Google Maps Is Misleading Users Searching For Abortion Clinics… And The GOP Is Threatening The Company If It Fixes That
from the politicizing-trust-and-safety-is-dangerous dept
Earlier this week, Bloomberg released a well-investigated, and somewhat damning article highlighting how people searching for abortion clinics on Google Maps are often being misled to go to “crisis pregnancy centers,” which are sketchy organizations designed to try to convince women to give birth.
Google Maps routinely misleads people looking for abortion providers, a new analysis by Bloomberg News has found. When users type the words “abortion clinic” into the Maps search bar, crisis pregnancy centers account for about a quarter of the top 10 search results on average across all 50 US states, plus Washington D.C., according to data Bloomberg collected in July. In 13 states, including Arkansas, South Carolina and Idaho where the procedure is newly limited, five or more of the top 10 results were for CPCs, not abortion clinics.
The article has a nice interactive graphic showing details of each state. I recommend clicking through to see the interactive bits, but here’s the static image:
The article also has a fun (I mean, depending on your definition of fun) “abortion clinic or crisis center” quiz that shows how the two often look nearly identical and can be indistinguishable from each other.
The article makes a credible case that women are being fooled by these misleading results on Google Maps. And, also, that these mistakes can be tremendously harmful to those women.
But, what it leaves out is the absolutely stupid political fight behind some of this, driven by now years of media and politicians arguing over how every internet company should moderate, with threats going back and forth if sites don’t moderate the way this or that politician wants.
Indeed, the crisis pregnancy center story is a prime example of this and one that we’ve covered before. Democrats have told Google it should demote the crisis pregnancy centers in its search results. Meanwhile, Republican Attorneys General have literally threatened to take the company to court if they do that.
The objectively correct thing to do is for Google to remove those results, or at the very least, make it abundantly clear that they are not abortion clinics and do not have medical professionals on staff.
But, all of this highlights how fraught it is when politicians start demanding how websites moderate. It also highlights how trust and safety and content moderation decisions can be about a lot more consequential stuff than “when do we ban the harassing asshole?”
The fact that we’re now politicizing trust & safety issues is a dangerous turn. Companies need to be free to figure out how to best moderate without fear of having to litigate every decision. That’s the point of Section 230… and all the grandstanding over this is also part of the reason why politicians of both parties are trying to dismantle that law.
Filed Under: abortion, content moderation, crisis pregnancy centers, politics, search results, trust & safety
Companies: google
Comments on “Google Maps Is Misleading Users Searching For Abortion Clinics… And The GOP Is Threatening The Company If It Fixes That”
Maybe Alphabet should make an advert entitled A World Without Section 230, and in it show all the harms from someone moderating, getting sued for it, and website after website shutting down as a result. No Amazon, no eBay, no online shopping at Target. In another pandemic, no groceries without having to go out for them, so a massive increase in the death toll due to all the anti-maskers.
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The shopping sites would survive, with one minor change, no customer reviews. It is all the social media and self publishing sites that would go out of business, as the could not afford the risk of carrying user generated content. An Internet without user generated content would seriously impact the search engines, as only those who do not use bookmarks would be regular users, to search for their favorite shops.
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It is all the social media and self publishing sites that would go out of business…
Guess what gives the Internet the majority of its value? Amazon didn’t begin to get big until the creation of the World Wide Web made UGC possible.
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*UGC possible on a large scale. (-_Q)
Re: Re: Re:2
*widescale distribution of UGC possible on a large scale. 🧐
Re: Re: Re:3
In the early days of the World Wide Web, distribution platforms weren’t possible. They only came along with Web 2.0. Of course, one could follow up with the argument that forums also rely on Web 2.0, so there was no UGC before it, but to do so denies the existence of bulletin board systems and Usenet news groups that existed for over two decades prior to 1996.
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The rise of UGC and Amazon and other Internet shops has a common correlation, broadband and an always on Internet that did not conflict with the phone.
Re: Re: Re:2
Er, no. UGC existed in the early 1970s, as Autie already pointed out. I used to upload files of my fanfic to Star Trek BBSes from 1973, but online shopping only became a thing when Jeff Bezos changed the name of “Cadabra, Inc.” to “Amazon” in 1994. I advise that you learn some Internet history.
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“Maybe Alphabet should make an advert”
It really makes no difference with things like this. People have been trained to reject objective reality if it conflicts with what they’re told to believe by certain outlets, spin by an openly biased party won’t take hold no matter how many facts are there.
On this subject, recent stories about people being affected by abortion access, such as the 10 year old, and the 16 year old who was recently told she wasn’t mature enough to decide on an abortion (yet somehow mature enough to raise a child) have been rejected as anything from false flags to not real.
“In another pandemic, no groceries without having to go out for them, so a massive increase in the death toll due to all the anti-maskers.”
Again, you seem to misunderstand the audience here. These are people who demanded that everyone be forced back to work because they wanted a haircut during COVID. Unless they are personally affected, they don’t care, and even then they’ll try and find another person to blame.
'How dare you give them what they ask for?!'
Meanwhile, Republican Attorneys General have literally threatened to take the company to court if they do that.
Threatening a company for removing fraudulent(in several ways) results, how very telling of their priorities and character.
‘Crisis pregnancy centers’ are to abortion clinics as bars and drug dealers are to addiction counseling centers so threatening a company for not wanting to provide the former when users are searching for the latter says some pretty damning things about those AGs and how low they are willing to sink by abusing their authority in order to force others to abide by their particular morality.
“Republican Attorneys General have literally threatened to take the company to court if they do that.”
I don’t understand what grounds the TX AG has in their threats for sue regarding the google results? Are they trying to argue the public forum classification?
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Seems simple enough to me, fraud is a crime, they have legal authority over crimes, therefore someone trying to stop fraud would fall under the umbrella of ‘fraud relation actions’ and give them standing to prevent it, it being the attempt to stop fraud rather than the fraud itself. Makes perfect sense when you think about it.
(Yeah I’ve got no clue but given we’re talking texas republican it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s simply a case of ‘I don’t like this therefor I will abuse my power to punish it and to hell with the law since I’m not picking up any of the check for doing so.’)
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This seems to be a requirement that Google publish certain information, whether it wants to or not. Isn’t that a first amendment violation? At least so long as the supreme court considers corporations “people” with all the rights and protections granted to people in the constitution.
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It is. The government can’t force any private entity to host speech it chooses not to host.
Call bluff.
Tell truth.
Repeat.
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That’s how to lose at poker!
Re: Re:
But this is legal poker, which is a very different game, so AC’s strategy is a winning one. 🙂
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Let The Algorithm Go
Google business search isn’t a forum to be moderated. If they need to manually override the algorithm, then it means that they’re politicizing the results. Shadowbans are not a legitimate form of moderation.
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If the algorithm is giving flawed and/or inaccurate results, why shouldn’t Google fix it?
Re: Re:
Because murdered babies!!! /s
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Yes or no: Do you support the idea that Google should be legally prevented from moderating business search results to remove scams and combat fraud?
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Tell me you have no fucking clue how algorithms work without saying you have no fucking clue how algorithms work.
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Methinks Koby believes algorithms burst forth fully formed from Zeus’s head.
Re: Re: Re:
Trump’s head, actually. It’s Trump that Koby worships.
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Re: Re: Re:
Perhaps then, you could explain how the algorithm could differentiate between an abortion provider and a general outpatient surgery hospital?
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Republican (Read: Koch Industries’ trust funds, thinktanks and “charitable” orgs, a bit of the News Corp money, and many other RIGHT-WING institutions) money.
Pay Google enough, they insert the ads and misleading information. I mean, THIS IS LITERALLY HOW FACEBOOK KEPT DISINFO UP.
Re: Re: Re:2
You answered the wrong question.
Re: Re: Re:
Are you able to distinguish between “an abortion provider and a general outpatient surgery hospital”? Is the law able to do so? Either one would be sufficient to base an algorithm on.
And it is “an algorithm”, not “the algorithm”. This isn’t Highlander. There can be more than one.
Re: Re: Re: Hey since you're here I've got a couple questions for ya
“Perhaps then, you could explain how the algorithm could differentiate between an abortion provider and a general outpatient surgery hospital?”
I know you are stupid so I’m going to explain it to you slowly. And with small words.
That’s not what we are talking about.
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Since you aren’t aware, a pregnancy crisis center isn’t a “general outpatient surgery hospital”. It is a counseling center that, in the most chariable read, is planned parenthood but completely opposed to abortion and contraception. I recommend the Last Week Tonight main story on the issues they have. Google could take the three big providers and make clear results of those orgs are not returned in a search for abortion providers, or are reasonably flagged to make clear to the end user they do not provide abortion services, allowing the searcher to make that choice for themselves.
Re: Re: Re:2
…completely opposed to abortion and contraception.
So it makes abortions necessary and then refuses them? o_O
Re: Re: Re:3
I was going to respond with a poe/parody but even putting together the words in my head required a staggering level of feigned sexism so I’ll just go with noting that they probably self-justify it as a ‘self-inflicted problem’ in that the woman has only herself to blame for the pregnancy and therefore it’s on her to deal with it.
Re: Re: Re:4
Well, if young women will have sex with their daddies…
I’ll see myself out now.
Re: Re: Re:3
That’s the “funny” thing about the abortion debate in the US. The people opposed to abortion will usually also be the people opposed to sex education, contraction, pre-natal care, socialised medicine, paid maternity/paternity leave, aid with childcare, adoption funding, etc. All the things that make abortion way less needed, they’ll oppose – but need one after all that and they’ll oppose that too.
Re: Re: Re:4
…contraction…
Going off the context, I’ll assume you meant contraception.
Re: Re: Re:5
I did…
Re: Re: Re:4
That’s why I’ve been calling them pro-birth rather than pro-life or whatever term they use for years now, as for all that ‘concern’ about how life is sacred to the point protecting is justifies stripping women of their bodily autonomy and sex is super serious it all seems to go right out the window when it comes to life after birth and teaching people how to avoid getting pregnant in the first place, something which would almost entirely negate abortions and therefore you’d think they would be all in favor of.
Re: Re: Re:5
“That’s why I’ve been calling them pro-birth”
Forced birth is probably more correct, or just whatever describes treating women as brood mares who lose all rights as a human being once they get pregnant.
“teaching people how to avoid getting pregnant in the first place, something which would almost entirely negate abortions and therefore you’d think they would be all in favor of.”
Indeed. If avoiding abortion was the main goal, there’s a lot of things that can be done, before and after conception.
Re: Re: Re:6
Since the number of lives saved by banning abortion can only possibly be negative, it’s imposible for “pro-life” to be a motive behind the forced-birth movement.
Re: Re: Rising to the challenge
They don’t have the faintest idea how algorithms operate.
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Koby,
Before you go spewing off on topics you are basically clueless about, would you care to explain to us the difference between a bubble sort and a binary sort?
Also, remember that time that you thought Facebook could use section 230 to dismiss a lawsuit against Facebook’s own speech?
Oh, here it is!
That is how clueless you are in the areas that you like to talk about.
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No, their business is to present the most relevant links to a query which per the definition the algorithm moderates the bulk result. But it seems you want them to present links to fraudulent organizations among other things.
You really are out of touch with reality, aren’t you? Google tweaks the algorithm constantly. Regardless, on the face of it you say Google and other companies shouldn’t be political – but if we look deeper into your arguments it’s all about that you can’t stomach that some people and companies doesn’t like the same “politics” you do. It’s all about forcing them to do what you like.
You and your fascist friends’ entitlement and victim-playing are getting real tiresome.
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Re: Re: Re:
The part you’re missing is “relevant links to the users”. Instead, google is considering changing it to “relevant links to lawmakers”.
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Then go bitch to the lawmakers instead of whining about Google, dipshit.
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Shit since kdawg has yet to run away. You should try to get him to answer that question you always try to ask him.
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Instead, google is considering changing it to “relevant links to lawmakers”.
[Hallucinates facts not in evidence]
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[citation needed]
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If they need to manually override the algorithm, then it means that they’re politicizing the results.
No, it means political actors are gaming the system of inputs to the algorithm in order to make it spew out the results they want people to see, and the service provider are acting to correct for that political bias.
Re: Thats bold coming from a coward
“Shadowbans are not a legitimate form of moderation.”
The fuck you still posting here then?
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There are many, many different reasons why they change the way a search algorithm works, but it’s telling you just went straight to politicization. It’s almost as it you’re simple, one-tracked mind can’t go in any other direction.
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Fora aren’t the only things that can be moderated, you know.
Right, because everyone knows that algorithms are perfect and never make obvious, objective mistakes that need to be manually corrected. /s
Seriously, tell me you don’t understand programming without telling me you don’t understand programming. No algorithm is perfect. On multiple occasions on multiple search engines (and similar apps), I have gotten at least some results that clearly and objectively don’t fit the search criteria I entered, regardless of how narrow my search terms were.
We aren’t even talking about shadowbans, really, so that’s kind of a moot point, but I also question what do constitute “legitimate” forms of moderation in your eyes considering the fact that you have vocally and consistently opposed essentially all forms of moderation.
On top of that, the writer of the article is clearly saying that what forms of moderation are “legitimate” or “illegitimate” is not something that should be left for the courts (or any other part of the government) to decide for various reasons, including free-speech principles based on the 1A and the sheer number of frivolous, nuisance lawsuits that would result (making it harder for startups to even try to enter the space and wasting public money, among other things). You haven’t actually explained what makes shadowbanning any less “legitimate” than any other form of moderation. You simply assert that it’s not “legitimate” without explanation. That’s not exactly a compelling argument.
I’ve also found it difficult to determine what any given person means by “shadowban”. It has been used for everything from intentional, manual decisions to remove users from all searches, period, without any notification to the (alleged) victim before, during, or afterwards; to that same sort of thing, only restricted to certain search(es) rather than blanket bans; to being manually downranked on the service as a whole without notification; to being manually downranked for certain keywords only; to not appearing on the first page of results at all, among many other definitions. The term has become so vague that it’s effectively meaningless.
On top of that, if something is not an abortion clinic or something that offers a sufficiently similar service, it should not show up in searches for abortion clinics, and if it does anyways, the proper way to fix that would be to remove (or at least downrank) that result for that particular search, and there is no reason to notify the improper result of this being done because when this sort of thing usually happens, it’s an honest error on their part and not an attempt to game the system, and since those people weren’t trying to appear on that search to begin with and will still appear in other search results, they won’t really be negatively impacted by it. And if it is intentional, then the “victim” was likely trying to game the system, which isn’t good for the service provider or users of the service. If you consider that a shadowban, then I fail to see why that’s a problem.
Re: Re:
Seriously, tell me you don’t understand programming without telling me you don’t understand programming. No algorithm is perfect. On multiple occasions on multiple search engines (and similar apps), I have gotten at least some results that clearly and objectively don’t fit the search criteria I entered, regardless of how narrow my search terms were.
In this case it’s even worse than that because this isn’t an instance of the programming/algorithm messing up it’s people deliberately trying to game the system so as to get their fraudulent results next to if not above the legitimate ones, which makes framing the developers stepping in to compensate for the frauds ‘political’ more than a little absurd and way more than a little dishonest.
Re: Re: Re:
True. I was just going for the most basic thing about algorithms that people should know: they can be wrong.
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Since you’re in favor of a holocaust of babies, mind firing up the ovens for the Jews & making some nooses for the nigs?
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Get professional help, vermin.
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That implies they’re mentally ill, and therefore responsive to professional help.
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He also said vermin, there’s professionals available there too
Re: Re: Re:2
Exterminators help the home/business owner, not the pests.
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Godwin’s Law is invoked; your ignorance is acknowledged.
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The fact you’re using that language means a lot.
Please go turn yourself in for abetting insurrection.
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All together now.
FUCK YOUR FEELINGS!
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Incorrect and undemonstrated premise with unnecessarily inflammatory language and a strawman. Everything after this point can thus be safely disregarded as being completely baseless.
Also, I’m pretty sure that most Jews, Holocaust survivors, and surviving family members of Holocaust victims would be deeply offended by your misuse of the term, which has nothing in common with the actual Holocaust or the original notion of a Holocaust other than deaths being a result. Your subsequent reference to lynching is even worse.
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Comparing abortions to the Holocaust is surely an example of Godwin’s Law, right?
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Oh, absolutely!
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If they want to apply the same automated algorithm and same rules across the board, I don’t see a problem with that. My guess, however, is that google will not substantially change the algorithm, and will instead bow to lawmaker demands and simply perform specific exclusions to the results.
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I’m not surprised at all that you haven’t twigged on what that actually means in practice, because what you want actually hinges on that happening.
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But you said…
Politicizing the results is ok if it’s done by order of the Republican Party?
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It seems that you are misinformed. This episode was first started when DEMOCRAT lawmakers sent a letter to google demanding changes.
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You’re not really refuting the question there, chump.
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… said nobody who wasn’t deliberately making a false equivalence solely out of bad faith, ever.
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[citation needed]
Also, that neither answers nor moots the question posed.
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I’m 99% sure this was meant as a response to someone (other than the AC who said some nonsense about a holocaust) but I honestly can’t tell who.
That said, there are several problems with your comment.
GOP beleaves in 'Rights of the people'
But wont allow directions to the nearest Doctors to FIX A PROBLEM?
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Re: Re:
That’s an interesting assumption. If I type in “burger joints” in my city, it brings up some results that I might not consider to be a true burger joint, instead italian subs. Apparently the algorithm has determined that it’s a useful result for some users.
You can’t know if the CPCs aren’t a useful result for some, only that you disagree with the result ever being offered. Consider that maybe it does fix the problem, albeit not with your preferred outcome, but the users’.
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If some crazy SEO causes Google to start returning links to the Democratic Party’s website when people search for “Republican Party,” I somehow doubt your response would be as benign as “Apparently the algorithm has determined that it’s a useful result for some users.”
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CPCs exist to fool people into thinking CPCs are abortion clinics when they’re actually anti-abortion centers (that are often linked to conservative Christian organizations) meant to bamboozle vulnerable pregnant people out of having an abortion. The only people who legitimately believe a CPC is “useful” are the people lining their pockets with whatever money they make from that CPC.
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Here’s the thing you don’t get, if I see Subway included in the search results when I’m looking for a burger joint, I’m probably going to be mildly annoyed, but I can live with it because it is somewhat related and it gives people a chance to try something different. Whereas pregnancy crisis centres showing up in search results for abortion providers the way they currently do is like having Purina, Whiskas, and Pedigree Chum show up at the top of the first page of search results for burger joints.
Re: Re:
Only if the users are one of the 73 million that voted for a candidate that abetted, endorsed and tried to induce an insurrection.
Not everyone wants to go to a “crisis pregnancy center”, NeoNazi.
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Not everyone wants to go to a “crisis pregnancy center”, NeoNazi.
That’s rather inaccurate. After all, everyone knows that the Nazis were all for abortion, especially of non-‘Aryan’ embryos and foetuses.
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Apparently the algorithm has determined that it’s a useful result for some users.Then it’s wrong. An Italian place is not a burger joint.
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It is if it’s Frankie & Benny’s. 😉
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In which case the algorithm is clearly wrong. Someone searching for “burger joints” is necessarily looking for a place that serves burgers, not for places that serve Italian subs. This isn’t a subjective thing; this is objectively a flaw in the algorithm.
Even if the user also likes Italian subs, if they were looking for such a place, they wouldn’t have been searching for “burger joints”, specifically, in the first place.
You are simply assuming (without evidence) that the algorithm works perfectly at determining what’s useful to the user (either specifically based on user-specific data or for users in general) based on their search input. This is simply not true.
CPCs are not a useful result for someone searching for “abortion clinics”, specifically. You might have had a point if the search was for, say, “pregnancy counselors” or something similarly vague, but “abortion clinic” is far more specific.
You fail to understand the actual nature of the problem and (again) assume that the algorithm is flawless in determining what will fix the users’ problems according to their preferences.
The problem here is that a CPC is not an abortion clinic, nor does it provide any of the services of an abortion clinic. And yet, it pops up in searches for abortion clinics, specifically. CPCs also go out of their way to conceal the fact that they do not (and, in fact, will not) provide any of the services that abortion clinics provide, meaning that users are being tricked into going to a CPC thinking that it is an abortion clinic.
Whether or not the outcome is—at some point—one that the user prefers is, ultimately, not the deciding factor here, though it’s worth noting that this generally does not, in fact, lead to an outcome that the user actually prefers. The fact is that it’s a clear case where the search algorithm is clearly and objectively in error in terms of the task both the service provider and the user have asked it to do: find and return the names and locations of abortion clinics within or near the specified area when asked to do so by a user.
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More children are being born?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
We must stop this RIGHT NOW!
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Shh honey, the adults are talking.
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Poe’s Law, I think.
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Death penalty = post gestational abortion. Guess which groups support that?
Re: Re:
Poe’s Law, I think.
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Since CPCs want to be found by people looking for abortion providers, it’s likely that they’re using optimization techniques to fool the search engines into including them in the results. It’s harder to produce organically correct outcomes when adversaries want to poison them. You can see that in almost any search you do these days, not just for abortions. It’s just another variant of “moderation at scale is impossible”.
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Since CPCs want to be found by people looking for abortion providers…
[Hallucinates facts not in evidence like every misogynistic troll before him]
Re: Re:
No, they’re correct, you just have to read it carefully.
CORRECT:
CPCs want to be found by people looking for abortion providers
INCORRECT:
People looking for abortion providers want to find CPCs
Re: Re: Re:
You’re right, I misread it. My only excuse is that I was tired because I got up early that morning. To the person I responded inappropriately to, I apologize for getting your post flagged.
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No, I’m pretty sure they’re being “optimized” because whoever is running these centres paid Google big money to get them there.
This is exactly how Facebook kept the disinfo up.
Not everyone who looks for an abortion center is going to look for a “crisis pregnancy center”.
Re: Re:
I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works. You’ve also presented no evidence of this.
Not exactly. For one thing, you’re talking about paid ads, which is not the same as a search result. Google also has paid ads, which are clearly marked as such, but those are separate from the actual results from the search. For another, that can also be chalked up to “moderation at scale is impossible”. Finally, Facebook has been active in trying to remove disinformation, at least since the 2016 election and especially when the pandemic hit.
That’s not what Hyman Rozen actually said. Here’s what he actually said:
It’s not “X is looking for Y” but “Y wants to be found by X”. Hyman never claimed that even a single person looking for an abortion center has ever looked for a CPC; he said that CPS want to be found by those looking for abortion providers. These two things are exceptionally different. To use an analogy, con artists want to be found by gullible people, but that doesn’t mean or entail that gullible people are looking for con artists.
And Hyman is exactly right on this point: CDCs absolutely do go out of their way to be found by people trying to get an abortion, but people trying to get an abortion don’t look for CDCs.
Re:
Wow. You’re actually right for once.
Yes, CPCs are a particular problem because not only do they not provide the services of an abortion clinic despite appearing in search results for abortion clinics (which can certainly happen completely by accident in other cases, like a search for a gyro place returning a Mexican restaurant) and not only because they are anti-abortion (I can certainly respect their right to free speech, and if they were upfront about that, I wouldn’t have a problem with them existing) but also because they are intentionally deceptive.
The entire idea behind a CPC is to lure in those seeking or considering abortions by pretending to be able to offer abortion services, try to guilt/persuade them into choosing not to go through an abortion while still pretending that they will either provide or assist the patient in getting an abortion, and—should they fail to change the patient’s mind—waste the patient’s time until they can no longer get an abortion legally under their state’s laws. They are scams and frauds. As such, it is incredibly likely that CPCs employ measures to ensure that they show up in searches for abortion clinics and/or other related facilities/businesses (I’d actually be incredibly surprised if they didn’t). It is also clearly a scam. Plenty of other, unrelated search results will return results that appear to match the search criteria but are actually scams, most of which are because they try to game the system by exploiting flaws in the algorithm.
Returning all valid search results and no invalid search results is already impossible to do at scale (even ignoring robot.txt files that restrict access from things like search engines); throw in the fact that we have bad actors who try to fool the algorithm and users, and any attempts to at least mitigate this inherent issue are going to be a lot less effective than they otherwise would be.
This is pretty much exactly why search engines generally engage in moderation of search results in the first place: to stop bad actors from using the search engines for purely personal gain by deceiving the algorithm and users. Google and other search engines generally try to produce organically correct results to users, but bad actors like CPCs (as well as some less abhorrent businesses) are constantly working against that end goal. This makes moderation of results necessary.
Re: Re:
Wow. You’re actually right for once.
TBF, they could be one of the ACs who are often right, but get tied to ACs who are often wrong by one of the many regular trolls here.
Re: Re: Re:
This isn’t an AC; this is Hyman Rozen, a named user who simply doesn’t use an account.
I miss AltaVista
This, along with many other, ever increasing frustrations with Google’s inability to produce search results that actually contain the terms I searched for makes me long for altavista.digital.com
It returned pages that contained the search terms. It did not return links that took me to other sketchy-as-fuck search engines preloaded with my terms, nor did it take me to sites that it thought I would like.
It did not, as Google does now, tip its scales in favor of pages that are designed to be more mobile friendly, matches to the actual search terms be damned.
AltaVista never even once gave me a list of search results from a three word query where the first five “hits” include a footnote along the lines of “does not contain ” and offers a link to click, just in case I actually did, for some strange reason, want the results of my search for three lousy keywords to actually contain at least the first keyword.
When searching for documentation on a specific part number of a specific component, I don’t need the first 10 results to be “where you can buy ” or “are you looking to meet in your area?”, the ever popular “Top ten reasons you need to get more “, or “You need to checkout these reviews before you try “, or my personal fave: “we have all the information for “…which I click, only to be taken to another search engine with the preloaded search for displaying “we found zero results”.
Anyone have a time machine? I truly do miss being able to actually find the very thing I Was looking for.
Re:
Have you tried search engines other than Google? It doesn’t have a monopoly, you know.
Re: Re: Yes
Duckduckgo can, from time to time, find very specific things that are hard to find, but it feels a bit like a repackaged Bing, which can also work. My annoyance with Google is that I know damn well it has exactly what I am looking for, but the amount of irrelevant shit it insists on making me wade through to get there leaves me feeling as though I am being fucked with. 🙂
Re: Re: Re:
Then don’t use Google. As far as I’m concerned, it (usually) does at least as good a job as any other search engine in returning results that I’m searching for, often doing an even better job than the others, so, for me, Google is organizing its results in a way that suits my needs just fine. If it’s not working out for you, that’s fine, but that just means Google—at least as it is now—is not for you.
Re: The Barker's job is steering the mark
Getting rid of Jon Postel & Digital (DEC) killed off AltaVista, de-evolving the web into a marketing device, IMO
Re: Re:
Incorrect. Yahoo! killed off AltaVista in 2013 and Digital became defunct due to too many changes of ownership, starting the year of Jon Postel’s death in 1998.
Re:
“This, along with many other, ever increasing frustrations with Google’s inability to produce search results that actually contain the terms I searched for makes me long for altavista.digital.com”
Does it make you long for the current competing search engines that you can visit as easily as you choose to use Google?
“Anyone have a time machine? I truly do miss being able to actually find the very thing I Was looking for.”
Indeed, you’d actually need a time machine to get to a web that was as small and easily indexed without the issues you’re talking about, and even then Altavista was crushed in the marketplace because Google delivered on what they failed at back then. Say what you want about the modern incarnation, but the reason why Google destroyed Yahoo, Lycos, Jeeves, etc. was because it worked so much better, and the web is vastly larger than it was back then.
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waffle game
Waffle Game is a crossword game. It is a word search game, which is similar to scrabble. waffle game
Re:
No thanks, I don’t like to eat waffles and spam together. The maple syrup makes the meat taste really weird, you know?
Re:
Do the waffles come in blue?
Re: Re:
I don’t have any STI, never mind a fake one.
These Tx GOP folk are pretty much the norm in the Repuglican Party now. They’re grossly dishonest and don’t care how obvious their lies are since it serves to force their vile religion on everyone else. This is fallout from the Dobbs case where Alito’s opinion was full of bad law, bad logic, and denial of facts, he later openly admitted his idea of religious ‘freedom’ was that christians should have the right to force their beliefs on the rest of us. These mfers literally scoff at the idea of separation of church and state, of course while loudly and adamantly proclaiming their love of the Constitution, the gross dishonesty is manifest. Until it becomes the norm to address these issues as deplorable attempts to impose a religion on the whole country, this BS is going to get worse and worse.
Re:
I would be interested to read about that if you have the reference.
Re: Re:
In “Alito Gloats and Taunts Critics of His Anti-Abortion Ruling”, https://truthout.org/articles/alito-gloats-and-taunts-critics-of-his-anti-abortion-ruling/, it quotes hin as repeatedly discussing his opinion as protecting religious freedom, going so far as to claim “All I’m going to say is that, ultimately, if we are going to win the battle to protect religious freedom in an increasingly secular society, we will need more than positive law.” The opinion he authored is full of claims that assume christian doctrine/creed/beliefs as facts, i.e. any of his remarks about “potential life”, an empty if not incoherent term, and it accepts the upheld law’s term “unborn human being”, something impossible to rationally justify as there is no brain. It isn’t difficult to determine where these ideas come from, it’s an implicit assumption that ‘souls’ are real and that these are ‘god’s children’ type thinking. When does life start? It simply isn’t a question with an objective answer, to believe there is is to believe there is some god-like authority that can make it so by declaring which definitions are ‘correct’.
The objective absurdity of this thinking is easy to demonstrate with simple thought experiments about brains and bodies and where the actual person resides. E.g., if they could transplant a healthy brain out of a failing body, is the person in the dying body or did it go with the brain? If the forced birthers followed their own logic, they would have to believe the brainless dying body was the real person, I have no clue what they would try to say about the body that only possesses the brain but would have no soul but whatever that might be, it would be horrific to go along with their thinking.
Re: Re: Re:
The opinion he authored is full of claims that assume christian doctrine/creed/beliefs as facts, i.e. any of his remarks about “potential life”, an empty if not incoherent term, and it accepts the upheld law’s term “unborn human being”, something impossible to rationally justify as there is no brain.
Not true. Except in cases of fetuses with anencephaly, the brain begins to develop in the sixth week of pregnancy.
Re: Re: Re:2
Uh, ‘begins’ means something. The day you’re born, you ‘begin’ to turn into a senior citizen, but you’re actually not one. Do you think someone who is brain-dead is still really there? Some actually think so and it’s absurd, everything that makes us who we are is a function of the brain. You could object, claiming something like our bodies are a big part of how we think of ourselves, but if someone were in a terrible accident and lost their arms and legs and the rest of their skin was horribly burned but their brains, their MIND, was fully intact, NO ONE would doubt it was still them, they would still ‘be there’. Take away someone’s brain and that person is gone, they’re ‘not there’ anymore. Do you deny this?
Re: Re: Re:3
Look at ThorsProvoni, Phil, restless, and “I’m rubber you’re glue” BDAC.
Re: Re: Re:3
You need to go back and read your own post. You asserted that an embryo or fetus isn’t alive because, and I quote, “there is no brain.” That’s a crappy basis for standing up for reproductive rights because it will be seen as an easily deconstructed strawman since, as I said, the human brain begins to form in the fifth week* of pregnancy. To any ob/gyn, therefore, life doesn’t begin with conception or brain formation, but when the fetus can survive outside the womb, extra help notwithstanding.
*I actually said sixth week, but that was an error caused by a brain fart.
Re: Re: Re:4
Maybe you should go back and reread my post, there’s no strawman, I was addressing those trying to make the ludicrous claim life begins at conception, asking if there’s a brain then, I would hope, is a no-brainer. You seem to want to claim a bunch of cells that are multiplying and forming a brain ARE a brain, but I can only say that makes no sense, at best you could say it’s something like a proto-brain. If you’re going to insist on calling cells that are destined to be a part of an organ that organ, then you’re going to end up calling that one cell at conception the heart, the brain, the pancreas, the left big toenail, and every other part of the body.
Getting twisted up around definitions is useless and a waste of effort, and it also leads to real abuse of words, like ‘fetal heartbeat’, but there’s no heart, no blood getting pumped, just a mass of cells undergoing a cyclic chemical reaction. Those spewing such nonsense seem to actually believe that a heartbeat is what determines whether you’re alive, while it’s usually a damn good indication, it certainly isn’t determinative, that’s been understood for a very long time.
The viability standard is a decent compromise. But compromise isn’t possible for these religious freaks, they insist on forcing their insane religion on the rest of us. And as my posts have explained, this is quite evident in Alito’s decision and how he dared to use the term ‘religious freedom’ to describe his motivation to strip away the freedom of those who don’t share his religious beliefs.
Re: Re: Re:5
My cells are constantly multiplying and reforming me as the old ones die off. Does that make me any less real? As for there being no fetal heartbeat, then what is it I hear through the Doppler going at 90-110 BPM? Stop constructing strawmen, you’re only making the anti-abortionists’ job easier.
Re: Re: Re:6
Well, Theseus, I got no idea what you’re talking about. Any less real? When it was about your ship and whether it was the same one after all the replacements, that question made sense, but here, you’re just spewing breathtakinginanity. In the original, it IS an interesting question, we replace pretty much all of the cells in our bodies at a surprising high frequency with our brains being the slowest, up until recently, it was thought they didn’t get replaced but I think they all do over some long time period. But we’re talking development and another question arises, if a cell splits, does the original still exist and there’s a copy or do you get two new cells and the mother cell is dead? Even in a simple duplication, the answer is clear, it’s two new cells with the original molecules spit between the two new ones. But they do actually exist, they’re real so I don’t understand what you’re yammering about that. But it should be clear, a developing brain is not a brain, not until it comes close enough to actually function like a brain. It’s like dough is not bread, it’s fucking dough for christ sake, it ain’t a hard question.
I haven’t strawmanned anyone or anything, you’re simply badly misreading or misunderstanding what I’ve said. As to hearing something through the doppler, when are you talking about? I mentioned there’s a cyclic chemical reaction going on, it’s a long way to go before it could be reasonably called an actual heart. And that’s all irrelevant, a heartbeat is not a magic indicator that a life is present, that’s known to be false though it’s used as one in movies and stories. I hope you realize that phrases like ‘from the bottom of my heart’, and ‘I know deep in my heart’ and the like, there all metaphor and holdovers from back when we thought the heart was something more than a pump. If you don’t understand that it’s hopeless you’ll ever join the real world.
Re: Re: Re:6
Electrical impulses picked up by the ultrasound. There are no valves or pumping happening at all.
Not that the bad-faith red herring of heartbeat has the slightest thing to do with being alive in the first place.
And claims of “alive” itself a bad-faith red herring distracting the sole decisive issue of the woman’s bodily autonomy rights.
Re: Re: Re:7
Not that the bad-faith red herring of heartbeat has the slightest thing to do with being alive in the first place.
Which is why it was bad faith on mechtheist’s part to start a flame war by making the claim there’s no brain throughout the entire prenatal period. Any anti-abortionist reading that will point to the science showing the brain begins development in the fifth week of pregnancy and claim it justifies abortion bans. There’s already been that case where a 10-year-old girl had to travel to another state to get an abortion after being raped by a man more than twice her age, and the six-week limit justifying that was based on the idea that there’s life where there’s a brain, an idea not supported by the science at all.
Re: Re: Re:8
Rereading this reply led to me feeling compelled to respond. This is the kind of thing I’ve gotten really sick and tired of, you falsely accuse me of starting a flame war by simply posting my opinion and you try to justify it with totally false description of what I said, I point this out, and also point out numerous other BS claims and ask questions you can’t or won’t answer since it would make it clear you’re wrong if you did, and you’re such a craven weasel you refuse to admit your errors, you don’t even admit to grossly mischaracterizing what I said. It’s pathetic and I’m sick of this kind of shit.
Plus, you repeated the ludicrous charge of me being antiabortion, despite, as I pointed out, it’s obviously false. Then there’s the questions I’ve raised that you just ignore. One e.g., is dough bread. Dough is more bread than the early stages of a brain are a brain, at least in dough, almost everything that is going to be the bread is in the dough, with the brain, virtually NONE of it is, it’s all brought in later. Also, brains have complex, intricate structures that are massively interconnected and that isn’t realized until well into development, before that happens, it just isn’t possible for it to function as a human mind-creating brain. You don’t address how it’s really minds that I’m talking about, it’s easier to use ‘brain’ since that’s what is getting built.
Even PLUSer, you don’t seem to know what the forced birthers actually claim. It isn’t whether there’s life present in the fetus, of course it’s alive, it’s growing FFS, if it wasn’t alive then it would be a mass of dead tissue. It’s alive like a cancer or a wart is alive. The question is about whether it’s a separate entity, an actual individual human being. If you don’t get that, everything you might have to say is basically irrelevant.
Re: Re: Re:5
In your original post, you implied there is no brain during the entire duration of prenatal development when it’s shown to develop in the embryo and grow in the fetus. So your problem with AS seems to be based entirely on them spotting your subtle anti-abortion stance, which is why you’re attacking them for your own apparent views.
Re: Re: Re:6
No, I answered this already, making it clear I was addressing the claim life begins at conception, that’s really the only claim that needs addressing since it’s the stated motivation for pretty much all the forced birthers’ position. You really grossly mischaracterized my very clearly and multiply stated position. Are you going to try to claim there’s a brain at conception? I’ve also, repeatedly, made it clear that a developing brain IS NOT a brain. FFS, how difficult a concept is that to comprehend? A brain would have to be fairly well developed before it could possibly create a reasonably human mind, don’t have a clue when that would be but, again, it’s irrelevant when arguing with christians who only really care about the soul BS and how that’s something god slips in right behind the sperm.
I can’t figure out what the hell you’re saying with the last 2 sentences. Subtle? Is that supposed to be sarcasm? My position is about as subtle as a third trimester abortion using a coathanger. You don’t even know my stance on abortion as all I’ve been doing here is exposing how asinine the forced birthers’ position is and how it’s definitely a religious issue and should be treated as such.
Re: Re: Re:7
I’ve also, repeatedly, made it clear that a developing brain IS NOT a brain.
And that’s yet another strawman your anti-abortionist buddies will easily defeat by pointing to the fact that brains continue developing well into adulthood, and then comparing abortion to killing a young child. You keep claiming I’ve never shown how you’re wrong when this is just the latest example, but you haven’t yet shown how you’re right.
Re: Re: Re:8
I keep telling Anonymous Coward he’s not telling me what I’m wrong about, is he just a sock puppet of yours?
My antiabortionist buddies? Wow, do you really want to be that obtuse?
Yes, brains continue to develop into adulthood, and then into senility and for some unlucky folk, it can deteriorate to the point of brain death. There’s two ways that’s irrelevant. First off, as I said, I’ve been arguing against the forced birthers’ position from the beginning, they almost universally claim life beings at inception. they’re very clear about this, all of the whittling away at the ability to get an abortion by making it illegal at earlier and earlier periods is to eliminate as many as possible until they can ban it entirely. Do you think a single cell, just fertilized egg has a brain? As I asked AC, that should be a no-brainer. Of course, with your thinking, if anything is growing, destined to become some organ or part of the organism, it’s that organ or part, then that would mean that single cell is every organ every part of the finished organism. You watch, you’re not going to be hearing about fetal heartbeats or fetuses feeling pain and similar arguments anymore, no need, they can ban all abortions now. If you’re not that mixed up, then you’re left with Sorites paradox, it’s what I said makes this an unanswerable question, when does that lump of developing cells become a brain, or a life. A compromise is required, but the forced birthers can’t allow a compromise because their religious belief, life begins at conception, has no room for one. The second way it’s irrelevant is in how my position is really about minds and how you need to have a mind before you’re really a person, meaning you need to have a pretty fully functioning brain before you can have a mind, and to be a human brain it needs to be one capable of creating a mind and a few thousand or million cells isn’t. When does it become developed well enough to be called a brain? Don’t know, no one does, it’s unanswerable, it’s back to Sorites paradox again.
I tried this with AC but he’s just a troll and ignored it. Is dough bread? You seem to think it is, but it’s fucking dough, it won’t become bread until you bake it, until it develops into bread through the cooking process. To me, this is obvious, I don’t know how to make it clearer. Is toast bread? I think it is, as you should too given you’re apparent thinking. It’s just further developed by a new cooking process, that doesn’t somehow make dough bread. Again, it’s really about minds.
And I have repeatedly explained why I make the claims I do, you just keep telling me I’m wrong without actually addressing what I’ve said. Like again, claiming I’m actually anti-abortion but don’t bother explaining how that could be true given all the various things I’ve said that make it pretty fucking obvious no forced birther would ever say those things, like using the term forced birther FFS.
Re: Re: Re:9
In Re: Re: Re:8 at August 21, 2022 at 1:20 pm, you tell AS that they’re wrong just as they state, but nice try at “proving” bad faith on their part by falsely tying them to me, anti-abortionist troll.
Re: Re: Re:10
I can’t even make out what you’re saying here, it’s entirely possible I’ve conflated you and AS, I don’t even know if all the ACs are the same, the way comments are nested here seems confusing for me. If I did , I apologize. In my defense, y’all are both saying a lot of the same crap. I’ve explained myself repeatedly and why I say what I say but all I’ve gotten from either of you is pretty much you’re wrong.
You accused me of claiming there’s no brain for “the entire duration of pre natal development”. I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, 9 months? I made it clear, repeatedly, that, first, my original post was about addressing the ‘life begins at conception’ folks, which is virtually all the forced birthers since they’re position is based on their religious belief in souls. And second, I NEVER MENTIONED A TIME in the development cycle, I don’t know where you got your ‘entire duration’ claim, it’s just plain wrong. Why not tell us when you think a brain is present? If it’s at conception, then that’s obvious lunacy, if not, then when? BUT WTF, I just read your reply to Toom1275 where you say the brain begins to develop at 5 weeks, so you think there’s a brain right when it starts to develop? How many cells before you’ll say it’s a brain? If it’s more than 1, you’re going to run into Sorites paradox–it’s simply not an answerable question, and if it’s one, not only does that seem absurd but you’ll have a hard time pinning down which cell it is and when it comes along.
And it’s really stupid to keep telling me I’m antiabortion and helping that cause. It’s actually YOU who keep claiming there’s a brain in a fetus when there’s some few cells that can be identified as destined to form the brain that are helping the forced birthers by strengthening their position. Since my claim about it being impossible for it to be a person because there’s no brain is really about the existence of a mind, the quibbling over whether there’s a brain or not is irrelevant, there certainly is no mind in the early stages of brain development.
You then claim that science doesn’t support the claim that there’s life if there’s a brain. Well, science wouldn’t have anything to say about that, it can’t, because it can’t even define life, and the question about when a fetus becomes a life is, as I said, something THAT HAS NO ANSWER. The best anyone will ever be able to say is that this is too early, and this is long enough, but the dividing line isn’t something science or anyone can answer, it would take a god to answer such a question, which is the main thing I’ve been trying to say all along.
Re: Re: Re:3
I agree with AS. When you come out with things that any conservative willing to do the research can easily refute, one has to wonder if you even believe in abortion rights at all, or if you’re secretly supportive of forced pregnancy.
Re: Re: Re:4
You’re serious? What do you think is easily refutable? Considering all I said and you somehow think I might actually be a forced birther? While the lack of a brain implies the lack of a functioning mind, it’s clear having a brain doesn’t ensure a functioning mind.
Re: Re: Re:5
While the lack of a brain implies the lack of a functioning mind, it’s clear having a brain doesn’t ensure a functioning mind.
As you’ve proved in three comments.
Re: Re: Re:6
It can’t be more clear whose brain is functioning and whose isn’t, you’re nothing but a troll who’s incapable of addressing the obviously erroneous crap in your post and has to resort to copying my putdown to use against me. It’s pathetic you can’t even attempt an actual reply, but that would require you to indicate what it is I’ve got wrong and that’s not possible so you just say I’m wrong again. John Cleeese has a clinic that might help you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkQhK8O9Jik
Re: Re: Re:7
…has to resort to copying my putdown to use against me.
If you don’t like people treating you the way you treat them, maybe you should them better.
Re: Re: Re:8
I don’t give a fuck about how I’m getting ‘treated’, I just get POed when aholes try to keep telling me I’m wrong but can’t actually tell me how I’m wrong, it’s an obvious tell they’re full of shit.
Re: Re: Re:9
I don’t give a fuck about how I’m getting ‘treated’…
Obvious lie is obvious.
I just get POed when aholes try to keep telling me I’m wrong but can’t actually tell me how I’m wrong, it’s an obvious tell they’re full of shit.
Nice attempt to turn the tables, but anyone who can read will see how you’ve been shown to be wrong several times and doubled down on each occasion.
Re: Re: Re:10
Nope. I’ve been told I’m wrong and I’ve answered with reasons why and the replies just keep spouting the same crap. Why not enlighten me about how a fertilized egg has a brain because that’s the original claim that brought out all of this BS. Fools think I’m helping the forced birthers? Even if you want to call a few thousand cells of a developing brain a brain, fine, it’s not capable of having a mind but letting the aholes say a fetus has a brain sure helps their cause, not anything I’ve said does.
Re: Re: Re:7
I watched the linked video, and it seems you’d derive far more benefit from it than AC would.
Re: Re: Re:8
So you’re really that clueless, I thought you might have learned something, like repeatedly telling someone they’re wrong but failing to even attempt to show how they’re wrong and you’re right is not only not arguing but it usually means you got no clue what the fuck you’re talking about. Well, that’s what I get for thinking.
Re: Re: Re:9
Well, that’s what I get for thinking.
[Citation needed]
Re: Re: Re:10
Gosh, what wit. It’s obvious you’re just a troll incapable of actually having a serious discussion and not worth answering, but, I said something in reply to you that needs some correction/clarification. I mentioned Ship of Theseus earlier and it isn’t that it wasn’t the relevant issue, it is in many ways, but it’s really more Sorites paradox but with Ship of Theseus thrown in. You probably could never understand what I’m trying to get at, even after looking up the references, but I feel I need to not appear too ignorant. The problem in the Ship of Theseus is one of identity, but it can be looked at with a different perspective, where the identity in question is a more generic one, that of being identified as an actual human being, and that’s how Sorites paradox gets mashed in. A little thinking should lead to understanding where I’m coming from, but you’re just a troll who probably isn’t capable so maybe go ask a grownup.
Re: Re: Re:11
It’s obvious you’re just a troll incapable of actually having a serious discussion and not worth answering…
At least you can admit that about yourself, albeit through projection.
Re: Re: Re:12
Do you actually know how to read? I got like 2 or 3 replies AFTER asking for clarification about what I said that they though was easily refutable and all they could do is tell me I’m wrong again. And all you can do is snipe from the sidelines.
Re: Re: Re:
The opinion he authored is full of claims that assume christian doctrine/creed/beliefs as facts, i.e. any of his remarks about “potential life”, an empty if not incoherent term, and it accepts the upheld law’s term “unborn human being”, something impossible to rationally justify as there is no brain.
Not true. Except in cases of fetuses with anencephaly, the brain begins to develop in the sixth week of pregnancy.
You’re wrong to rope section 230 into this as a factor that allows Google to moderate its search results, which it woud not be able to do otherwise.
Question regarding Maps functions pertaining to search targets
I was wondering if end search targets in a map app like google maps, or apple maps if you were searching for lets say pizza places if they gain anything of yours. Like IP address or Advertising IDs. If so by retaining their spot in the abortion clinic search whether that be in the list that comes up or if you have to click on one I’m not sure what info those places get if any at all but if they do get anything they can make use of you wouldn’t want the Crisis Pregancy Centers to be able to make a list of people searching for abortion clinics and then turning that in to political minded prosecutorial authorities.