CNNMoney. “People are looking to turn him off.”

[andy58-in-nh]

The last time that free speech was so unpopular in America was around 1919, when political speech was specifically targeted, whenever it was held to be "disloyal" to America. Today, "politically incorrect" speech is being threatened by a new generation of bullies.

[mountaineer]

2016 will be interesting. Let's hope we still have a constitution at the end of it.

[flowers]

2016 will be interesting. Let's hope we still have a constitution at the end of it.

I don't think we will. At some point before Nov 2016 they will take over the net and sites like this will be gone. They cannot have the truth spoken about them. If not by Nov then surely by 2017.

[jmyrlefuller]

May I recommend http://www.duckduckgo.com/

No tracking cookies, and although my results aren't as refined as Google's it still does a more than adequate job.

[mountaineer]

I second that recommendation.