Google tweaks algorithm that yielded Holocaust denial sites
Search engine giant Google has reportedly altered an algorithm to prevent Holocaust denial websites from appearing in search results after weeks of controversy over the issue.
While Google allegedly made a previous tweak to bump down white supremacist websites and other outlets that claimed the Holocaust did not happen, the new fix apparently has removed such results altogether, technology outlet Digital Trends reported over the weekend.
“We recently made improvements to our algorithm that will help surface more high quality, credible content on the web,” Digital Trends quoted a Google spokesperson as saying. “We’ll continue to change our algorithms over time in order to tackle these challenges.”
“Judging which pages on the web best answer a query is a challenging problem and we don’t always get it right,” the Google representative said, further explaining that the company had made “improvements” to the algorithm when confronting “non-authoritative information.”
However, the effectiveness and longevity of the change remains unclear and further problematic searches as due to surface.
The reported move seemed to indicate a shift in Google’s previous stance on responding to the issue.
“We do not remove content from our search results, except in very limited cases such as illegal content, malware and violations of our webmaster guidelines,” Fortune magazine cited a Google spokesperson as saying.
The scandal erupted after the search engine came under fire for enabling neo-Nazi and Holocaust-denying website to rank high up in search result for queries such as: “Did the Holocaust happen?”
British media last week claimed that the search returned several results denying that it did, with the top result directing users to a white supremacist site titled “Stormfront,” which suggests that the genocide of six million Jews that took place during World War II had never occurred.
The neo-Nazi website boasted of a page called “Top 10 reasons why the Holocaust didn’t happen.”
At the time, a Google representative said that the company was working on an appropriate response to the complaint.