In a hearing before the U.K. Parliament’s Home Affairs Committee, Google representative Anthony House described efforts the search giant is taking to battle radicalization efforts by groups like ISIS. One of the programs House described uses Google’s search engine to return anti-radicalization links when someone conducts a search on certain terms, a technique that some will recognize as similar to a Google bomb.
A Google bomb is an attempt to influence search results by trying to game the Google PageRank algorithms to return certain results. Typically this is done by constructing hyperlinks in such a way that searches on specific words will yield an apparently unintended result. The first example of a Google bomb involved the use of the search term “more evil than satan himself” which would give users the Microsoft homepage as the top result.
According to the description provided by House, Google is effectively cutting out the middleman and all the work that goes into constructing a Google bomb to produce a similar result when users “put potentially damaging search terms into our search engine.” Google is working with non-profits who produce counter-radicalization materials so that their materials show up in response to the searches on “extremist” oriented search terms.
In a statement to the committee, House indicates that Google’s position with regard to countering extremism is:
“…get the bad stuff down, but it’s also extremely important that people are able to find good information, that when people are feeling isolated, that when they go online, they find a community of hope, not a community of harm.”
Google representatives were joined by those from Twitter and Facebook before the committee which is exploring the roles of the social media platforms in fighting the online propaganda and recruitment efforts of groups like ISIS.
source: The Guardian
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