> But we do know that they are using their position to manipulate ISIS recruitment, which means they aren't afraid to get their hands dirty with this kind of stuff
To be fair, Google is not cooking the search results, a company under their wing(jigsaw, formerly ideas) is buying ads on search terms related to terrorism. How good a buy deal they get is one thing to consider and I heard there was a grant of Adwords money to that company for this so there is that aspect as well. Buying ads is a whole lot different in my mind than changing the search result algorithm bias. The latter to the two would be a game changing thing.
Might be controversial, but I pretty strongly believe that buying ads is in the same category of manipulation as altering search results, with perhaps the caveat that ads which declare themselves as ads are maybe not nearly as bad.
Ads manipulate the flow of information going to a person for the benefit of the advertiser. It's taking advantage of a vulnerable person in hopes that they will change their behavior - whether that change in behavior is beneficial is irrelevant.
To be fair, Google is not cooking the search results, a company under their wing(jigsaw, formerly ideas) is buying ads on search terms related to terrorism. How good a buy deal they get is one thing to consider and I heard there was a grant of Adwords money to that company for this so there is that aspect as well. Buying ads is a whole lot different in my mind than changing the search result algorithm bias. The latter to the two would be a game changing thing.