‘Suicide’ Query Prompts Google to Offer Hotline | Hacker News Reader

‘Suicide’ Query Prompts Google to Offer Hotline

nytimes.com

77 pointsasnyder29 comments

Damn they could start by not listing uncyclopedia as the #2 result for 'how to kill yourself without pain', which auto completes as soon as you hit k.

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/HowTo:Commit_Suicide

They're been pretty clear that they wouldn't actually change the results for any query based on those kinds of concerns, I think. Adding a thing at the top based on some do-goody motives is a bit different than actually rearranging results in an attempt to protect people from the information they're looking for.

I'm not sure about your comment however ethical it might be there is just a really fine line between providing "moral" results and really tampering with the truth. If retrofitting search results for "i want to kill myself" to results that would dissuade someone from killing themselves is OK; what about changing results for other unethical questions? How to kill an unborn baby? How to kill my dog? How to kill my hamster?

There's no 'truth' or 'impartiality' or 'morality'. Google frames the internet based on how their algorithm decide what's relevant, dismissing and even completely excluding anything they decide is not relevant or spam or malicious.

We all put intensely personal stuff in that box. Google's in a position where they are quite possibly the only place suicidal people may reveal their problems. I hope they do everything they can to help people who are exploring their options, because amongst those options IS support and help even if their SEO isn't as good as uncyclopedia.

That it should come down to SEO at all is reprehensible in some cases and shows how poor search engine technology really is - the uncyclopedia article isn't about killing yourself without pain, it's satire and standard uncyclopedia stuff, none of their suggested methods except perhaps the atomic car bomb would be painless. So not only is it irrelevant but it's machine-judged to be more relevant than something that could help but isn't as funny/popular and doesn't have the search engine juice.

While I happen to agree with you on this specific case (and "approve" of this type of SERP monkeying), we should always be very cautious when on such extremely slippery slopes.

I would imagine that a pro-lifer would "hope they do everything they can to help people who are exploring their options [around an unplanned pregnancy], because amongst those options IS <what pro-lifers want>"

Similarly for religious or political or other moral topics. Should Google monkey with the SERPs for all of those topics? If so, who gets to decide in which direction it should be altered? (It happens that there isn't a very active group in support of suicide, euthansia aside, so this one is fairly non-controversial.)

Google can do whatever they want -- there is no slippery slope; if you don't like what google is doing don't use it.

And if I like some of what they do, but dislike some other bits of what they do, I should somewhat stop using them?

Like only using Google search for products and services I wish to be notified of by their sponsors, and Baidu search for products and services I would rather not be associated to my name, such as "spotted dick"? Sorry, I won't fly that flag.

If a service is almost what I need, I should be encouraged to provide guidance, not told it's their way or the highway. Especially considering that the larger the service provider, the more likely it is that the highway is theirs, and competitors either aren't supported by the market, aren't allowed by market instruments the provider has helped establish, or have comparable shortcomings.

If you disagree, don't reply. Write your own damn comments from scratch.

That last part was a joke.

I agree that Google can do whatever they want. I was pointing out that they will only do this in extremely limited cases, because there most certainly IS a slippery slope here.

I know uncyclopedia is awful, and I don't support suicide, but they can be quite humorous sometimes...

Methods To Die Slowly Without Any Possible Notice:

* Attempting to read a program written in Perl or APL.

In other news, I think it's commendable that Google is doing this.

I think perhaps the solution is to provide results of opposing views for morally questionable queries. So, as per your search example, including SOME results for "how to stop suicidal thoughts" may be what a portion of people are subconsciously looking for (or needing to find).

I assumed someone internally bombed "Suicide: Read This First" (http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/) as it frequently appeared first in my morbid search history (e.g. "i want to die"). I guess that's Google doing what Google does best.

Reading out of curiosity. I really like how it's very practical and not condescending.

Perhaps they could try making it more personal by changing it to "Talk to someone about this, call 1-800-273-8255" or something similar.

Near some bridges there are signs that say "There is hope, make the call".

A good idea, but won't work in reality. 1) You'd need a directory of such numbers from every country. 2) For those where you have the number, IP-based country location does not work, so some people would get a wrong number.

I don't think needing a directory of numbers from each country is an insurmountable task for a company with the mission of organizing the world's information!

Actually writing a network spider and page ranking mechanism and chasing after an organisation in real life to keep contact details up to date don't have that much in common... It would work the same as in any other company - i.e. would require time and money.

I think the gp was suggesting the message could be more "personal". It was my first thought too.

Knowing Google, they will A/B test it. They could even tie in Google Voice and connect you directly with the hotline.

Now all they need to do is call you (because you're logged in and have an associated Android phone in your pocket) and automatically connect you to the hotline.

Tried to see what the warning looked like but I can't get it to be produced by google. Maybe google knows (through my search history) that I'm just messing with the engine.

Got this when logged in: http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/2343/screenshotev.png

Are you in the USA?

Try this:

http://www.google.com/search?q=suicidal+thoughts&gl=us

"&gl=" overrides google's location detection to the country code of your choice. Useful for checking what results look like from different countries.

I was having the same problem. It's a geo-IP thing; switching to a US proxy causes the warning to display.

Hr. Pasted memo that can and pouch production of milk shouldn't come to work start from on the 3rd to 6th. But i left without permission from my supervisor and is now a query. Help me solve this?

I wonder if Google has correlated these queries (and what they know of the user) against the obituaries.

highly unlikely, unless you have a specific reason for thinking so?

I wonder how this is affecting the call rate of the suicide hotline.

http://duckduckgo.com/?q=suicide&v=

Will this be added to duckduckgo?

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