Google “women killed in 2016” - you won’t believe the result

[Backingvocals]

Even with all the bs we are dealing with right now. This is erasure of women. Who knows how we tackle this?

Bugger me. Presumably manipulating Google positioning comes from the same place as Strategic Litigation.

If you do it for 2017, it isn't much better... After the first two listings, we're straight onto transgender articles.

Saw this yesterday but only got around to googling it today.

Yes, that is a clear, concrete example of female erasure.

Unbelievable

How can this be? Today on my mobile the top story is a trans one.

This is how this can be:

Google, democracy and the truth about internet search
Tech-savvy rightwingers have been able to ‘game’ the algorithms of internet giants and create a new reality where Hitler is a good guy, Jews are evil and… Donald Trump becomes president
www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/04/google-democracy-truth-internet-search-facebook

It's worth reading the additional articles at the bottom to see how this story has developed since.

Don't use Google! Use DuckDuckGo - they don't track you
(there was one trans article but the rest are women and this thread comes up)

I haven't followed the trans issue in enough detail to be sure, but I've been getting a distinct whiff of the same stable coming off professional TRAs.

It's not just that they're playing the same tricks: my feeling is a lot of them are the same people.

I can't prove it, mind.

I’ve just read that Guardian piece. Thank you for the link. It’s absolutely bloody horrifying. I hope all the women of Mumsnet are starting to feel that this is not just a niche issue. This is about us.

If you change "women" to "females" it seems to be a different set of results. Which just shows how stupid it is! Women and female mean the same thing! Sex not gender!

Don't use Google! Use DuckDuckGo - they don't track you
(there was one trans article but the rest are women and this thread comes up)

oops sorry

This is the screenshot from using the CM browser app rather than the default Android browser. The search engine is Yahoo.

So it is google then? FB and twitter have been on the hunt for 'TERF' posts too

I don't do Twitter, but perhaps someone might like to alert Carole Cadwalldr to this thread. I'm not sure if she's made connections to TRAs.

She's @carolecadwalla at twitter.com/carolecadwalla

Wow. Just fucking wow

Google tailors results to you. If you've previously been interested in articles mentioning trans women, then they'll appear further up your results as it thinks it's an interest. You'd need to use the same search term in incognito mode and compare the results to see if that changes anything.

Outrageous. I just search incognito and got the same results.

I have deleted all browsing history from my phone , gone into my Google settings and deleted all activity, turned on incognito and get the result everyone is complaing about.

Well fuck. Jeeze.

The speed of the change is boggling. We truly live in dystopian times.

Anyone else had a little cry?

Fair enough then, better to be sure.

Compare these. The first one is the result using a non Google browser searching via Yahoo as the default search engine.

The second is searching for Yahoo on a Google browser and then searching on the results for Yahoo. The second one is not as bad as searching direct on Google but as you can see adding Google into the equation is affecting the Yahoo result Yahoo then shows a trans entry which searching direct on Yahoo doesn't.

So it is google then?

Yes. My work phone is a Windows mobile. The default search there brings up the same results as the non Google browser using Yahoo search did.

This is really interesting. I've been following Carole Cadwalladr's investigations for a while, and she - along with the excellent Luke Harding of the Guardian - has shown that there is a connected group of right-wing extremists from Russia, the US and elsewhere who are deliberately targeting social media to influence elections and attack those with progressive political views.

To me this search result is strong evidence that transactivists aren't just a small group of people with ludicrous views who have somehow, against the odds, managed to achieve an undue degree of influence. It suggests that there has been a concerted attempt by outsiders to push the trans agenda as a way of spreading discord amongst the left and sabotaging the political process.

Of course, that immediately sounds like a conspiracy theory - I realise that. But then look at the huge social media storm about the photo of the Muslim woman who supposedly walked uncaringly past injured Westminster Bridge victims. The fuss was started from a fake Twitter account by a Russian troll.

I wonder if Cadwalladr would be able to take this on?

I have never searched Google or elsewhere for the T word, not posted about that subject on any platform or in e mails.

The top result, and 5 out of the top 10 results, were about T women.

Tho’ the numbers are far, far lower.