Google denies censoring anti-Islam search suggestions

January 11, 2010 by Infowars Ireland

telegraph.co.uk

Google has denied favouring Islam over other religions in its suggested searches, after allegations that phrases criticising the faith had been censored.

Typing “Christianity is” or “Buddhism is” into the search engine’s home page generates a range of offensive suggestions for how the user might wish to complete their query.

These include “not a religion”, “a cult”, “fake” and “bull—-”. Few of the suggested searches are positive or neutral.

But attempting a similar search for Islam produces no suggested results whatsoever, indicating that Google may be affording a protection to Muslims that it does not extend to people of other faiths.

Google Suggest, which is generally considered a useful timesaver, generates its recommendations by analysing the phrases most frequently entered by other users, as well as the websites it indexes and adverts it has sold.

It aims to filter out “pornographic terms, dirty words, and hate and violence terms”, and Google retains the power to censor particular suggestions if they receive complaints.

Google has denied protecting Islam from criticism, claiming that the lack of “Islam is” suggested searches is the result of a software problem that will soon be corrected.

“This is a bug and we’re working to fix it as quickly as we can,” a spokesman told Wired.com.

Entering other search terms relating to Islam appears to support Google’s claim. “Islam must” generates the suggested searches “be destroyed”, “die”, “be stopped”, “end” and “go”.