Google Shows Bias Since its Inception

Everyone loves Christmas except Google. It’s hard to miss Google’s daily ‘doodle’ when entering their search engine. They are a popular attraction. Even though Google was founded in September 1998, and claim “In the beginning, the doodles mostly celebrated familiar holidays,” there is no trace of a Christmas doodle and plenty of Islam doodles. Is there a more familiar holiday then Christmas? 

This has lead Christians to question why there seems to be a discrimination towards Christmas. Curiously, it appears the worldwide religion has never been represented in a Google Doodle. Do they have a case?

Everyone loves Christmas except Google.

Simply, it is a basic truth that Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence (AI) reflect their human creator’s input, and therefore, human error makes it faulty, inherently. There truly is no way around that fact. Although there are those who seemingly do by arguing this is not the case and blaming ‘White Christians’ or ‘Male’ or whatever they choose to substitute in its place, is abhorrent rhetoric. On AZCentral, Laurie Roberts stated, “For 18 years, Google hasn’t commemorated Easter in a doodle on its website. WWJD?… I just found out that Google hates Christians. Who knew?”

Face the Truth of It

The first thing that pops up on a Google search for ‘Christmas’ is a Wikipedia definition: “Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration…” With this specific known truth, that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, why would it be wrong to display Jesus on a Google doodle on the day of His birth?

How is this viewed as taking a side? Rather, Google’s Christmas omission takes sides by default.

Santa Claus header (above) was featured as the Google header on the day of the search. Santa Claus is a fictional character. He is thought to bring presents to children to reflect the Three Kings bringing gifts to the baby Jesus. How is Santa deemed allowable and the real reason for the season is not?

Truth must be faced. After looking at Google’s history of doodles and headers, the company appears to be attempting to shape society’s consciousness through its images. Consequently, Google determines which images are to be deemed acceptable and which are not. In a Communist Manifesto, of sorts, they are actually to the point of prohibiting them.

Research for Yourself

The goal of this article is not to prove or disprove whether or not Google is discriminating. Instead, people are asked to do research and form opinions. Case in point, take this link to Google Doodles.  Now, it is true ‘Easter’ was in the search box when the link was captured. Kudos for catching it.

Notice the date is 2000? Try entering ‘Christmas’ next. Happy Holidays will be the result. Let NRN know if different results occur. Unsurprisingly, these findings are the essence of questions on various forums. The general public has noticed and discussed it for years. Here is a sample from 2010:

“If you type ‘Christianity is’ into the browser you will find various offensive search possibilities including for example, Christianity is bullshit. If you type ‘Islam is’ into the Google browser the helpful search suggestions in the drop down box immediately shuts off. This is obviously a policy decision from Google because there are at least as many offensive suggestions that Google could helpfully offer for Islam as for Christianity.

Why has Google decided to treat Islam with a different standard than Christianity? Why does Google helpfully offer nasty, offensive search queries against Christianity yet none for Islam? Fair is fair, people. If you are going to play political correctness, then be polite and sensitive to everyone. Anything else is discrimination and I find it offensive.

Censorship Is a Disservice

Political correctness is speech censorship. Honestly, ideas must be expressed freely — even if it is ugly or twisted or against one’s personal beliefs. That is true, if one believes in the U.S. First Amendment. Having said that, it comes with often overlooked caveats. Here are a couple.

First, no one must listen. Additionally, for people to learn what is or is not acceptable, blow back is a required expectation. Second, it must not break any laws nor infringe on others rights, such as their personal pursuit of happiness.

Cyberbullying and Fascist tactics, which are currently popular by social media users, arguably, infringe upon others rights. Excluding the overtly abusive, Google does a disservice to the American people by limiting freedom of expression. 

Real Brain Power vs. Artificial Intelligence

Google claims it is the algorithms and AI that are to blame, not their leadership or corporate policy. Ironically, while open to discuss faults, Google is closed to realizing they are self-made. Astonishingly, in the ChicagoTribune, Google admits to human caused bias:

“Google is not just a company, it’s the owner of the world’s biggest conduit to information, with a 69 percent global search market share. It leads people to it by using proprietary algorithms and artificial intelligence. And it’s acutely aware of the problem of algorithm bias.” There’s a Google-produced video about it called YouTube: Machine Learning and Human Bias.

The examples it uses include an algorithm identifying the term ‘physicist’ with maleness based on a set of pictures of the famous physicists of the past or associating ‘shoe’ with men’s footwear because the training set doesn’t contain enough high-heeled shoes. These are cases for which Google uses human correction on the algorithm level (and still occasionally misses a surprising result here and there). Even Google Translate algorithms can be seen as biased when they prefer male pronouns in situations where a modern human translator would make a more politically correct choice.”

Realistically, instead of passing the blame onto algorithms or AI, Google would benefit from taking the mantle of being the real brain power behind it all.

NRN MAGA Christmas Google Doodle Meme Challenge

NRN’s editorial staff initiated a MAGA Christmas Google Doodle Meme Challenge to see what the world is missing out on. The Twelve Days of Christmas was suggested to use as a possible theme. The plan is to share chosen memes as a build up to Christmas in a similar time frame to the song.

Wonderfully, this Christmas season, many fantastic entries were received and highlighted in this article’s video and below are a few previews. NRN thanks all entrants. Proudly, NRN will celebrate the Birth of Jesus, even if Google will not. Thoughts are welcome on if this should become an annual event. Maybe next year, it will be the NRN logo instead. Sound off in the comments!

This was the invite sent out. All the entries are all in The EPIC MAGA Christmas Meme Show at the top.