Google accused of scrubbing bloody Berlusconi pics Move over, Facebook. Now Google is caught in the middle of Italy's epic row over Sunday's violent assault on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Bloggers, netizens, and at least one news organization are claiming that the web giant has removed images of a bloodied Berlusconi from the Italian incarnation of Google Image search. …
The same thing happened when Lynndie England came to public attention over the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. Specific search on Lynndie England or Abu Ghraib turned up absolutely zilch, though it is reported such searches had worked previously, and seems unlikely Google Images would not have indexed Abu Ghraib at all before then.
""Berlusconi was hospitalised after a man with a history of psychological problems hit him in the face with a statuette of the Milan cathedral"
Which is slightly better than Colonel Mustard with the Candlestick in the Conservatory." .... Neoc Posted Thursday 17th December 2009 00:03 GMT
I must admit that I did have a titter at that offering from Neoc. :-) And was wondering whether the exact truth would be further served with a report saying ..."Berlusconi, a man with a history of psychological problems, was hospitalised after a statuette of the Milan cathedral hit him in the face."
If Google is still pretending to be a search engine, rather than an aggregator used by the "SEO" industry to pump their sewage/wares, then it seems perfectly reasonably to me that an image might have to be around for a while before it had established itself as "relevant" to a particular query.
Perhaps the question we should be asking is why are the other search engines lamely equating "new" with "what you wanted".
But in fact I'm not asking either question, because this is just one data point and I'd rather base my criticisms of search engines on a little more than that.
Would you blame a newsagent for selling a newspaper that runs an anti-government story? It's a classic case of DUH, do we understand these newfangled computer thingies people?
Also, what gives a prime minister the right to try to remove his own photos from the net? There might be photos out there of me that I don't want a million people to see, can I take Google to court about them?
Paris because she's smarter than this lot.
"On Sunday, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was hospitalized after a man with a history of psychological problems hit him in the face with a statuette of the Milan cathedral."
I just cannot get the grin off my face every time I read that! The fact that it was a statuette of the Milan cathedral makes him sounds crazy, but I think he just has a fine appreciation of comedy.
Choice of missile = inSPIREd......oh, I made a funny!
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
