We just got home from a wonderful trip to Prague, Budapest, and Krakow. All three cities have a rich history of Jewish communities, and one can visit synagogues, musea, and Jewish cemeteries. We visited a number of them, including the very impressive Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest, which was once the largest synagogue in the world (now still the largest in Europe).
To my surprise, Google maps blocks the online posting of reviews of several of those places. My reviews of the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest and of the Spanish Synagogue in Prague were published immediately (and there have been many other reviews of those two places published in the last week, including some negative). But my reviews of the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague, and of the 5th District Restaurant nearby, have not been put online.
When I submitted my reviews and they instantly got rejected, the explanation that Google (automatically) provides was the following: “This place is currently more likely to receive content that violates Google’s policies. To prevent this, Google has turned off posting.”
This explanation is problematic for two reasons. The first is that a few other reviews of those two places did get published over the last week; they were all five stars-reviews, which is the top rating on Google Map reviews. So clearly posting hasn’t been turned off for everyone, as some positive reviews got through. The second reason this stated policy is problematic is that I was troubled by both places, and was prevented from sharing with potential future visitors the reasons I was troubled.
The restaurant not only serves expensive food served by an unfriendly waitress, but also – and to my mind much more importantly – sees itself as a place to amplify Israel’s views on the war in Gaza. It is proud to have served Netanyahu, has pictures of the Israeli hostages attached to chairs standing in the second room in the restaurant, and also feels the need to put up a flag stating “Never Again is Now” (that slogan alone could mean very different things, but the flag leaves no doubt as to how the owners of this restaurant understand it). Of course, as a private entity this restaurant is free to do whatever it wants (as long as it respects the law). But shouldn’t I, as a Google maps reviewer, be equally free to tell readers that if they don’t like these politics, they might prefer not to eat at this place?
The Pinkas Synagogue also takes sides in the Israel/Gaza conflict, but in a different way. This former synagogue is a Holocaust memorial. It has on its walls the names inscribed of 80.000 Jewish victims of the Holocaust that lived in Prague and the surrounding region. The memorial was moving, and powerful. It is a place you would want many people to visit, so as to not forget what antisemitism and fascism can lead to.
Yet I was troubled by two large collection boxes which aim “to provide immediate help for the victims of Hamas terrorism and their families.” As I wrote in the comment that I was not allowed to publish, there are plenty of people, including Jews, who think Israel is currently acting immorally in how it has chosen to respond to the attacks by Hamas. My own view is that a Holocaust memorial should not take sides in a conflict that so deeply divides people (of course, anyone is free to disagree with this view). The group of visitors who might find this troubling includes those who want to pay their respects to holocaust victims by visiting a memorial such as this one, and who think the only way to approach the current tragedy is by trying to see the dehumanization, the massive loss of human lives, and the enormous suffering, on both sides. For that reason, explicitly taking sides in the current conflict is inappropriate, and these collection boxes do not belong on the site of this memorial.
Some will disagree with my view. That is totally fine and discussing this should be part of what people in a democracy should (be allowed to) do. But that’s not why I’m writing this blogpost. My point here is rather that I find it troubling that Google does not allow me to post these comments online. Are potential visitors not allowed to know how others experienced their visit? Should a Holocaust memorial not be interested to learn how those who visited experienced it? Why are these two places protected against critical reviews, and other places not?
As an aside, the Orthodox Old-New Synagoge in Prague also had pictures of the Israeli hostages along the walls of the Synagoge. But I don’t think this is morally impermissible, since that is a synagoge in use; one is literally entering a private space of a religious community, rather than a Holocaust memorial (to my mind it is quite telling that the liberal Spanish synagogue did not have any collection boxes or pictures of Israeli hostages, but that’s another matter).
Clearly, Google should not post any reviews on Google Maps that contain antisemitic statements. But surely that cannot justify an overall ban on comments, or of critical comments, on that restaurant and memorial/synagogue. And how can Google justify the statement that there is such a ban and subsequently not apply that alleged ban to five star positive reviews? Review-writers could also include anti-semitic statements in their reviews of the Spanish Synagogue, or the Dohány Synagogue.
An overall ban is also not needed, I would think, since Google has the technical capacity (which it is using) to not post comments if the algorithm judges that the review may violate Google’s policies, for example because someone is posting a fake review from a gmail account that has never been used before, and that has been created merely for that occasion. In those cases a review writer can appeal the AI-generated decision and the content is being rechecked to see whether it violates any policies.
My objection is not to there being an AI-generated filter on posts where one has to jump through some hoops to get one’s views online, as long as there are reasonable justifications for the filter. My objection is to the decision to not post anything on places that, whether accidentally or not, are engaging in acts that visitors might have reason to find morally troubling, and, even more so, to claim that one is doing this, but then still to let some (entirely positive) reviews through. What is going on here?
All of this also raises the more general question what the process is that leads to this decision to no longer post (critical) reviews. Who decides this? On what basis?
Perhaps one of you has friends working at Google – they are welcome to explain it to us in the comments section.
Note on comments to this post: in contrast to Google’s policies, comments on this post are open. Moderation will be strict: this post is not a place to comment on the Israel/Gaza war in general, and also not to air pro-Israel or pro-Palestine views in general. It’s also not a place to voice the ill-conceived and manipulative statement that any critique on the actions of Israel equals antisemitism. In the past, we have seen here at CT that posting on Israel is a recipe for inflamed comments. Please, don’t. Also, comments will be open for just a few days, for the simple reason that I will be leaving for another trip soon.
{ 54 comments }
Jan Wiklund 07.31.24 at 8:30 am
As George Monbiot said once, media is owned by billionaires and publish what billionaires want published. Google, or other digital media, is no exception.
MisterMr 07.31.24 at 8:34 am
IMHO Google is just doing it in the way that is cheaper for them, as it can be expensive for them to be perceived as antisemitic but no risk to be perceived as antipalestinian.
(As an aside, arabs are also “semites” so the word “antisemite” is very confusing).
Allan Wort 07.31.24 at 9:19 am
Dear Ingrid,
Long-time reader of the site, first-time commenter. I can’t help but point out that you may have misunderstood your relationship with Google and their services. It’s easily done but a mistake nevertheless. As with almost all internet ‘property’ they are not public. They offer no right for you to air your views. At all. You either agree with their terms and conditions or you don’t get to use their platforms to place your writing in front of the other users of the service.
You may well have identified circumstances which make you question their impartiality in applying their terms and conditions but I’m pretty sure they would eventually, when pressed, reach the point of justifying their actions with ‘It’s our place, we set whatever rules we want’. Which just hammers home the point I’m making.
I know it hurts, I know it’s frustrating when these behemoth servive providers make it obvious that they are not fair but I always comfort myself with the observation that at least a few more people might cotton-on to the fact that they are not in existance to help you or I, only the organisation itself. Well, depending upon your views of how senior management have suborned power to themselves at the expense of every other stakeholder of the firm, maybe they are only really there to enrich the senior management team for as long as the shareholders allow them to get away with that activity. But that’s a different topic :)
My sympathies but I can only offer you the crumb of comfort that this may be a useful learning experience.
Regards
Allan
Bob Dobalina 07.31.24 at 11:33 am
Your own policy on posting comments on this very thread is the answer to your question, isn’t it?
You don’t have the time or inclination to have an ongoing, open thread on these issues. That’s totally understandable.
Google’s evil, no doubt about it, but in this case, I think you’ve missed the point. If you can’t figure out how to moderate this tiny post in this tiny corner of the net, how can they do it at a scale we can’t even imagine?
Ingrid Robeyns 07.31.24 at 12:00 pm
Allan – welcome as a new member of the Commentariat! :)
I see your point, but you provide us with a legal analysis. I am offering a normative political analysis. These things do not always coincide, as in this case.
There are political philosophers, including my colleague Rutger Claassen, who have been arguing that corporations should be considered political actors, and thus their behavior should meet the standards of political actor/they should be regulated as such. Your point, and analyses of political philosophy, can both be true.
Ingrid Robeyns 07.31.24 at 12:15 pm
Bob @4 – I am wondering who is missing the point here. Drawing a parallel between Google and me doesn’t work for several reasons.
The first is that I am a single human being and Crooked Timber is a group-blog with no money at all, and Google can hire plenty of people to do the moderation.
Second, I am not restricting discussion on the topic of the post – Google’s weird policy – but on anything much broader to do with Israel and Palestine, because the past has shown us that there are a few topic on CT on which comments always get inflamed – and Israel/Palestine is one of them. Inflamed comments sections have in the past led Timberites to become less willing to post, hence having a destructive effect on our blog; so we have a very good reason to want to moderate strictly.
Third, in contrast to Google Maps, which has huge power (including in in deciding how an place one might or might not want to vist), I have no illusions about the power of this post.
Finally, on your last sentence: as I wrote in the post, Google does moderate reviews that the algorithm finds suspicious and where one can appeal to a decision made. And for other places it does prevent some critical reviews to be posted with a blanked ban, yet at the same time purely positive reviews are posted. To me, this raises questions that I’ve tried to express in the OP. Your point that Google’s tasks is so huge that we might not even be able to imagine it, doesn’t answer these questions.
Tim Worstall 07.31.24 at 12:48 pm
“When I submitted my reviews and they instantly got rejected, the explanation that Google (automatically) provides was the following: “This place is currently more likely to receive content that violates Google’s policies. To prevent this, Google has turned off posting.””
My read of that phrasing is, in the vernacular: “For some reason posting about this place draws the crazies. Bugger that, life’s too short to deal with ’em”.
That’s only my interpretation, of course.
steven t johnson 07.31.24 at 1:58 pm
If corporations are political actors in normative political analysis, then they have property rights just as an individual posting their blog does. My normative political analysis denies that individuals can own a factory or an apartment building or an oil field or a natural monopoly in the same way they own their toothbrush. A public toothbrush is not a toothbrush, but a health hazard. And private speech on Google strikes me as someone claiming property rights to free speech because they’re using their loudspeaker on their own porch. In normative political analysis of a kind I don’t favor, all rights are ultimately dependent upon property rights. “Life, liberty and property” are as inseparable norms in the standard analysis as “equality, fraternity and liberty” are in my own (idiosyncratic? reprehensible?) version.
So far as I can tell, Google is only wrong by my standards, which are so far as I can tell, rejected by respectable people and genuine scholars. Also by my standards this is simply an example of Google the political actor endorsing the official policy of support to the state of Israel as is, including the endorsement of anti-Zionism=anti-Semitism. But I suppose that’s just more of my own normative political analysis leading me astray.
Howard Frant 07.31.24 at 4:49 pm
MisterMr@2: Oh, please. The term “anti-Semitism” was invented by anti-Semites, I suppose because they thought it sounded classier than “Jew-hatred.”
mw 07.31.24 at 6:08 pm
If you had confined your reviews only to the price and quality of the food and attentiveness of the wait staff, they might have been published, although, even then, online reviews sometimes suffer from the problem that reviewers (who have even bought the product) ‘review bomb’ items when they don’t like the politics of the seller. It’s understandable that Google would not want to spend the resources to sift through reviews by dissatisfied actual customers vs politically motivated drive-by negative reviews (even when those negative reviews strategically confined themselves to apparently non-political claims about things like food quality and prices).
engels 07.31.24 at 6:30 pm
Google is in wrong because it’s exercising a quasi-juridical role while ignoring established principles of natural justice in favour of assumed commercial efficiency. This problem is endemic to public speech on “platforms” is a large part of the reason why Western societies/discourse/values are so messed up and is going to blow up in a much bigger way than it already has at some point in the near future.
somebody who remembers google is desperate to get in bed with the US military 07.31.24 at 10:50 pm
my guess is that those two locations attracted actual antisemitic comments in huge numbers over a long period of time, so they just set up an automated screen to keep out all but the most glowing reviews. it’s a lot better than actually having a person read appeals (google literally never does this except when they accidentally step on the toe of a government or celebrity.) i suspect you could probably write a negative review of those places by giving it five stars and using sarcastic language to clear the filter. there’s a zero percent chance anyone’s reading them – perhaps even if complained of by the owner
besides, google is much less likely to get the gigantic united states military contracts they’ve been desperately seeking (despite low-ranking employee action to the contrary) for nearly a decade if they arent willing to – in advance – embrace the united states’ pre-eminent military client
LFC 08.01.24 at 2:15 am
Some of the comments seem to be not engaging directly with the main point of the OP (whether deliberately or not, I’m not sure).
According to the OP, Google is saying that it will not allow reviews of particular sites, but then it is violating its own announced policy by letting through certain reviews and not others. In effect, it is acting politically by selecting reviews in this way — it is, in a minor but real way, taking sides on a contested issue not obviously and directly related to its core business concerns. If Google wants to act politically in this fashion, it should come clean and say “we will only allow positive reviews of these sites,” instead of lying about what it is actually doing. If the people running Google are so afraid of being accused (falsely) of antisemitism if they allow a negative, but not antisemitic, review of the Pinkas Synagogue to be posted, then the people running Google are, to put it very politely, unreasonably risk-averse. At the very least, they should be honest about what they’re actually doing.
David in Tokyo 08.01.24 at 6:34 am
” it is, in a minor but real way, taking sides on a contested issue not obviously and directly related to its core business concerns. ”
The real problem here is that we’ve got important public services controlled by corporate greed (Google), wackos (Twitter/X), and unfriendly foreign governments (TikTok (or however you spell it)).
This is a really bad situation. Especially Twitter/X, which was a major venue for (among other things) academic discourse, and is now a right-wing echo chamber.
A lot of Twitter/X users are holding their noses instead of moving to Mastodon. If you haven’t, yet, please, do so now.
nastywoman 08.01.24 at 6:56 am
we are currently struggling with a similar problem
– or as Tim Forstall wrote:
“For some reason posting about this place draws the crazies.
Bugger that, life’s too short to deal with ’em”.
or in other words the internet has become soooo nasty
and crazy – that even Google Maps reviews can turn into online fights about ‘antisemitism’.
And as WE now ALSO have the iron rule in our ‘online intercourse’
“For some reason posting about this place draws the crazies.
Bugger that, life’s too short to deal with ’em”.
it’s just like CT moderation?
Alex SL 08.01.24 at 7:53 am
Allan Wort,
I can’t help but point out that you may have misunderstood what people mean when they express criticism. It’s easily done but a mistake nevertheless. People expressing criticism generally understand how things do actually work, but the point of their criticism is to describe how things should work instead.
Hope that clears up the confusion.
In this context, the American perspective is generally, even among “liberals”, to insist that the first amendment does not guarantee the right to get one’s ideas disseminated by private companies, thus Twitter, Facebook, or newspapers can censor as they wish, just as long as the government doesn’t do it. Now, the first amendment is completely irrelevant outside of the USA anyway, but more importantly, the overlooked aspect here is that free speech is hollow if billionaires get to squash it at their leisure. The theoretical right isn’t enough by itself.
nastywoman 08.01.24 at 10:14 am
and to see it a bit more seriously let’s take a simple review of a simple and supposedly entirely entertaining piece of teeny music -(instead of a google maps review)
Like for example – a twelve year old girl who writes on twitter that she really likes ‘Shake it OFF’ and there are all these responses of millions of other girls who LOVE this review and give it little herts BUT then there are also response of very mean old (or even young) men who write that they hate it and that they hate the girl who sings the song and that they ‘sink’ she is Satan and that everybody who like her and her song is the follower of a satanic cult and that satan has to be destroyed –
AND then a crazy young man might wander out
(somewhere in the south of the UK?)
with a knife and kill little girls who have joined a Taylor Swift dance course –
AND THEN
Crazy Right Wing Racist might (falsely) review it as the attack of a ‘Fureigner’ and attack ‘Fureigners’ in the little city where the little girls were killed – and should that be reason
enough
NEVER
EVER
to give
ANYBODY
on the internet the possibility to response PUBLICLY to a very harmless and nice music review with such CRAZY HATE?
And that’s why WE in Germany have filed the following criminal complained -(and HOPE that y’all will join US)
Datum: 23.07.2024
Betreff: Strafanzeige wegen Verbreitung Pornografischer Inhalte, Volksverhetzung, Diffamierung und Beleidigung.
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
hiermit erstatten wir Strafanzeige gegen Twitter Germany GmbH Am Zirkus 2 Berlin
10117 sowie deren Besitzer Elon Musk wegen des Verdachts der Verbreitung Pornografischer Inhalte, Volksverhetzung, Diffamierung, Beleidigung, Verleumdung und stellen Strafantrag wegen aller in Betracht kommenden Delikte.
Dem liegt folgender Sachverhalt zugrunde:
Schon Anfang des Jahres haben nicht nur wir festgestellt, dass Twitter Germany GmbH, vertreten durch Elon Musk gefälschte pornografische Nacktfotos des Idols von Millionen minderjähriger Deutscher Mädchen publiziert. (Anlage1)
Am 26 Juni 2024 wurde von einem sogenannten ,Twit’ sogar eine mögliche Vergewaltigung propagiert. (Anlage 2)
Monate zuvor wurden außerdem in hunderttausenden sogenannter ,Tweets’ junge sogenannte ,Swifties auch in Deutschland als , Anhänger einer Satanischen und/oder Demonischen Sekte verleumdet und beleidigt. (Anlage 3/4)
Anlässlich der Deutschlandtournee von Taylor Swift behauptete X (ehemals Twitter) dann mit gefälschten Fotos, dass ,Swifties’ Zugabteile zerstören (Anlage 5) und anderes Ekelhaftes (Anlage 6) Solche bösartigen Verleumdungen wurden von Swifties in unserem Verein mit großer Betroffenheit zur Kenntnis genommen und Elon Musk darum gebeten – wie von ihm versprochen -,Kinder zu schützen – vor allem auch vor den brutalsten Naziparolen oder der Holocaustverleugnung, die in Deutschland strafbar sind.
Doch Elon Musk sieht seine Firma als nicht verantwortlich für die Tweets seiner Twits und ist der Meinung, dass nach amerikanischen Recht selbst die bösartigsten kriminellen Verleumdungen und Beleidigungen ,Free Speech’ (Meinungsfreiheit) sind.
Nur gilt das auch in Deutschland? Und muss sich die GmbH eines Amerikaners, die in Deutschland firmiert nicht auch an Deutsche Gesetze halten?
Dies sollte endlich ein für alle mal gerichtlich geklärt werden. Die Anzeige wurde von uns -, einem gemeinnützigen Verein gestellt -, weil unsere Mitglieder auf Twitter bereits massiv bedroht wurden und deshalb darauf bestehen, anonym zu bleiben.
Zu den Anlagen ist zu bemerken, dass diese nur ein kleiner Teil sind. Für einen Film über die ,ARCHAEOLOGY OF HATE’ wurden von Vereinsmitgliedern über 2000 Hass-Tweets dokumentiert und sie könnten als weitere Beweise zugezogen werden.
Wir bitten Sie daher, ein Ermittlungsverfahren einzuleiten und uns über das Ergebnis informieren.
Matt 08.01.24 at 11:27 am
The real problem here is that we’ve got important public services controlled by corporate greed
I guess I don’t get this. In what sense is google maps reviews a “public service”? Does it turn one’s business into a public service when it becomes really popular? Maybe there are some good arguments here, but this seems like a pretty strange one to me.
engels 08.01.24 at 11:32 am
It’s understandable that Google would not want to spend the resources to sift through reviews by dissatisfied actual customers vs politically motivated drive-by negative reviews..
Google has the resources of a small country at its disposal. If a job’s worth doing…
engels 08.01.24 at 12:00 pm
Worstall’s “Bugger that, life’s too short to deal with ’em” is a neat summary of the prevailing managerial ethos, and is why corporate types (on or off the company dime) should be kept well away from ultimate responsibility in important ethical conflicts such as regulating speech and determining criminal guilt.
David in Tokyo 08.01.24 at 12:38 pm
Matt asks:
“I guess I don’t get this. In what sense is google maps reviews a “public service”? ”
I was thinking of the whole Google maps thing, not just the reviews part.
engels 08.01.24 at 1:11 pm
It’s worse than a public service. Billions of people all across the globe have been forced to interact with each other, for business, leisure and public debate, in private spaces owned, surveillance and policed by some of the worst and most juvenile Californian businessmen in history, their most critical human purposes subject to their arbitrary whims. Varoufakis’s category of feudalism is more apt.
mw 08.01.24 at 2:23 pm
David in Tokyo @14 The real problem here is that we’ve got important public services controlled by corporate greed (Google), wackos (Twitter/X), and unfriendly foreign governments (TikTok (or however you spell it)).
But these aren’t the only online services. Nor is there anything preventing, individual countries or even the EU from creating ‘good guy’ government services to replace Google et al. The technology is no longer ‘rocket science’, and indeed the EU could acquire competing search engine, mapping, video hosting, etc technology so that it didn’t have to start from scratch. And I’m not sure I see the problem with Twitter exactly. It is no longer suppressing right-wing views as it once did, but I’m not aware that it is now suppressing left-wing views either. It now appears to be something of a free for all. But isn’t that what the OP is demanding with respect to Google reviews?
Ingrid Robeyns 08.01.24 at 2:38 pm
mw @23: “[Twitter] now appears to be something of a free for all. But isn’t that what the OP is demanding with respect to Google reviews?”
No, I that’s not what I’m arguing for.
LFC @13 summed up very well what I’m arguing for. I think it is good to filter out any harmful speech; but a total ban for reviews on a certain place I find very problematic, and even more so to claim to have a total ban, but then effectively not to have it. and let all positive reviews go through.
Perhaps someone should try the strategy that “Somebody” @ 12 proposes, and tell us what happens.
steven t johnson 08.01.24 at 2:47 pm
Concur with LFC@14 and Alex SL@16 assuming I correctly understood them.
Matt@18 “In what sense is google maps reviews a ‘public service’?… Maybe there are some good arguments here, but this seems like a pretty strange one to me.” Viewed through the prism of property rights, it is indeed strange. Viewed through my distorting lens, which weirdly prioritizes personal property and denies Google Maps is not factually private but social, the strange argument is that google maps reviews, designed to be open to the public and aimed at the public (presumably for ad revenue) yet somehow is not public and adjudicating them for private ends is strange.
David in Tokyo@21 sees Google Maps as a public service too. No doubt that seems strange too, just as strange as the notion scientific investigation and discovery should be published. The situation bears similarities to property values for land rising when there is infrastructure development like roads and water/sewer/power lines put in. Whether you label this sort of event “network effects” or some other term, those who view everything from a propertarian perspective see such increases in value as properly accruing to the “owner.” (Scare quotes because I see such things as properly the concern of all, not just title holders.)
This leads back to Matt@18 who also asked “Does it turn one’s business into a public service when it becomes really popular?” Yes, just as real estate becomes public business when it becomes more popular (hence things like zoning, by the way,) when a information service becomes large enough, it too becomes de facto a social object. (Not everything is tangible, yet can be real.)
The easy assumption that competition is more efficient (usually efficiency is not clearly defined even in explicit argument in my experience) is misleading. There are many occasions when it is more useful and practical to have large, more or less single, providers. That’s the natural monopoly argument. Personally I think all monopolies should be in principle owned by society at large and never unregulated. (Cue Dean Baker on patents and copyrights…though I don’t think he objects to trademarks?)
Google Maps (and its reviews,) Google itself, are like X, their function is enhanced by being the go-to. It’s a kind of power law distribution in effectiveness. Again my conclusion such things should be either owned outright by the public or closely regulated is broadly rejected by as I think a violation of property rights is rejected, as most see property rights by individuals as the definition of freedom. People are free if anyone can buy everything they can afford and can do with their property what theiy will, sell, lease, use as collateral, destroy or in this case, censor.
nastywoman 08.01.24 at 2:56 pm
and reading:
‘Billions of people all across the globe have been forced to interact with each other, for business, leisure and public debate, in private spaces owned, surveillance and policed by some of the worst and most juvenile Californian businessmen in history’
As NOBODY has been ‘forced’ and all of this ‘interaction’ always can and could have been done ‘in privacy’ – the problem always have been that these ‘businessmen’ just handed the people the freedom to not only have the utmost ‘juvenile sinks’ publisher but also a unbelievable amount of Hate, Defamation and Violent Pornography – and there are ‘businessmen’ who finally understand that that’s really BAD Business.
nastywoman 08.01.24 at 3:08 pm
and please don’t understood US wrong –
as we also love – absolutely LOVE to write reviews – especially about places nobody should go anymore because ‘it’s far too crowded’ –
BUT whoever has experienced once the devastating effect of far too good reviews
and how too many of such good reviews are able to totally destroy a place –
(we won’t mention at all right or we just give the hint of ‘beach’)
might want to opt for having a total ban on those!
engels 08.01.24 at 5:51 pm
If Twitter and Facebook are public services so were Chinese opium dens.
As NOBODY has been ‘forced’
Don’t. Mention. The pandemic.
hix 08.01.24 at 7:14 pm
Probably would have done the same (as a low level google bureaucrat, that wants to keep both his job and his sanity/free time). Or, put another way, I don’t think Google is particular risk-averse.
Salem 08.01.24 at 8:09 pm
I guess there are a few levels to this:
– The purpose of a review is contested. We might have very different ideas on what “good” review curation would look like.
– I personally want reviews to act as a guide, with an overall score broadly reflective of the likely intended audience’s appreciation. This allows me to make a quick-and-dirty judgement on the restaurant/movie/hotel/whatever. This means I do not want the review score to be affected by irrelevancies, or “review-bombed” by hostile parties.
– If I were curating Google’s reviews, I would block your review of the restaurant. Except in the most extreme circumstances, I wouldn’t allow any review that viewed the restauranteur’s politics as more important than the value for money of the food, or the speed of the service. At best, that is a footnote.
– Others might want a more political review site, or one that gives more space for reviewers’ self-expression, and is less focused on prospective customers. Rather than force Google to hold any particular vision, I’d say society’s interest more in ensuring there’s a review site for every vision with sufficient weight of numbers behind it.
engels 08.01.24 at 10:10 pm
If I were curating Google’s reviews, I would block your review of the restaurant
Do you mean synagogue?
KT2 08.02.24 at 1:15 am
Alex SL @16 ‘teaching’ Allan Wort, is an example of @12…
“i suspect you could probably write a negative review of those places by giving it five stars and using sarcastic language to clear the filter. there’s a zero percent chance anyone’s reading them – perhaps even if complained of by the owner”.
If such sarcasm (or trolling) were the basis of reviews, I’d read them like;
“Is Ayn Rand a Nietzschean?”- the greatest thread in the history of forums, locked by a moderator after 12239 pages of heated debate.” … which is a meme of “Is Wario A Libertarian” – the greatest thread in the history of forums, locked by a moderator after 12,239 pages of heated debate,” 2011
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dril
###
Seems Trip Advisor is not as touchy as el goog… and shows what may be possible.
DuckDuckGo search #1:
“pinkas synagogue prague reviews”
ZERO negative reviews. Trip Advisor dominated 1st page. Is DDG as bad?
“pinkas synagogue prague negative reviews” surfaced some 1? reviews.
Trip Advisor has ratings 1-5, keyword filters, and a search function to “Show reviews that mention”, a thumbs up counter and “Report response as inappropriate”.
Pinkas Synagogue
Reviews (1,032)
Traveler rating
Excellent – 334
Very good – 88
Average – 28
Poor – 7
Terrible – 5
“Show reviews that mention
[Search box]
Selected filters
FilterEnglish
“KOVH
“Wildly overpriced; feels like shameless profiteering
Review of Pinkas Synagogue, Jewish Museum in Prague
Reviewed June 22, 2019
“This review is for the entirety of the Jewish Tour attractions that is 500CZK (~$25/person). Unless you are Jewish or have strong ties to these attractions culturally it would be extremely hard to justify paying this price to see them (and even then they are still way over priced what it is).
[Long paragraph comparing museums and pricing around the world. This person has travelled]
“On top of this it feels shameless and exploitative to basically charge individuals this exorbitant fee to see a holocaust memorial, one synagogue, and cemetery. I cannot think of any other cemetery people visit that charges a fee like this. It is equivocal to charging individuals $25 to see the Arlington National Cemetery and Vietnam War Memorial in DC.”
Date of experience: June 2019
[ three thumbs up by non reviewers who approved of comment ]
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“wishmuseminprague, Manažer at Pinkas Synagogue, Jewish Museum in Prague, responded to this review
[Blah blah blah price value…] …
“The Jewish Museum in Prague is a private institution that fully funds its operations – not only an exhibition, but also educational, publishing, scientific and archival work. A large part of the revenue is used for the care of the world’s unique collection of museums, is spent on the repair and reconstruction of historic buildings in the area of Prague’s former Jewish Town.
Thank you for your review. ”
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https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g274707-d4096675-r683325101-Pinkas_Synagogue_Jewish_Museum_in_Prague-Prague_Bohemia.html
I’d be interested in seeing how trip advisor handles;
“… sees itself as a place to amplify Israel’s views on the war in Gaza. It is proud to have served Netanyahu, has pictures of the Israeli hostages attached to chairs standing in the second room in the restaurant, and also feels the need to put up a flag stating “Never Again is Now” (that slogan alone could mean very different things, but the flag leaves no doubt as to how the owners of this restaurant understand it).”.
And imo using el goog maps equates to a vote. For el goog. There is still ‘the internet’, yet our life and utility make el goog maps dominant.
Alternatives.
“The Best Privacy-Friendly Alternatives to Google Maps.
Google Maps is arguably the easiest mapping service to use, but that doesn’t mean it’s the most secure.”
https://www.wired.com/story/the-best-privacy-friendly-alternatives-to-google-maps/
nastywoman 08.02.24 at 4:30 am
@If Twitter and Facebook are public services so were Chinese opium dens.
As NOBODY has been ‘forced’
YES! –
we also believe that one can talk people into joining Twitter and Facebook like a Chinese Opium den and when this spring we read the review of a certain Masseria close to Lecce
we HAD to drive there right away and stay there and then the awesome cliffs of
Polignano a Mare –
YOU just NEED to get over them –
but STILL
NOBODY ‘forced’ US – even as going over their cliffs is much more fun than playing Twitter or Facebook.
And gambling can be very, weirdly addictive?
nastywoman 08.02.24 at 4:43 am
and about @28 ‘Don’t. Mention. The pandemic’
we were in Verona when the FIRST HUUGEST load of Virus hit Bergamo and nearly killed every Soccer Fan over a certain age and how we had wished that ALL of them would have been forced before to take some kind of vaccination –
(if that was the hint from ‘Don’t. Mention. The pandemic’?)
And see – that might be
THE REAL PROBLEM –
that anybody who always also wants to mention
THE PANDEMIC!
or
GAZA!
can actually do that on the internet even while supposedly doing a restaurant review.
MisterMr 08.02.24 at 7:30 am
On whether google is a “public service” or not, the problem is that the use of internet is becoming so important in our life (bot private and at work) that stuff like google became fundamental ifrastructure.
So if this kind of things can’t be made public, it should be at least regulated heavily, and treated as almost a public service.
EWI 08.02.24 at 8:24 am
Engels@22
Varoufakis’s category of feudalism is more apt.
Exactly this. See also private capital, courtesy of friendly politicians. enveloping public transport and water places like the UK and Ireland, as well as literal physical spaces in owning and controlling ostensibly public spaces like Central Bank Plaza in Dublin.
mw@23
There are many (many) examples of Musk on a whim suppressing left-wing critics and viewpoints on Xitter that he doesn’t like.
EWI 08.02.24 at 8:25 am
in places like
nastywoman 08.02.24 at 9:57 am
@There are many (many) examples of Musk on a whim suppressing left-wing critics and viewpoints on Xitter that he doesn’t like.
while he actually should have –
not on a whim –
suppressed ALL of the HATE mongering tweets who let to the current Right Wing Uprising in the UK – Right?
Or what did Mr. Starmer say?
‘He has warned social media “carries responsibility” over tackling misinformation in the wake of violent protests around the country following the stabbings in Southport.
The Prime Minister said the Government would uphold the law everywhere, including online, where far-right groups have been accused of inciting violence and stirring division in the wake of the tragedy, which has led to unrest in Southport, London and Hartlepool.
Speaking directly to social media firms during a press conference in Downing Street, Sir Keir said: “Violent disorder, clearly whipped up online, that is also a crime, it’s happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere.
“That is the single most important duty of government, service rests on security. We will take all necessary action to keep our streets safe.”
wacko 08.02.24 at 11:10 am
To quote the comments policy of this blog: “We welcome comments from readers on posts, but you do so as guests in our private space.” And I seem to remember a common quip, to the effect of “if you don’t like something we do here, demand your money back”.
Doesn’t the same apply to google reviews? And no, it’s not a monopoly; there are alternatives: tripadvisor.com, for example.
Ingrid Robeyns 08.02.24 at 11:43 am
wacko @ 39 – I already argued @6 why that analogy doesn’t work. Also, to add one more: Those who blog here at Crooked Timber are real, identifiable human beings. If Google Maps review were similarly identifiable with a real human being, one might be able to approach them and ask how they explain the questions I raise in the OP. There is no such human being.
Also, I do not agree TripAdvisor is a full alternative to Google maps, since Google Maps shows you what is around you, and how to get there, and what others who’ve been there say about the place. TripAdvisor does only the last one, which makes it for certain purposes much less useful. And even if there would be alternatives, don’t you think Google has very large market power? If yes, that comes, in my view, with certain moral responsibilities .
Matt 08.02.24 at 12:18 pm
that comes, in my view, with certain moral responsibilities .
This can be taken in a couple of ways. One is whether there are, or ought to be, moral strictures on the operations of Google, or any other company. There’s at least a plausible case to be made for this, though of course there are some counter-arguments as well. (And, I don’t think we should completely rule out that the decision-makers at Google agree, but simply disagree in this case as to what their moral responsibilities are.) There being moral strictures would imply, among other things, that moral condemnation would be appropirate in some cases. That’s not obviously wrong.
The second question is, if there are such moral responsibilities, is it a good idea to have them enforced via government regulation? While I’m not sure what I think on the first question, I’m pretty sure that, in situations like the one described here, I’d think the answer is probably no, at least in general. The reason I’d say no is that I don’t have that much faith that the regulators are going to do a better job, and think they may well do worse, and that when they do worse, it will have a much worse impact. It will, often enough, not be people we like making the choices, but governments run by people like Trump or Boris Johnson or Orban or Le Penn or even worse. It’s no use to say that we want good regulators who will do good things, especially if we have no reason to think we’ll get those. In situations like this, it therefore seem to me that moral criticism is fine, and maybe good, but that regulation will often have much worse results. This isn’t the only reason to think it’s probably not appropriate here. (The claims about it being a “public service” or “necessary” still seem extremely weak to me, for example.) But, I think I’d find it to be a sufficient reason to oppose regulation in cases like this one.
EWI 08.02.24 at 12:25 pm
Nastywoman@38
I’m sorry, but I can make neither head nor tails of your comment, so I can’t really reply.
EWI 08.02.24 at 12:29 pm
MisterMr@35
For most of the public, a small number of private gatekeepers like Google, FB etc. are ‘the Internet’ and there should be special utilities regulation as such (as is now starting to happen in the EU)
wacko 08.02.24 at 12:29 pm
I assume that Google will do whatever is good for Google, within the current environment. If you and like-minded persons manage to modify the current environment, Google will adjust its behavior accordingly. But it’s hard to predict what their adjustment may look like. They might decide to drop the review functionality altogether.
politicalfootball 08.02.24 at 1:20 pm
Perhaps one of you has friends working at Google – they are welcome to explain it to us in the comments section.
Yes, this is whom we need to hear from.
Bob D. in 4 has the answer that my intuition would suggest, but really what you’re asking here is a technical question — and you’re begging that question. If we assume, as you seem to, that Google has the wherewithal to make fine distinctions about content throughout its domain, then yeah, what they are doing here is a mistake or — as some here would have it — corrupt.
The problem is a technical one, or one of the ability and willingness to employ (and pay) human resources. As Bob points out, this very post makes a broad choice about addressing that technical/human problem that excludes content.
It is easy for me to see why a tech behemoth would set its algorithms to be very sensitive in discussions of Israel and Palestine in the context of a synagogue — and easy to see why we wouldn’t want to discuss Gaza here in that context. Even as I am sympathetic to the points you make about these locations, the impulse to “review” a Jewish (or Muslim) site during the ongoing tragedy strikes me as inherently troublesome.
The responses in 6 and 40 also seem to beg the question: You assume that Google has more resources to judge comments specifically on the Pinkas Synagogue than the Crooked Timber front-pagers have to monitor their blog posts specifically on this site. This could be true! But I don’t think it’s self-evident. It’s a question that requires some expertise.
It is certainly inappropriate that Google fails to accurately describe its own policy. But I wonder if those 5-star reviews contained specific praise for the synagogues’ stance on the current conflict. My guess is that’s where the Google algorithm is drawing the line, but perhaps I’m wrong. (A quick look doesn’t seem to show discussion of Hamas, hostages and related topics, but I didn’t study the site.)
If I were writing an algorithm for such sites, I would be inclined to default to the rule: If you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. But again, I acknowledge I am not the person to address this issue. I know little about the technological challenges involved.
Salem 08.02.24 at 2:09 pm
No, I mean the 5th District Restaurant, with the (per OP) overpriced food, bad service, and pro-Netanyahu politics. A negative review focused on the first two would be fine. But I wouldn’t accept a review (positive or negative) focused on the last element.
EWI 08.02.24 at 2:15 pm
But it’s hard to predict what their adjustment may look like. They might decide to drop the review functionality altogether.
This one’s relatively easy to predict, I think. The point of reviews is to drive clicks and therefore advertising money. The reason why certain reviews are being interfered with is because there is (or likely will be) political or rich people pressure applied on Google to censor non-Zionist povs
nastywoman 08.02.24 at 2:48 pm
@I’m sorry, but I can make neither head nor tails of your comment, so I can’t really reply.
But you thankfully already did by writing:
‘For most of the public, a small number of private gatekeepers like Google, FB etc. are ‘the Internet’ and there should be special utilities regulation as such (as is now starting to happen in the EU) – thusly adding to our – that Musk (or all private gatekeepers) already should have suppressed (regulated) ALL of the HATE mongering tweets – who let to the current Right Wing Uprising in the UK.
And otherwise I hope that the Quote from Starter was understood by everyone.
nastywoman 08.02.24 at 2:51 pm
and how autocorrect corrected ‘Starmer’ into ‘Starter’ we don’t understand at all?
nastywoman 08.02.24 at 4:11 pm
or perhaps we just have forgotten how google got burned already in 22
‘In a new scam targeting restaurants, criminals are leaving negative ratings on restaurants’ Google pages as a bargaining chip to extort digital gift cards.
Restaurateurs from San Francisco to New York, many from establishments with Michelin stars, said in recent days that they’ve received a blitz of one-star ratings on Google, with no description or photos, from people they said have never eaten at their restaurants. Soon after the reviews, many owners said, they received emails from a person claiming responsibility and requesting a $75 Google Play gift card to remove the ratings. If payment is not received, the message says, more bad ratings will follow.
The text threat was the same in each email: “We sincerely apologize for our actions, and would not want to harm your business but we have no other choice.” The email went on to say that the sender lives in India and that the resale value of the gift card could provide several weeks of income for the sender’s family. The emails, from several Gmail accounts, requested payment to a Proton mail account.
Kim Alter, the chef and owner at Nightbird in San Francisco, said Google removed her one-star ratings after she tweeted the company to complain. Chinh Pham, an owner of Sochi Saigonese Kitchen in Chicago, said her one-star reviews were taken down after customers raised an outcry on social media’.
engels 08.02.24 at 6:19 pm
I don’t have that much faith that the regulators are going to do a better job, and think they may well do worse, and that when they do worse, it will have a much worse impact. It will, often enough, not be people we like making the choices, but governments run by people like Trump or Boris Johnson or Orban or Le Penn or even worse.
Industry regulators aren’t trying to do a better job than the companies they regulate but a different job, and they’re not under the direct control of the PM/President. However I still think talking about regulation understates the novelty of the problem, which is that administrative decisions, and the human oversight that legitimates them, are rapidly being replaced by entirely automated processes built on commercial imperatives (customer satisfaction, engagement, profit) rather than juridical ones (fairness, publicity, justifiability). The ideological effects of this transformation are already being felt throughout society as liberal modernity’s “steel-hard cage” gets upgraded to something altogether harder, nastier and more pervasive and constricting.
engels 08.02.24 at 6:51 pm
Starmer fans should read this:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/02/starmer-live-facial-recognition-plan-would-usher-in-national-id-campaigners-warn
EWI 08.03.24 at 12:00 am
Salem@46
But I wouldn’t accept a review (positive or negative) focused on the last element.
To the contrary, some of us might find in-your-face pro-colonialism politics to very much ruin the dining experience
KT2 08.03.24 at 2:09 am
Warning BELLE!
Reviews not posted – bad.
Imagine if you had been using Google docs for your Limitarianism drafts!
Cory Doctorow:
“Unpersoned”
July 22, 2024
“AT THE END OF MARCH 2024, the romance writer K. Renee discovered that she had been locked out of her Google Docs account, for posting “inappropriate” content in her private files. Renee never got back into her account and never found out what triggered the lockout. She wasn’t alone: as Madeline Ashby recounts in her excellentWired story on the affair, many romance writers were permanently barred from their own files without explanation or appeal. At the time of the lockout, Renee was in the midst of ten works in progress, totaling over 200,000 words (Renee used Docs to share her work with her early readers for critical feedback).
This is an absolute nightmare scenario for any writer, …”
…
“They want to compile and administer their own blocklists in private, according to their own rules.
“They’re like a landlord that wants the right to evict you and the right to prevent you from forwarding your mail after you’re gone.
“I’m not saying that no one commits crimes so grave that we, as a society, shouldn’t cut them off from some or all of the internet. I’m just saying that those calls should be democratically accountable and based on due process, not private policies carried out by nameless corporate functionaries.
“Interoperability could balance out the right of a platform to kick people off whom they dislike, without giving them the power of handing out Internet Death Penalties. Under the DMA — or US equivalents, like the ACCESS Act, which has been repeatedly introduced in the House and Senate — Google, Facebook, or Apple could still kick you off, but they’d have to give you your data and they’d have to forward your communications to other services that you sign up for. If they didn’t want to do that — if they thought your data contained child sex abuse material or if they believed you were a harasser — they’d have to get an injunction against you. In other words, society would decide who didn’t deserve their data or communications, not a corporation.
“There are already voluntary versions of this system.
…
https://locusmag.com/2024/07/cory-doctorow-unpersoned/
“Romance Writer Gets Locked Out of Google Docs
“In March, an aspiring author got a troubling message: All of her works in progress were no longer accessible. What happened next is every writer’s worst fear.
…
https://www.wired.com/story/what-happens-when-a-romance-author-gets-locked-out-of-google-docs/
Via;
“Google’s defenstration of K Renee, Mark and Cassio may have been accidental, but Google’s capacity to defenstrate all of us, and the enormous cost we all bear if Google does so, has been carefully engineered into the system. Same goes for Apple, Microsoft, Adobe and anyone else who traps us in their silos. The lesson of the Crowdstrike catastrophe isn’t merely that our IT systems are brittle and riddled with single points of failure: it’s that these failure-points can be tripped deliberately, and that doing so could be in a company’s best interests, no matter how devastating it would be to you or me.”
https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/22/degoogled/#kafka-as-a-service
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