Re:Notepad++ drops Bing after “tank man” censorship
by lamontcg on Monday June 07, 2021 @05:55PM
(#27427601)
they probably need the query string for pagination and if you don't have it they redirect you with some javascript which you turning it off breaks. i don't think there's any grand conspiracy there.
Re:Notepad++ drops Bing after “tank man” censorship
by Arnavion on Monday June 07, 2021 @06:02PM
(#27427703)
Yes, I didn't claim they were doing it intentionally, just that the website's behavior is weird. That's why I said:
>I have no idea what they're doing in the backend.
The pagination theory doesn't make sense to me though. The relevant parameter is called "form", its actual value doesn't matter as long as it's non-empty, and surely a sane implementation would treat the lack of a page parameter as page 1 and not page whatever-the-stormtrooper-image-is-on.
Did they? https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=tank+man has no results of Tank Man. https://imgur.com/a/U5fDs7P (If you do see Tank Man images, see the edit at the end of this comment.)
If you press enter on the search box with the pre-filled "tank man", then you get a URL with more query-string parameters - https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=tank+man&imgurl=&cbir=s... , and that page does contain the actual Tank Man.
Seems it can be narrowed down to the form= parameter. https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=tank+man&form=QBILPG has Tank Man, without the form= it doesn't. The actual value of the form= parameter doesn't value either, as long as it's not empty.
I have no idea what they're doing in the backend.
Edit: Another weird thing - https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=tank+man with JS enabled redirects to a different page with additional querystring parameters, and this page does have Tank Man. My testing above was done with JS disabled, which is why I got the pre-redirect page that doesn't have his pictures.