‘THE SMOKING GUN’: Google Manipulated YouTube Search Results for Abortion, Maxine Waters, David Hogg
14:05
In sworn testimony, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told Congress last month that his company does not “manually intervene” on any particular search result. Yet an internal discussion thread leaked to Breitbart News reveals Google regularly intervenes in search results on its YouTube video platform – including a recent intervention that pushed pro-life videos out of the top ten search results for “abortion.”
The term “abortion” was added to a “blacklist” file for “controversial YouTube queries,” which contains a list of search terms that the company considers sensitive. According to the leak, these include some of these search terms related to: abortion, abortions, the Irish abortion referendum, Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and anti-gun activist David Hogg.
The existence of the blacklist was revealed in an internal Google discussion thread leaked to Breitbart News by a source inside the company who wishes to remain anonymous. A partial list of blacklisted terms was also leaked to Breitbart by another Google source.
In the leaked discussion thread, a Google site reliability engineer hinted at the existence of more search blacklists, according to the source.
“We have tons of white- and blacklists that humans manually curate,” said the employee. “Hopefully this isn’t surprising or particularly controversial.”
Others were more concerned about the presence of the blacklist. According to the source, the software engineer who started the discussion called the manipulation of search results related to abortion a “smoking gun.”
The software engineer noted that the change had occurred following an inquiry from a left-wing Slate journalist about the prominence of pro-life videos on YouTube, and that pro-life videos were replaced with pro-abortion videos in the top ten results for the search terms following Google’s manual intervention.
“The Slate writer said she had complained last Friday and then saw different search results before YouTube responded to her on Monday,” wrote the employee. “And lo and behold, the [changelog] was submitted on Friday, December 14 at 3:17 PM.”
The manually downranked items included several videos from Dr. Antony Levatino, a former abortion doctor who is now a pro-life activist. Another video in the top ten featured a woman’s personal story of being pressured to have an abortion, while another featured pro-life conservative Ben Shapiro. The Slate journalist who complained to Google reportedthat these videos previously featured in the top ten, describing them in her story as “dangerous misinformation.”
Since the Slate journalist’s inquiry and Google’s subsequent intervention, the top search results now feature pro-abortion content from left-wing sources like BuzzFeed, Vice, CNN, and Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. In her report, the Slate journalist acknowledged that the search results changed shortly after she contacted Google.
The manual adjustment of search results by a Google-owned platform contradicts a key claim made under oath by Google CEO Sundar Pichai in his congressional testimony earlier this month: that his company does not “manually intervene on any search result.”
A Google employee in the discussion thread drew attention to Pichai’s claim, noting that it “seems like we are pretty eager to cater our search results to the social and political agenda of left-wing journalists.”
One of the posts in the discussion also noted that the blacklist had previously been edited to include the search term “Maxine Waters” after a single Google employee complained the top YouTube search result for Maxine Waters was “very low quality.”
Google’s alleged intervention on behalf of a Democratic congresswoman would be further evidence of the tech giant using its resources to prop up the left. Breitbart News previously reported on leaked emails revealing the company targeted pro-Democrat demographics in its get-out-the-vote efforts in 2016.
According to the source, a software engineer in the thread also noted that “a bunch of terms related to the abortion referendum in Ireland” had been added to the blacklist – another change with potentially dramatic consequences on the national policies of a western democracy.
youtube_controversial_query_blacklist
At least one post in the discussion thread revealed the existence of a file called “youtube_controversial_query_blacklist,” which contains a list of YouTube search terms that Google manually curates. In addition to the terms “abortion,” “abortions,” “Maxine Waters,” and search terms related to the Irish abortion referendum, a Google software engineer noted that the blacklist includes search terms related to terrorist attacks. (the posts specifically mentions that the “Strasbourg terrorist attack” as being on the list).
“If you look at the other entries recently added to the youtube_controversial_query_blacklist(e.g., entries related to the Strasbourg terrorist attack), the addition of abortion seems…out-of-place,” wrote the software engineer, according to the source.
After learning of the existence of the blacklist, Breitbart News obtained a partial screenshot of the full blacklist file from a source within Google. It reveals that the blacklist includes search terms related to both mass shootings and the progressive anti-second amendment activist David Hogg.
This suggests Google has followed the lead of Democrat politicians, who have repeatedly pushed tech companies to censor content related to the Parkland school shooting and the Parkland anti-gun activists. It’s part of a popular new line of thought in the political-media establishment, which views the public as too stupid to question conspiracy theories for themselves.
Here is the partial blacklist leaked to Breitbart:
2117 plane crash Russian2118 plane crash2119 an-1482120 florida shooting conspiracy2121 florida shooting crisis actors2122 florida conspiracy2123 florida false flag shooting2124 florida false flag2125 fake florida school shooting2126 david hogg hoax2127 david hogg fake2128 david hogg crisis actor2129 david hogg forgets lines2130 david hogg forgets his lines2131 david hogg cant remember his lines2132 david hogg actor2133 david hogg cant remember2134 david hogg conspiracy2135 david hogg exposed2136 david hogg lines2137 david hogg rehearsing2120 florida shooting conspiracy
The full internal filepath of the blacklist, according to another source, is:
//depot/google3/googledata/superroot/youtube/youtube_controversial_query_blacklist
Contradictions
Responding to a request for comment, a YouTube spokeswoman said the company wants to promote “authoritative” sources in its search results, but maintained that YouTube is a “platform for free speech” that “allow[s]” both pro-life and pro-abortion content.
YouTube’s full comment:
YouTube is a platform for free speech where anyone can choose to post videos, as long as they follow our Community Guidelines, which prohibit things like inciting violence and pornography. We apply these policies impartially and we allow both pro-life and pro-choice opinions. Over the last year we’ve described how we are working to better surface news sources across our site for news-related searches and topical information. We’ve improved our search and discovery algorithms, built new features that clearly label and prominently surface news sources on our homepage and search pages, and introduced information panels to help give users more authoritative sources where they can fact check information for themselves.
In the case of the “abortion” search results, YouTube’s intervention to insert “authoritative” content resulted in the downranking of pro-life videos and the elevation of pro-abortion ones.
A Google spokesperson took a tougher line than its YouTube subsidiary, stating that “Google has never manipulated or modified the search results or content in any of its products to promote a particular political ideology.”
However, in the leaked discussion thread, a member of Google’s “trust & safety” team, Daniel Aaronson, admitted that the company maintains “huge teams” that work to adjust search results for subjects that are “prone to hyperbolic content, misleading information, and offensive content” – all subjective terms that are frequently used to suppress right-leaning sources.
He also admitted that the interventions weren’t confined to YouTube – they included search results delivered via Google Assistant, Google Home, and in rare cases Google ’s organic search results.
In the thread, Aaronson attempted to explain how search blacklisting worked. He claimed that highly specific searches would generate non-blacklisted results, even controversial ones. But the inclusion of highly specific terms in the YouTube blacklist, like “David Hogg cant remember his lines” – the name of an actual viral video – seems to contradict this.
Aaronson’s full post is copied below:
I work in Trust and Safety and while I have no particular input as to exactly what’s happening for YT I can try to explain why you’d have this kind of list and why people are finding lists like these on Code Search.When dealing with abuse/controversial content on various mediums you have several levers to deal with problems. Two prominent levers are “Proactive” and “Reactive”:
- Proactive: Usually refers to some type of algorithm/scalable solution to a general problem
- E.g.: We don’t allow straight up porn on YouTube so we create a classifier that detects porn and automatically remove or flag for review the videos the porn classifier is most certain of
- Reactive: Usually refers to a manual fix to something that has been brought to our attention that our proactive solutions don’t/didn’t work on and something that is clearly in the realm of bad enough to warrant a quick targeted solution (determined by pages and pages of policies worked on over many years and many teams to be fair and cover necessary scope)
- E,g.: A website that used to be a good blog had it’s domain expire and was purchased/repurposed to spam Search results with autogenerated pages full of gibberish text, scraped images, and links to boost traffic to other spammy sites. It is manually actioned for violating policy
Manually reacting to things is not very scalable, and is not an ideal solution to most problems, so the proactive lever is really the one we all like to lean on. Ideally, our classifiers/algorithm are good at providing useful and rich results to our users while ignoring things at are not useful or not relevant. But we all know, this isn’t exactly the case all the time (especially on YouTube).From a user perspective, there are subjects that are prone to hyperbolic content, misleading information, and offensive content. Now, these words are highly subjective and no one denies that. But we can all agree generally, lines exist in many cultures about what is clearly okay vs. what is not okay. E.g. a video of a puppy playing with a toy is probably okay in almost every culture or context, even if it’s not relevant to the query. But a video of someone committing suicide and begging others to follow in his/her footsteps is probably on the other side of the line for many folks.While my second example is technically relevant to the generic query of “suicide”, that doesn’t mean that this is a very useful or good video to promote on the top of results for that query. So imagine a classifier that says, for any queries on a particular text file, let’s pull videos using signals that we historically understand to be strong indicators of quality (I won’t go into specifics here, but those signals do exist). We’re not manually curating these results, we’re just saying “hey, be extra careful with results for this query because many times really bad stuff can appear and lead to a bad experience for most users”. Ideally the proactive lever did this for us, but in extreme cases where we need to act quickly on something that is so obviously not okay, the reactive/manual approach is sometimes necessary. And also keep in mind, that this is different for every product. The bar for changing classifiers or manual actions on span in organic search is extremely high. However, the bar for things we let our Google Assistant say out loud might be a lot lower. If I search for “Jews run the banks” – I’ll likely find anti-semitic stuff in organic search. As a Jew, I might find some of these results offensive, but they are there for people to research and view, and I understand that this is not a reflection of Google feels about this issue. But if I ask Google assistant “Why do Jews run the banks” we wouldn’t be similarly accepting if it repeated and promoted conspiracy theories that likely pop up in organic search in her smoothing voice.Whether we agree or not, user perception of our responses, results, and answers of different products and mediums can change. And I think many people are used to the fact that organic search is a place where content should be accessible no matter how offensive it might be, however, the expectation is very different on a Google Home, a Knowledge Panel, or even YouTube.These lines are very difficult and can be very blurry, we are all well aware of this. So we’ve got huge teams that stay cognizant of these facts when we’re crafting policies considering classifier changes, or reacting with manual actions – these decisions are not made in a vacuum, but admittedly are also not made in a highly public forum like TGIF or IndustryInfo (as you can imagine, decisions/agreement would be hard to get in such a wide list – image if all your CL’s were reviewed by every engineer across Google all the time). I hope that answers some questions and gives a better layer of transparency without going into details about our “Pepsi formula”.Best,Daniel
The fact that Google manually curates politically contentious search results fits in with a wider pattern of political activity on the part of the tech giant.
In 2018, Breitbart News exclusively published a leaked video from the company that showed senior management in dismay at Trump’s election victory, and pledging to use the company’s power to make his populist movement a “hiccup” in history.
Breitbart also leaked “The Good Censor,” an internal research document from Google that admits the tech giant is engaged in the censorship of its own products, partly in response to political events.
Another leak revealed that employees within the company, including Google’s current director of Trust and Safety, tried to kick Breitbart News off Google’s market-dominating online ad platforms.
Yet another showed Google engaged in targeted turnout operations aimed to boost voter participation in pro-Democrat demographics in “key states” ahead of the 2016 election. The effort was dubbed a “silent donation” by a top Google employee.
Evidence for Google’s partisan activities is now overwhelming. President Trump has previously warned Google, as well as other Silicon Valley giants, not to engage in censorship or partisan activities. Google continues to defy him.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter, Gab.ai and add him on Facebook. Email tips and suggestions to allumbokhari@protonmail.com.
Dr. Leah Torres, an OB/GYN in Salt Lake City, Utah, said that when she performs certain abortions she cuts the vocal cord of the baby so "there's really no opportunity" for the child to scream. She also described herself as a "uterus ripper outer" because she performs hysterectomies.
DOES ANY ONE KNOW WHY THE DEMOCRAT PARTY IS FOR TAX-PAYER ABORTION AND YET INVITES HORDES OF PREGNANT MEXICAN WOMEN TO JUMP OUR BORDERS AND BREED ANCHOR BABIES FOR WELFARE???
CALIFORNIA HANDS BILLIONS IN WELFARE TO INVADE AND BREED ANCHOR BABIES… LA RAZA WILL DOUBLE U.S. POPULATION…. and yet…..
Planned Parenthood executives and supporters were on Capitol Hill this week lobbying lawmakers to protect the millions of dollars the nation’s largest abortion provider gets from taxpayers every year and to announce nationwide “speak-outs” during the upcoming congressional recesses.
ABORTION KILLS…. the innocent!
PLANNED PARENTHOOD:
America’s baby murdering factories…. Your tax dollars at work
“I Cut the Vocal Cord So The Baby Can't Scream.”
Dr. Leah Torres, an OB/GYN in Salt Lake City, Utah, said that when she performs certain abortions she cuts the vocal cord of the baby so "there's really no opportunity" for the child to scream. She also described herself as a "uterus ripper outer" because she performs hysterectomies.
DOES ANY ONE KNOW WHY THE DEMOCRAT PARTY IS FOR TAX-PAYER ABORTION AND YET INVITES HORDES OF PREGNANT MEXICAN WOMEN TO JUMP OUR BORDERS AND BREED ANCHOR BABIES FOR WELFARE???
CALIFORNIA HANDS BILLIONS IN WELFARE TO INVADE AND BREED ANCHOR BABIES… LA RAZA WILL DOUBLE U.S. POPULATION…. and yet…..
Planned Parenthood executives and supporters were on Capitol Hill this week lobbying lawmakers to protect the millions of dollars the nation’s largest abortion provider gets from taxpayers every year and to announce nationwide “speak-outs” during the upcoming congressional recesses.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/04/rep-barbara-lee-la-raza-dem-ca-says.html
Poll: 75% of Americans Say Abortion Should Be Restricted
3:46
A poll released Tuesday finds 75 percent of Americans want substantial restrictions on abortion, including 60 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of those who identify as “pro-choice.”
According to the Marist poll and its partner, the Knights of Columbus, the survey demonstrates that the label “pro-choice” can be deceptive when it is interpreted to mean supportive of abortion at any point in pregnancy.
Breitbart TV
“As in past years, this poll shows that the pro-choice label on the abortion issue is simply insufficient,” said Knights of Columbus CEO Carl Anderson. “The majority of Americans – in both parties – support legal restrictions on abortion. Two-thirds of Americans want Roe revisited to allow for state regulation of abortion or to ban it altogether. The majority of the American people deserve to have their opinions heard.”
According to the poll, 75 percent of Americans say abortion should be limited to — at most — the first three months of pregnancy. Among those who identify as Republicans, 92 percent want that restriction, as do 78 percent of independents and 60 percent of Democrats. Perhaps most significantly, that view is shared by 61 percent of those who identify as “pro-choice.”
In addition, the survey finds 65 percent of Americans say if the Supreme Court revisits Roe v. Wade, the high court should either return the issue of the legality of abortion to the states (49 percent) or outlaw the procedure altogether (16 percent). Only 30 percent of those surveyed would prefer that the Supreme Court rule in favor of unrestricted abortion.
Regarding taxpayer funding of the procedure, 54 percent oppose any taxpayer funding of abortion, while 39 percent support it.
On the issue of taxpayer funding of the procedure overseas, the poll finds 75 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding abroad, through non-governmental organizations such as International Planned Parenthood, with only 19 percent in favor of such funding. When political affiliation is a factor, 94 percent of Republicans, 80 percent of independents, and 56 percent of Democrats oppose taxpayer funding of abortion overseas.
When asked if medical professionals with moral objections to abortion should be permitted to opt out of performing them, 55 percent of those surveyed agreed, while 35 percent did not agree.
The majority of Americans (62 percent) oppose abortions for unborn babies with Down Syndrome. Additionally, 59 percent are in favor of banning the procedure after 20 weeks of pregnancy, except to save the life of the mother.
When questions regarding the nature of the unborn are asked, 56 percent of Americans say, “scientifically,” a fetus is “a unique life,” while 35 percent say it is “part of a woman’s body.” Additionally, 42 percent say life begins at conception while 13 percent say life begins at birth.
“Most Americans also believe that laws can protect both the mother and her unborn child (83 percent to 10 percent).”
The survey of 1,066 adults was conducted January 8-10 using landline or mobile phone numbers. Results are statistically significant within plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
A poll released Monday by Students for Life of America also found that labels such as “pro-life” and “pro-choice” can hide what Millennials actually prefer in terms of policy on abortion.
That poll revealed that 70 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 support limits on abortion, with 42 percent opposing the procedure broadly.
Despite the image portrayed of popular culture in the media, of those Millennials surveyed, only seven percent supported abortion without any exceptions and funded by taxpayer dollars — the position embraced by the Democrat Party.
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