PageRank is only a fraction of the total inputs to Google search. Once PageRank was described it was subject to being gamed at such a scale that it essentially destroyed the web, ironically making Google that much more a necessity.

> Google and its human staff does not apply human intellect to the problem of sorting, picking, and ranking each search result.

Yes they do. By tweaking the weights of certain output categories (such as evidenced in the article, a clear drop in the number of pornographic or semi pornographic results as a result of such a tweak) there is a large amount of influence exerted on the results.

> Moreover, Google has included "Safe Search" features for several years that would remove these types of results from search.

Safe search always was a weird one: You'd expect the opposite, a 'smut search' (Tom Lehrer would have a field day with that one).

> Before we condemn Google for the collective actions of the broader Internet community of websites (and the author's step of disabling Safe Search), we should take a moment to understand this point.

Before we invalidate the authors point by handwaving and purposefully injecting chaff into the conversation let's try to understand the actual point they are trying to make: That a query for an innocent term such as 'black girls' even with 'safe search off' should not result in a bunch of porn.

> Now, it is possible to create a search engine curated by humans or filters that remove objectionable content, and perhaps that approach might be desirable to some - a "MyGoogle" experience with search results customized based on Google's interpretation (or explicit settings) of the author's demographics, political beliefs, trigger words, and purchase history.

That's nothing to do with the authors point.

I take strong issue with the "obvious" conclusion that Google knows which terms are innocent. Disclaimer: In this specific case, I agree with you that "black girls" has an innocent connotation and am not suggesting otherwise. Please do not misinterpret my thoughts below.

Shall we require Google to be ever vigilant about the meaning of words in use at various times by the various communities of the world, and to entrust them with the responsibility for determining the innocence or guiltiness of words or phrases for all mankind?

If we shall require such effort of Google, ought we not elevate Google to the role of judge over other matters of humankind given their good stewardship over matters of innocence and guilt?

Taken to the limit the argument advocates the establishment of an echo chamber to wrap tightly around each one's subjective interpretation of their reality. Isn't this the exact opposite of what we should be trying to achieve?

Have we not had enough of this Brave New World?

Google aims to 'organize the worlds information', how it does that concerns all of us so yes, this makes them responsible with determining whether a certain set of words has an innocent or negative interpretation.

It's not the world I want to live in but I live in it nonetheless. That Google should not have this power to begin with is obvious but here we are.

> If we shall require such effort of Google, ought we not elevate Google to the role of judge over other matters of humankind given their good stewardship over matters of innocence and guilt?

Definitely not, why make things even worse? They already have too much power we will not make things better by compounding the problem.

> Taken to the limit the argument advocates the establishment of an echo chamber to wrap tightly around each one's subjective interpretation of their reality. Isn't this the exact opposite of what we should be trying to achieve?

It is, but again, the filter bubble is real and the more customized Google search results are for an individual the worse this gets.

> Have we not had enough of this Brave New World?

I do, and so does the author, but clearly you are either missing the point or you have not had enough yet.

Is it your argument that they should be prevented from doing this because highly personalized, low quality results might instead be the result of their efforts?

> That a query for an innocent term such as 'black girls' even with 'safe search off' should not result in a bunch of porn.

I don't know what results the search term 'black girls' should return. If you just search for it, it doesn't return any porn for me. If you're seeing porn, your search results make reflect your search history since Google will customize your results based on your search history. Interesting.

That being said, it should return whatever people are searching for. We must be careful not to cross the line from fixing mistakes to politically correct moral censorship.

The point should be to slowly break down the bubbles, make them less of an echo chamber, and/or have them merge at points where they can. To anthropomorphize the "perspective" bubbles, we are in the dark ages, where people really don't travel very far from where they are, and they don't even speak the same language from their neighbors a short ways away. Allowing a translator and free exploration of other bubbles could allow for more alliances - the zero sum troll-only interaction is something nearly everyone see's is not helpful.

If this post got widely shared, Id see responses in Facebook from people including several types of feminists, business woman arguing cold numbers/profit, males/females arguing black angles or activism (had one just like researcher in OP), male/female opponents of both (white and non-white), activists citing whoever gets ignored most (eg nativelivesmatter to BLM activists), at least one reactionary racist whose dismissals will be common, and thoughtful oddballs who I cant easily predict. Each will have reflexive comments or even articles with evidence for their view or against others.

It can be overwhelming to look at it all but I do on critical issues to ensure Im basing my views or actions on big picture rather than a filter bubble. If not a big issue, Ill just lazily click on my feed which is definitely a bubble of folks with similar interests, the most discussions/tags/messages, or most likes. I noticed Facebook ruined my scheme more over time where I have to actually click on specific names to see those kind of view points. Ive also been told Twitter would be ideal for this and know folks that do it there but still havent got on it myself for common anti-Twitter reasons. ;)

So, you can currently do that with both platforms. If you pick representative people (gotta do that right), you will see about everything they believe as a group about what's trending in their groups or nationally. You will have more good info and see more info as bad since tunnel vision the alternative approach creates is part of why bad info spreads. Lastly, it's just really interesting if you're a people watcher like me to see all the different ideas, jokes, trends, lifestyles, etc people share. I didnt originally add these people to study politics of rough topics: each was interesting and/or helpful in discussions, often face-to-face, before I added them. So, it's fun, enlightening, and sometimes challenging to have truly, diverse friends around you.

Note: Might be worthwhile to try to design some kind of meta-search engine designed to mimick what I just described. My quick guesses at how to build it suggest it would be really tricky to deal with human factors. Ill just leave it at saying the concept would be useful.