Google results offend Christians, but if you search for “Islam is” Google will give you no search suggestions.

It wasn’t long ago experts claimed that we were entering the age of secularization. Instead the headlines of the new century have become dominated by religious fervor, not at least because of the rise of Muslim militants and 9/11.

There are fanatics on all sides and maneuvering this arena without offending someone is hard. Google had done well, so far, but this week there were signs that they are not succeeding.

Christianity is stupid

Search Engine Roundtable reports of Christians being pangered by the search results for the search query “Christianity is”. Some have gotten top results like “Is Christianity Absurd” and “Christianity is Stupid”.

We are not able to reproduce the same results, getting “Basic Information about Christianity” at the top. Maybe Google has already reacted to the complaints. Besides, search results will vary these days, from region to region and person to person.

There is no reason to believe that Google is deliberately trying to insult Christians by delivering such search results. The results are just the result of the search engine algorithm of Goolge, which puts a lot of weight on the number and quality of links to a specific site. The phrase “Christianity is” is probably used by a lot of anti-Christian sites.

Google Suggest

However, the person complaining about the search results should have taken a closer look at Google’s search suggestions, i.e. the list of alternative search phrases that appears under the search form when you are typing your query. When searching for “Christianity is” Google gives you alternatives like Christianity is “bullshit,” “not a religion,” “false”, “cult”, “wrong”, “fake” etc.

Again, this is not the result of Google willfully trying to slander Christians. The suggestions are based on relevant searches done by people using Google, and many of them are — apparently — out to confirm their anti-Christian believes.

Similar suggestions appear for Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, and Hinduism.

Islam is …. nothing!

What is really surprising, though, is that there are no suggestions for “Islam”. Enter the words “Islam is” in the search field and Google will suggest nothing, zip, nada.

Google claims that this is because of an technical error. That sound strange to us. What kind of technical error filters out one religion? And why Islam? Could it be that Google is afraid of becoming a terrorist target, if a story about negative phrases about Islam came out? It will be interesting to see what suggestions appear when the “bug” is fixed.

Given the current terrorist attack at the Danish cartoonist that had depicted the Prophet, such fears may be well grounded. Still, if Google started to actively censor suggestions and search result in fear of millitant islam, that would definitely undermine their legitimacy as a neutral search provider.

They are already in trouble. In France Google has been ruled against in a law suit made by Centre National Privé de Formation a Distance. The Center complained when the word “arnaque” (i.e. “scam”) appeared as a suggestion when searching for their acronym CNFDI in France.

By the way, a search for “Google is” brings up helpful suggestions like “Google is watching you”, “Google is your friend” and “Google is making us stupid”. Take your pick!

Photo by Susanne Koch