Google eliminates 'die' search suggestion for autism

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http://www.nj.com/parenting/index.ssf/2 ... _auti.html

Google eliminates 'die' search suggestion for autism
By Kathleen O'Brien/The Star-Ledger The Star-Ledger
on February 27, 2013 at 3:45 PM, updated February 27, 2013 at 6:07 PM

How would you feel if an internet search about your neurological condition produced a suggestion you be exterminated?

Autism activists have succeeded in getting Google to change the results of its automated search process so that offensive "hate speech" doesn't routinely show up as a suggested match.

Until today, typing "Autistic people should...." into Google's search engine would produce four so-called "auto-complete" suggestions: that they "be killed," "die," or "be exterminated."

http://www.nj.com/parenting/index.ssf/2 ... _auti.html

In response, an autism activist group staged an online protest called a Flash Blog, which encouraged people with autism to counteract those violent suggestions with poetry and positive awareness of the developmental condition.

Another Flash Blog was scheduled for this Saturday, but Google today announced it would be cleaning up the automatic search results to eliminate results the company considers "hate speech," said Jason Freidenfelds, a company spokesperson.

"That's fantastic news," said Sparrow Jones, an Idaho autism activist who helped plan the protest. Her group had approached Google earlier, but came away empty-handed.
"They weren't dismissive. They said, 'That's unfortunate,' and shrugged," she said.



Google's search engine results will soon change for autism.

Google.com
It will take some time for the change to roll out, Freidenfelds said, as it is not simply a matter of deleting certain words or phrases. A broader net must be cast to take into account the many different ways users phrase their inquiries.

The "auto-complete" function attempts to save time by suggesting the most common searches that match a user's first few words. In the case of autism, three of the four suggestions could double as bumper-stickers for hate speech.

Sparrow acknowledged the search engine algorithm isn't the problem; it is, rather, the frequency of the hostile search terms typed in by Google's users.

"What we are battling is not the computer. It's the societal attitude that produces all those searches," she said. When asked if it might be better to know those attitudes are out there, instead of having Google mask their popularity, she answered, "We don't need Google to tell us we're not terribly popular."

She cited comments made about the Adam Lanza, the assailant in the Newton, Conn., school shootings, and by extension, about anyone with any degree of autism. "They actually think that as a group of people, we could all go out and commit a crime like that," she said.

I just checked and it hasn't been changed yet. I wonder how long it will take.

There are also the "are annoying", "are evil", "are ret*d", "are rude", "are dangerous", "are violent, "are stupid", "are selfish", and so on. Also, for "can autistic people", there are "be violent", "be gay", "talk", "become violent", and so on.

Google has its work cut out for it.

It's about time they did something about that!

I don't understand the purpose of this. Why try to hide what other people have searched for?

That says more about society than us.

IQ is a constant, humanity is increasing in numbers.

Probably to be political correct.

I don't particularly mind it for an entirely different reason. When searching for something, all the oddball search suggestions just get in the way. They are a bother, not a help. It would be nice if they pruned out the oddball search suggestions in order to return higher quality results to make it more productive when searching.

I tried it with Bing and got slightly better results than on Google, but their was still some offensive search options. There were also a few unique ones such as "autistics are angels" and "autistics should" and then gibberish. Personally, seeing as how all these offensive search options are things that people search regularly makes me somewhat uneasy.

A few days ago a person could type in autistics followed by a space and no hate speech came up at all in auto-complete. At that point in time the phrase Autistics should was required to get a hate speech result. Now a few days later all that is required is to type autistics followed by a space to get a result of autistics should be killed.

A big aspect of the algorithm in this case is the exact phrase actually exists in text now on google in an actual result for the first time ever.

Larger society did not cause that result. It was the result of a rhetorical search by the autism community to see what the result might be, in just the last few days. As well as actual topics on google results that have now been generated in response to this issue of offense.

It is excellent that Google is willing to address this issue in further detail to exclude even the auto-complete results generated by rhetorical searches, by people in the autism community. But the fact of the matter is Autistics was a safe word to type in by itself with a space for all the other autistics in the whole world to see without an actual hate speech result, until a few days ago.

Unfortunately hate speech does not include common pejorative use of language like the R word or Autistics are dangerous. Google is not going to touch words like that that still can be very offensive in an auto search result.

The disability first usage of Autistics in it's plural term is rarely ever used anywhere except among Autistics in online autism communities. There is pretty good evidence of that for two articles in offense to this issue written on the topic in the last few days to result in a brand new offensive hate speech auto-complete result associated with the word Autistics and a space.

A week ago the person first disability language of "People with Autism should" came up with absolutely no hate speech results and still does not. This is the language that the larger society uses to describe "people with autism", and there is only evidence there that there is not even significant disrespect for "people with autism" by that larger segment of society that uses that phrase to describe people on the spectrum. Not even in a rhetorical search.

http://support.google.com/websearch/bin ... wer=106230

Last edited by aghogday on 28 Feb 2013, 5:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hmmmm. That gives me an idea.

If I don't want Google to display my searches to others, all I have to do is to add a few highly offensive words to the search and they won't display the searches.

The downside is, of course, that the searches probably won't find what the topics I am actually trying to find.

But at least the searches won't be displayed to everyone else.

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough there, what I meant by that was Google wasn't going to take the offensive words away in an autocomplete, just the hate speech. It is already Google's policy to remove hate speech associated with disabilities and minority groups, but it is very restricted and does not include disability first identifiers like autistic(s), or pejorative forms like the R word. This is likely part of the reason that there are absolutely no offensive results if a person types in just the word autism and a space. Well, that is, unless a person thinks the phrase "autism speaks" is offensive, since it is the first result that comes up..

The only actual comments on the internet that state the exact phrase "autistics should be killed" are rhetorical ones. As the representative from Google in the topic article from New Jersey.com explains auto complete results are not just based on the exact phrase typed, they are based on actual web results and key words used in the auto searches.

Almost all the results on the internet associated with the key words autistics and killed are discussed rhetorically over the concern that autistics should not be killed associated with past murders of autistic individuals.

And there is so many discussions and results on this issue in google searches, that one might think that parents are doing this to their children all the time, but there is no greater frequency reported among parents of autistic children than any other child of any other demographic of parent in the general population, as filicide is an extremely rare and horrifying occurrence that is reported publicly, but not kept in law enforcement statistics, at about 400 times annually in the US. On average over the last decade these filicides have been reported somewhere between 1 or 2 instances annually associated with autism, but they are discussed heavily on the internet by people in the autism community, who type in lots of key words. Like me..

I've discussed this issue in other internet avenues, and my rhetorical statement is one of the first exact phrases that comes up in an actual search result, specific to the exact phrase "autistics should be exterminated" in quotes because I apparently am the first person that has ever used that rhetorical phrase in actual result from a google search related specific to the issue of this rhetorical concern.

It is most likely that the reason the phrase "autistics should be exterminated" was coming up in a web search auto-complete was because of people on the spectrum checking to see if people said it somewhere on the web or because of all the actual web result discussions that have been made for almost 10 years now in fear of extermination of autistics by the government or autism speaks in rhetorical statements.

Part of the reason that Autism Speaks comes up first on an auto-complete search on the word Autism is because of the literally millions of times that people on the spectrum have typed in the phrase autism speaks in discussions about the organization that can be found in millions of web results.

Algorithms appear sometimes to people as a "ghost in the machine". But, algorithms do not have the ability to determine the difference of intention in a rhetorical statement or an actual statement of intention of hate.

It is both ironic and sad in someways but it appears that society at large is being judged in this instance, by some people on the spectrum because of a perceived "ghost in the machine", instead of actual intent by society at large. The most compelling evidence for this is when a person types in the people first disability language of "people with autism should" that is actually used in larger society as opposed to the disability first identity language of "autistics should" used most often in the autistic community, the auto complete results have no hate speech results at all.

I searched neurotypical people should and did not get any hate speech. Who is the hater now?

That is most likely because neurotypical is not an actual dictionary definition word, and was actually coined in the autism community. The auto complete results are evidence of this as almost everything associated with the term is in actual search results in discussions in the autism community.

The first auto-complete phrase that comes up is neurotypical privilege and the reason for that is that there are about 2700 actual different web results on the actual search of that exact phrase in quotes. Almost all of which are discussed by people in the autism community.

The majority of results generated by the word neurotypical is autism community generated in web results and the majority of the results generated by the word autistics is generated by the autism community, as that is how people in the autism community most often describe people off the spectrum and on the spectrum.

Key words associated with neurotypical privilege are for the most part opposition type statements by people on the spectrum in auto-complete searches and web results, as opposed to defensive type rhetorical statement results generated by people on the spectrum discussing the negative issues with key words like kill and autistics associated with the filicide issue and the key words like exterminate and autistics associated with autism speaks and government fears.

But in both cases it is within the majority realm of the culture of the autism community, with key words being used, like disability first identifiers of "people with autism" as "autistics" and the "neurotypical" identifier for "people without autism" or 'non-autistics".

I don't think it's a matter of "hiding" anything, we're just tired of the constant reminder that society thinks that way about us all. Keeping it up there isn't going to open anyone's eyes anyway, the public don't give a crap, they just want to get rid of us.

Exactly, I just typed in "normal people should be" and it came up "become heroes", at which point I simply shook my head and ground my teeth at the enormous ego that people seem to have (keeping in mind this is apparently a popular search phrase).

If we can't see the viewpoints of people who say we should be exterminated, how can we argue against them?

This would seem to imply that arguing against them would solve the problem, I can tell you it won't, people like that never change their minds, they're too closed-minded to allow for anything rational to intrude on their illusion of danger.

Regardless of whether or not we know people are saying it, we should be disputing the opinion that we're dangerous anyway. This sort of thing doesn't go away, and we ourselves have to fight, we can't afford to let other people do the fighting for us. And like I said, this should be regardless of whether or not we know people are saying that stuff.

In any case, getting rid of it on one search engine hardly puts a dent in the very visible consequences of such thinking, people know it's going on, they just don't care because they have nothing to lose by letting it continue (accept for us because we're the ones that stand to lose our livelihood).