Jigsaw Reveals How Google Can Manipulate Thought and Behavior
September 12, 2016
Who knew? There have been suggestions that Alphabet Google manipulates search results. But the disclosure of a “clever plan to stop aspiring ISIS recruits” makes clear one thing: Alphabet Google can manipulate to some degree what a person thinks and how that person may then behave.
To get the details, navigate to Wired, the truth speaker for the technical aficionados. The article is “Google’s Clever Plan to Stop Aspiring ISIS Recruits.” Let’s visit some of the factoids in the article. I, of course, believe everything I read online.
Alphabet Google used to have an outfit called Google Ideas. Ideas, in my book, are a dime a dozen. The key is converting and idea to action and then shaping the idea to generate revenue. The Google Ideas group donned a new moniker, Jigsaw. According to the write up:
Jigsaw, the Google-owned tech incubator and think tank—until recently known as Google Ideas—has been working over the past year to develop a new program it hopes can use a combination of Google’s search advertising algorithms and YouTube’s video platform to target aspiring ISIS recruits and ultimately dissuade them from joining the group’s cult of apocalyptic violence. The program, which Jigsaw calls the Redirect Method and plans to launch in a new phase this month, places advertising alongside results for any keywords and phrases that Jigsaw has determined people attracted to ISIS commonly search for. Those ads link to Arabic- and English-language YouTube channels that pull together preexisting videos Jigsaw believes can effectively undo ISIS’s brainwashing—clips like testimonials from former extremists, imams denouncing ISIS’s corruption of Islam, and surreptitiously filmed clips inside the group’s dysfunctional caliphate in Northern Syria and Iraq.
This paragraph is mildly interesting and presents weaponized information in a matter of fact, what’s the big deal way. Consider these points:
- Search ad numerical recipes and videos. Quite a combination.
- Redirect. Send folks a different place from the place they really want to go.
- Undo brainwashing. Now that’s an interesting concept. Isn’t brainwashing a tough nut to crack. Cults, Jim Jones, etc.
- Shifting attention from a “dysfunctional caliphate” to something more acceptable. Okay for ISIS, but what if the GOOG substitutes other content to something else. Right, it will never happen. Mother Google is a really good person.
The article hits the high spots of censorship, including Twitter and the US Department of State’s Think Again, Turn Away, and everyone’s favorite cartoon Average Mohammed.
Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vJ-SlxjRrQ which may be offline after the Wired article hit the Internet.
I learned:
Jigsaw and two partners on the pilot project, Moonshot CVE and the Lebanese firm Quantum Communications, assembled two playlists of videos they found in both Arabic and English, ranging from moderate Muslim clerics pointing out ISIS’s hypocrisy to footage of long food lines in the ISIS’s Syrian stronghold Raqqa.
I wonder if the employees of Quantum Communications received free copies of the article. Passing out the copies at local coffee shops would be one way to demonstrate one’s marketing expertise and the identify of a major client.
The write up explains how Jigsaw works:
Jigsaw chose more than 1,700 keywords that triggered ads leading to their anti-ISIS playlists. Green and her team focused on terms they believed the most committed ISIS recruits would search for: names of waypoints on travel routes to ISIS territory, phrases like “Fatwa [edict] for jihad in Syria” and names of extremist leaders who had preached ISIS recruitment. The actual text of the search ads, however, took a light-touch approach, with phrases like “Is ISIS Legitimate?” or “Want to Join ISIS?” rather than explicit anti-ISIS messages.
Several thoughts:
First, if this program exists, my first thought is that publicizing the fact that repurposing ad technology, search, and videos to alter how one thinks and possible changes one’s behavior is something to keep inside the locker room.
Second, how does one know if the GOOG has been using this method or a similar method for political, competitive, or revenue purposes? I don’t, but I think it would be interesting to research the issue. I know one web site owner who believes that Alphabet Google has been hindering his business. I think he mentioned redirects. I will have to ask him the next time we meet.
Third, presenting this information in terms of terrorism strikes me as an easy way to make the Googlers doing training in Pakistan into targets. I know that if I were working for an outfit in Lebanon and directly linked with manipulation of certain bad actor messages, I would be extra careful going to work.
Fourth, I quite liked the article’s inclusion of the US Department of State and the url for the “Average Mohammed” cartoons at http://www.averagemohamed.com/.
What is interesting is that Wired hooks Average Mohammed to the US Department of State but the US Department of State does not hook to Average Mohammed. Here’s the result of my Google query for the terms:
Let’s assume the Wired write up is accurate. I am not sure I am thrilled with the information being made public, and I think Alphabet Google has put itself in the bull’s eye as a target of critics who alleged Google manipulates search results.
But we love Google in Harrod’s Creek. Therefore, we just can’t believe that the method works very well, which is too bad. It is possible to manipulate Google programmatically with content. But Google may have to do some old fashioned Etsy-style handiwork to pull of the Jigsaw claims.
Stephen E Arnold, September 9, 2016
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