From the Amusing Searches File: Trump to Hitler to Omission

August 1, 2016

I read a story which I assume is spot on, dead accurate, and 110 percent true. Navigate to “Google Search Connects Trump’s Book to Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’.” The story, in the the best traditions of real journalism, reports:

…typing the name of Trump’s 2015 book “Crippled America” into a Google image search, in addition to bringing up images of that book, displayed images of Adolf Hitler’s 1920s manifesto “Mein Kampf.” Google has been in the spotlight before for a connection between Trump and the infamous Nazi leader. In June, Googling the phrase “When was Hitler born” also produced an image of Donald Trump and listed his birthday. In that case, Google said it removed the Trump image, and a recent search confirms that the candidate’s image is no longer connected with Hitler’s birthday.

If you find the Hitler thing amusing, check out “Google Tweaks System after Trump Left Off Search Results for Presidential Candidates.” The write up, which I am sure is right as rain states:

According to Google, the omissions were the result of a “technical bug” in the Knowledge Graph, the massive information-mapping system that provides the top results bar under many fact-based searches. “Only the presidential candidates participating in an active primary election were appearing in a Knowledge Graph result,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “Because the Republican and Libertarian primaries have ended, those candidates did not appear. This bug was resolved early this morning.”

Was this self correcting or did an analogy entity make the fix? I recall from some time and place that Google did not fiddle search results. It must, therefore, be algorithms. Why worry about algorithms driving autos, performing surgery, or filtering information? I don’t worry. I believe everything I read on the Internet.

Those algorithms have a sense of humor. How was this linkage fixed? Maybe a human intervened, but I thought Google’s smart system worked all by its lonesome. I know that relevance is a struggle. Is it mine or others’?

Stephen E Arnold, August 1, 2016

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Google, News, Search

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.