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Google is blocking AI searches for Trump and dementia (www.theverge.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 33 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Surfacing the result of how they are censoring the results might be a canary in a coal mine, we can't say we're doing it but we can make the top result someone else saying we're doing it.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The incentives don't allow for this shit in an organization like Google. They can only respond to stock price and earnings.

    Very likely someone back channeled a demand and they folded like a deck of cards.

    So the team responsible for that AI box added Trump dementia to the list of things it won't respond to.

    The team responsible for the news bits didn't get the request so that just shows up in its place.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    True for the organization as a whole, but a pissed off engineer or two could have done it, and the people above them are just leaning on "it's the algorithm" since they don't agree with the censorship either.

    I'm sure the C Suite will step in and make them change it but it takes time for them to address the issue.

    I'm not saying that's what is going on, but I've witnessed my own department head pull similar tricks, albeit his tricks weren't as high stakes as this would be.

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