General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA Top Google Result for the Holocaust Is Now a White Supremacist Site
Something unsettling is happening on Google. Querying the search engine for did the Holocaust happen now returns an unexpected first result: A page from the website Stormfront titled Top 10 reasons why the Holocaust didnt happen.
Stormfront is an American neo-Nazi group created by a former boss of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan, and is virulently anti-Semitic and anti-black.
The groups appearance on the Google search results was reported by the Guardian on Sunday and, as of Monday afternoon ET, it remains the top result. Here is a screenshot:
The implications are alarming. Due to the search engines placement of the website, a young person unfamiliar with history, or a person seeking to validate a conspiracy theory, could easily get drawn into the Stormfront site as a jumping-off point for research.
Of course, this isnt the case for all holocaust-search results. A user who types in the word holocaust will find Wikipedia entries and academic research sites. But the did the holocaust happen results are still important because the query is not an esoteric one and because Google will auto-complete the phrase for anyone who types did the hol.. as the Guardian points out.
http://fortune.com/2016/12/12/google-holocaust/?iid=leftrail
Behind the Aegis
(54,032 posts)There are many who question the veracity of the Holocaust, including from our side. There are those who don't know shit about the Holocaust, other than a few numbers and a few camp names. There are those who think the Holocaust is a "card" Jews play. But it isn't denial that is really growing, but rather revisionism and minimization are growing by leaps and bounds. Some of my first exposure in the world of the internet to "false stories" and 'fake news" involve the Holocaust. I think some here would be shocked at how clever some of the sites are. They aren't 'bulldozers' like StormFront, but rather a mix of truth, fiction, and misdirection.
inanna
(3,547 posts)It's very disconcerting.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)globally that we are experiencing now.
Doesn't make it any less disconcerting, just less surprising.