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Comments: 783 +- Search: Google Apologizes For "Michelle Obama" Results on Thursday November 26, @04:00AM
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by
samzenpus
on Thursday November 26, @04:00AM
from the was-that-wrong? dept.
from the was-that-wrong? dept.
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theodp writes "CNN reports that for most of the past week, when someone did a Google image search for 'Michelle Obama,' one of the first images that came up was a picture of the First Lady altered to resemble a monkey. After being hit with a firestorm of criticism over the episode, Google first banned the site that posted the photo, saying it could spread malware. Then, when the image appeared on another site, Google displayed the photo in its search results, but displayed an apologetic Google ad above it. On Wednesday morning, the racially offensive image appeared to have been removed from any Google Image searches for 'Michelle Obama.' Google officials could not immediately be reached for comment."
Update — 15:38 GMT by SS: A reader pointed out that this article from the Guardian says the image was de-listed simply because it was removed from the blog where it was hosted rather than by any "deliberate" action from Google.
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Even if someone doesn't care what the world thinks
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Good Job guys (Score:5, Informative)
At the moment it suggests searching for "Michelle Obama monkey" when you search for "Michelle Obama"
Understandable (Score:5, Interesting)
Come on.. this is the just the Zeitgeist. There are more people searching for the picture in question rather than just her name. That would put the suggestion higher in the list (I'm guessing that's how the autocomplete algorithm works).
Google isn't really to blame.. and them removing this item can be seen as censorship.
Parent
Re:Understandable (Score:4, Insightful)
Google is not the government, it is a private company with no legal or moral requirement to remove links to something that clearly offends some of its customers.
Parent
Stupidity is not color-blind. (Score:5, Insightful)
Google's conduct in cowing to politically motivated whiners is reprehensible. It is apparently acceptable to compare George W Bush or Steve Ballmer to monkeys (or chimps, or whatever) in words or pictures as social or political comment. Tony Blair mostly got poodle comparisons, but there's probably a few monkey ones around also. RMS would be fair game as an ape, too, although he typically gets cave-man or neanderthal comparisons. The US cannot consider itself color-blind or non-racist until the same gamut of insults can be levelled at any public figure without fear of censorship or witch-hunting.
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Re:Stupidity is not color-blind. (Score:5, Insightful)
The hypocrisy and faux outrage of the left wing in the US is more than a little disturbing and starting to become a little overwhelming to the point that it's truly starting to taint my view of the entire movement. It's not like they don't remember 18 months ago when they were still doing the *exact same things* to the bush admin as is being done here. Calling them Nazi's, the underlying racism against Rice and Powell, calling Powell a pet, token black, etc (until he changed to their "side" that is), the photoshop fridays, etc.
So where was this fake outrage and Googles swift action when the internet hoardes were photoshopping Condoleezza Rice to look like an http://images.google.com.au/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:official&um=1&q=Condoleezza+Rice&sa=N&start=105&ndsp=21 [google.com.au] african native ?
Absolute hypocrites.
Parent
Re:Stupidity is not color-blind. (Score:4, Insightful)
What has this got to do with the left wing?
Here's the left wing bias: We never saw anything like this when Condolezza Rice was photoshopped (any of the numerous times). Another example is the "Joker Face" images. Do it to Obama and it's some sort of crazy Racist propaganda. Do it to Bush, and you get published in magazines for clever political satire. The bias is obviously there, since it seems any time it happens to the left, there's some huge controversy and stuff gets censored.
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Re:Stupidity is not color-blind. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can ignore America's shameful history of racism. Yours is a circle argument. We can't act normally because in the past people didn't act normally? Come on.
The original poster was right. And even if these people are doing what they are doing because they are racists, I don't get what the Big Fucking Deal (TM) is. Let them be racist, it doesn't mean censorship is the answer. Censoring racism will force it underground and thus strengthen it.
To answer Jon Stewart's question "Is blackface ever acceptable?": Hell yes. Just as whiteface, or any "face". It's only racist if we let it affect ourselves in that way. Otherwise it's just something to shrug your shoulders at, or potentially laugh.
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Re:Stupidity is not color-blind. (Score:4, Interesting)
And yet we've gone from it being publicly acceptable to put blacks in the back of a bus and make them drink from a different water fountain, to an African American president.
They essentially made overt racism illegal, at least in public.
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Re:Stupidity is not color-blind. (Score:5, Insightful)
So racism is dead in America right? Until that happens of course it is still unacceptable to apply monkey parody to black public figures. You cannot ignore America's (or much of the West's) shameful history of racism. Do not imagine for a second that the people who create images of Michelle Obama that make her look more monkey like are doing it simply because they noticed the striking similarity between humans and monkeys. They are doing it because they are racists.
So it's a sick hate crime to compare a black man or woman with a monkey. Yet it's fine to compare a white man to a monkey?
If you don't like racism then you should start by treating all races identically. If you want one set of rules for whites and one set for blacks it's clear who is being the racist here.
Parent
Re:Stupidity is not color-blind. (Score:5, Informative)
Do not imagine for a second that the people who create images of Michelle Obama that make her look more monkey like are doing it simply because they noticed the striking similarity between humans and monkeys. They are doing it because they are racists.
They are doing it because they are racists? It appears the photo came from celebrityapes.com, and they did this same treatment to a number of famous people. http://www.somethingawful.com/d/awful-links/celebrity-apes.php [somethingawful.com]
I suppose it was racism that drove them to turn the photo of Sara Palin into an ape, right? Yep...those fucking racists, always using derogatory terms like "monkey" whenever they see a white person.
You did get one thing right....racism is still alive in this country/world, and unfortunately it will always be there, especially when people like you are right there to jump on the bandwagon and cry "racism" before you've even seen what has really happened. Good job stirring the pot up for no good reason.
Parent
Re:What colour? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. There are how many monkey pictures of Bush out there? I recall seeing one in a newspaper's politics section once, and no one even bats an eye. then one comes out about Michelle Obama and suddenly it's horribly offensive and racist. No, it's a joke, the same one that's been made about dozens of presidents and other important people before her. Somehow just because her skin contains more melatonin the joke is now horribly offensive.
Come on people, at least be consistent. If comparing people to monkeys is horribly offensive then where were you when Bush was getting this treatment? Probably sitting at home laughing about it.
Parent
Re:No, but racism is stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling Michelle Obama a monkey is more offensive than calling George Bush a monkey because in her case it is because of her race, not because of her person. In Bush's case it is a personal insult because of certain people's perception of him, personally, being clumsy and lacking intelligence.
There is a difference
The difference is in your mind. You are claiming she is some special case due to her race and needs special protection. You are saying the rules that applied to Bush don't apply to her because Bush was a big strong white man and she is something less than that.
This woman you are talking about has likely archived more in her life than you ever well so why is it you believe she needs your protection from people making photo shop mash-ups out of her face?
Parent
Re:Good Job guys (Score:5, Insightful)
But where's the picture? "Michelle Obama monkey" doesn't find it. Why can't we link to it in the summary if it's clear that the whole discussion will be about a picture 99% didn't see?
Parent
You Cannot Give Offense (Score:5, Insightful)
You can only take it.
Say what you want about the Right (and being an equal opportunity center-of-the-aisle kind of snark, I've said a lot...), they have much thicker skins than the Left, I've noticed. Every joke made about the current administration can never really be just a joke about the current administration, it's either borne of "racism" or a "disturbing indication of a growing violence and unrest." The recent SNL stuff is making my leftie friends apoplectic; when the same show skewered Bush and Cheney, my rightie friends were, like, "SNL? Is that still on?"
Sure, it's all anecdotal, but you know I'm correct.
I think that righties don't mind being un-hip. Many even carry it as a "badge of honor." (I am reminded here of bowtie-wearing Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson.) The lefties are mortified that they might somehow be un-cool, and that the Stewarts/Colberts/SNLs/Lettermans will turn on them. They need to be "in" on the joke, and not the butt of it, and if they ARE the butt of it, well, it can't really be a joke then, can it? It must be sedition and racism...
Parent
Google vs Bing (Score:4, Interesting)
First comment: the images were displayed really slowly on Bing; many never appeared at all.
Second comment: of the images displayed, Google's had more with a monkey theme of some sort.
Third comment: neither search produced anything I'd refer to as offensive.
Parent
Re:Special Treatment for Kenyan in the White House (Score:5, Insightful)
It is morally reprehensible to vote racist.
But, clearly, not reprehensible in the United States of America to campaign on a platform of your ethnicity as was evidenced in the last major presidential election?
If you are a racist, then you cannot, by definition, be a democrat
Clearly your definition of racism is different from mine. I view racism as any act that distinguishes somebody on their race. By that definition I would say nearly all democrats are "racist" as they use race as one of their election platforms (a truly non-racist party would not need to promote equality legislation that distinguishes race as a factor). Neither would they feel the need to denigrate anyone in opposition to their candidate as "morally reprehensible racists". The fact is that if both Republicans and Democrats put up candidates of identical race there would still be votes for both. It is clear that Democrats, therefore, are an extremely racist party by any definition.
As a foreign viewer of the American presidential race I was astounded to the extent that self-promotion based on race was a factor.
Parent
Re:Special Treatment for Kenyan in the White House (Score:5, Insightful)
That isn't racism, its human nature.
Just because something is part of human nature, does not mean it's not racist.. in fact it's the natural human "us/them" mentality that causes racism, sports related violence, religious wars and all that good stuff :/ I suppose it also drives things like capitalism.
Basically we are social animals, and need to feel we belong. On top of that, a lot of people like to believe that what they belong to is better than everything else.
It will be nice when everyone can think of "us" as the whole of humanity. Until we as a species have a more natural enemy (whether real or imagined) than other humans, things will probably continue to suck.
Parent
Re:Good Job guys (Score:5, Insightful)
The irony is that the joke is boring no matter who it's pointed at.
Parent
Re:Good Job guys (Score:5, Insightful)
They're both racist slurs. One shows ignorance of African Americans and the other shows ignorance of Monkeys.
Parent
First post (Score:5, Insightful)
No one complained when Bush was made to look a monkey
Re:First post (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:First post (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:First post (Score:5, Insightful)
Monkey jokes aside, why ban it?
My thoughts exactly. I fully agree the image is in bad taste, but Google can't be held responsible for it, and they shouldn't feel responsible for it. Go blame the guy who put it on his website.
Parent
Re:First post (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like they did. Searching with SafeSearch off, 'michelle obama' returns relatively normal stuff, 'michelle obama monkey' shows it as the second result, and with moderate SafeSearch, 'michelle obama ape', the query _linked from the cnn article_, shows it as the first result, so it's definitely still there on Google.
The original blogger took it down. The first mirror that shot it right back in to 1st place took it down, and then it left google's page rank caching for the 'Michelle Obama' query. Are we actually sure that Google did ANYTHING here? They might have marked the image offensive, which would [I assume, I know nothing of google's search results rankings] hide it from people with strict safesearch on, and severely downrank it on moderate and no safesearch results.
Parent
Re:First post (Score:5, Insightful)
I see, so we should change what we say and how we express ourselves depending on the racial composition of the group we are in.
Sounds wonderfully progressive. Perhaps, some day, we may even set up separate facilities for those of different racial backgrounds, so that all may feel free and comfortable amongst those to whom they can express themselves freely!
Parent
Re:First post (Score:5, Funny)
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Maybe we should also create separate areas where the different races could sit in public transport, so we don't risk the discomfort and mental anguish of not being able to express ourself freely.
Oh oh oh, and we could also create these camps where special races could be relocated to for the safety of primarily, of course, themselves and secondarily the nation.
Parent
Re:First post (Score:5, Funny)
Would these camps have a high concentration of people in them? I want to know, because I have marketing on the phone, and they're looking for a catchy name.
Parent
Re:First post (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow.
Likening a person to a monkey is insulting, I don't care what race you are. Likening Bush to a monkey isn't racism, I'll agree to that, but likening Michelle Obama to a monkey isn't either. Likening Michelle Obama because she is black to a monkey because people think black people look like monkeys is racist. It's the intent of the portrayal, not the portrayal itself. This isn't uncommon in thought or in law. If I accidentally hit someone with my car and they die, I can be charged with manslaughter. If I intentionally stalk someone and wait for that person to cross the street just so I can hit them with my car, that's murder. Same thing here. I can portray anyone I choose as a monkey, if it's done because they look like a monkey, or I'm making a comparison to something overly simian in their character or actions. If Michelle Obama throws her arm over her head and scratches herself and goes 'ook ook', am I allowed to photoshop her as a monkey then? At what point does it go from immediately racist to people thinking "Wait, maybe everyone ISN'T as racist as I am, and not everything done with a minority as a subject is racist?"
Your second statement is just utterly ridiculous. To paraphrase: "It's not racist to define different protections in the categories of freedom of speech based on people's skin color. Segregation of discrimination is the first step in getting rid of racism. Everyone getting along and realizing race doesn't matter at all will perpetuate racism forever." I wanted to put the word 'pretending' in the last sentence, but sarcasm-deficient people probably would pounce on me for it. Brilliant word there, imagine this sentence: "Pretending everyone can get along and race just doesn't matter at all will perpetuate racism forever." It's true, pretending that will keep racism around, since you're just pretending. Believing it and acting like it is really the final step to getting rid of racism. Perhaps some of us are doing better than you are at not lying to ourselves, and actually aren't racist, instead of your "first amendment separate but equal, segregated zones of thought and criticism" brand of "non-racism".
Parent
Re:First post (Score:5, Insightful)
This is, of course, bullshit. Being aware that people are assigned to different races, and treated differently because of this, is not racism, it's the first step in getting rid of racism. Pretending race doesn't exist, on the other hand, is just a way of pretending that racism doesn't exist, and so will inevitably perpetuate it.
Picking and choosing what racism is leads to situations whereby innocent people are attacked, lose their jobs, and are branded pariahs because of a popularist opinion. Intent doesn't matter.
Let's consider the act of children. Often they tease one another. They tease about your funny-sounding last name. They tease about your father's profession. They tease about your weight or lack of weight. They tease about your private body parts or the way you move. They tease about your intelligence or lack thereof. They tease about your hair style. They tease about your skin colour (even when you're burnt or pale).
Now let's consider the act of adults. They can tease about stupidity. They can tease about money. They can tease about weight. They can tease about accents and behaviour. They can tease about looks. They can tease about names. Except if that person is from a racial background that refuses to accept criticism.
So what's the resulting behaviour? Avoid certain races in the workplace. They might sue you for racism regardless of the intent. Avoid certain races in the street. They might attack you then claim you incited racial hatred.
At the end of the day anybody who says that one person is entitled to being treated differently to another on the base of race is a racist.
There comes a time when society as a whole should become sick of popularist definitions of racism and just embrace the title.
Parent
Racist nonsense. (Score:4, Informative)
Frankly, your entire premise here is ignorant bullshit. Going by your logic every white person is a racist, if they've only voted for white politicians like John Sidney McCain.
Parent
Well, something *has* changed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, something *has* changed (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would a racially charged comparisson fall into a different category? And for that matter, IF a racially charged comparisson does fall into a special category why do Michele Obama images get removed and not the images that compare Robert Mugabe with a chimp?
Are some people more equal than others?
That said, I think stooping to doing something like this, or the Bush chimp images are in bad taste. The idiots who make images like these are the ones who should apologize, google is a gateway to the internet and not responsible for how other people use the internet.
On that point, slippery slope time - will it be possible in future that "offensive" websites are removed from google search results on demand from groups such as governments in the future? I mean google does something similar for China wrt search results, how long before it spreads worldwide?
Parent
Re:Well, something *has* changed (Score:5, Informative)
Well, if you know anything about this history of racism in America, it was quite common to refer to blacks as monkeys, apes, chimps, ect. in the past.
The whole racism thing is played WAY TO FUCKING MUCH now days, but you have to be completely ignorant of history in the US to not at least see how it could be viewed as a racial attack.
If you're not American I can understand, if you are American then you're either 12, have lived in a box for all your life, or have experienced so much censorship in your life that you've never heard of it before, which is equally as sad.
Never heard the phrase 'Porch Monkey' even?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6OselVRTsM [youtube.com] ... but more on topic for the ignorant
Great scene
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=Porch+Monkey&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10 [google.com]
Parent
Re:Well, something *has* changed (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Well, something *has* changed (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, it's called freedom of speech. It's the reason Google is allowed to filter its own speech, or Fox News is allowed to filter its own speech, or Walmart is allowed to filter its own speech/product lines. Besides, it's not like you can't pick a different search engine if you don't like it. Obviously, if they filter too much, they're bound to lose a significant part of their marketshare. The internet is incredibly self-regulating that way.
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Re:Well, something *has* changed (Score:5, Interesting)
You're ridiculous.
The administration wouldn't have to lift a finger to get Google to remove this - market pressures would. Someone finds a race-baiting image of the First Lady is a top result on Google and sends word to everyone in their address book about it, and those people spread it, and so on. At some point you'd have tons of people contacting Google to demand that it be remedied, and Google would do it rather than suffer a pretty serious PR black eye.
Why would the Obama administration bother swinging at a pitch in the dirt like this? People have been shown at protests with signs that insult the man's *children* by calling them all kinds of racist names, and he doesn't bother responding to it, but you think that a stupid caricature of his wife is somehow going to get him to say "Hey, I think I'll take an action that, if found out, would completely ruin my credibility and won't have any impact because the image will still be out there. That's a winning move!"
It looks like you're a paranoid kook who doesn't have any clue how the real world actually works. The fact that some other mong modded you "insightful" should be frightening to people who actually have a functioning brain.
Parent
Re:Well, something *has* changed (Score:4, Informative)
You mean other than the fact that Google said they were contacted by the administration? It's on the "apology" page.. which is more like a "no actually, you can't sue us" information page.
Parent
Re:Well, something *has* changed (Score:5, Insightful)
They never did that for the "Bush chimp" pictures.
That's political satire - not racism.
Racism won't be truly a thing of the past until we can make fun of black and white politicians alike.
Parent
Yes, "alike" (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the Google apology link was a good idea, since it explained to the uninitiated how Google works, rather than making Google responsible for everything on the Internet.
Further, I agree with this statement: "Racism won't be truly a thing of the past until we can make fun of black and white politicians alike."
However, this is not "alike". We make fun of white politicians--and their wives, at times--without reference to their race. That's not the same as dehumanizing Michelle Obama for being black.
Parent
Responsible (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice to hear... (Score:4, Informative)
... that Google is now being held accountable to what is available on the internet. That should take them down a peg or two.
RIDICULOUS... (Score:5, Insightful)
Google *should* just index what it finds, and thats what originally happened here...
There are thousands of sites out there hosting insulting pictures of george bush, some where he looks like a monkey or is compared to one and some where he's likened to adolf hitler... If you're going to do something that makes you famous, then you will attract a huge amount of attention and inevitably some of it will be bad. That is well known up front and you can't go crying about it when it happens. Noone forced obama to stand, and now that he's won there will be a lot of attention given to him and his family, if he doesn't like that he should have thought about it before.
Incidentally, when i woke up this morning i had no plans whatsoever to look for pictures of michelle obama on the internet, but having read this story i went looking for the picture in question and i'm sure a lot of other people will do the same. Had i stumbled across such pictures by accident without having read this story i probably wouldn't have thought anything of it because there are countless other derogatory pictures of famous people out there.
I side with Google (Score:5, Insightful)
When Google said that it wouldn't remove the picture I was quite annoyed with them, but then it suddenly dawned on me that if they removed that picture, the very next thing that would happen is that some bright spark would speak up and say "Great, now take this one down too, because it's just as bad" and before you know it, the whole situation's lost control.
It wasn't particularly fair on Google and they had to make a tough decision and I think in this instance they made the right one.
"racially offensive"? (Score:5, Insightful)
because the portrayed person is black?
what if it was made by a black person?
do we know it wasn't made by a black person?
would it be racially offensive it it portrayed a white person and was made by a black person?
if we want to reach REAL equality between all races, this also means we mustn't go nuts about an insult to a person from one race while not caring about the same insult to a person from another race (remember the bush/chimpanzee pictures?)
Re:"racially offensive"? (Score:4, Insightful)
So being black protects you from certain insults even though the content is exactly the same? Isn't that in and of itself racist?
Parent
This is disgusting (Score:4, Insightful)
and frightening.
If you care about freedom of speech you have to be willing (and you should be proud) to let people say stuff you don't agree with.
That includes racist bullshit too. Even if it is directed at the world's favorite US president's wife.
Christ on a stick you guys are fail.
double standard? (Score:5, Insightful)
oh boy, did they just screw up.... (Score:5, Interesting)
We've heard the argument before: "we are just a search engine, we arent responsible for child porn, warez, illegal mp3s or anythign like that that show up in our results"... unless its a picture of Michelle Obama... If you can flush that you have proved you can flush the other things as well. So whats next?
Someone explain this to me (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone please explain to me how this is in any way a "racial slur". As far as I can tell, it's a political statement, and people are pulling the race card because they don't want to see the first lady criticized.
The other comments all suggest that a monkey is somehow a racial slur, but I have never, ever heard it as a racial slur before today, so if it has been one in the past, it sure hasn't been very common. So yeah, someone please explain to me on what grounds people are calling this a racial slur, because it isn't and never has been as far as I've ever been aware.
Oh those double standards. (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone knows you can only do tasteless jokes about a black woman or man when they are a conservative.
Remember Condoleezza Rice?
http://images.google.com/images?gbv=1&sa=1&q=condoleezza+rice+monkey&btnG=Search+images [google.com]
Remember Michael Steele?
http://images.google.com/images?gbv=1&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=michael+steele+blackface&btnG=Search+images [google.com]