Re:Google is not just a platform – It frames, shapes and dis...
by yongjik on Sunday December 11, 2016 @05:50PM
(#13153897)
Well, yes I agree, hence the weasel-word "usually". :)
It's all about statistics. That particular query somehow invites a larger number of Holocaust deniers than other similar queries. It's unfortunate that someone who are just curious might end up learning bogus history, and most people would agree that Google could do better here, but that doesn't necessarily mean that anyone's actively gaming the system.
This seems to make a big assumption about what defines "people who are genuinely curious". I think your queries of "holocaust statistics", "holocaust wikipedia", etc would instead describe someone who genuinely knows how to critically think and search for information, as opposed to someone who is simply "curious". You or I would search for info in that way, but a curious person could be anyone (e.g. a child or a teenager who has just been told by a peer that the holocaust was a hoax). Their first instinct might not be to search for specific sources or statistics, but rather to type "did the holocaust happen".