Life Google Image Search Wants Me Dead
posted by on May 30 at 10:42 AM
Most times, Google Image Search is a perfectly lovely tool. See that pretty flower up there? Google Image Search found it for me, after I typed in the search terms “pretty flower.”
But last week I had an experience with Google Image Search that assaulted my eyes, blew my mind, and continues to disturb my sleep. (Fragile readers might want to turn back now.)
The experience was instigated by a Google Image Search featuring two common, non-pornographic words. The first word has five syllables, the second has three, and neither would raise a red flag from even the most prudish web browsers.
Google Image Search had no difficulty processing the combination, offering up what at first looked like the typical variety of more-or-less pertinent image options. But then I saw, in the second row down, a thumbnail image that seemed out of place, and gross, looking something like a rifle-blasted ham.
I clicked the image, and immediately learned the awful truth: The photo was a rear shot of a raped baby.
If you need to take a moment to go to your special place, or have an analgesic gaze at that pretty flower up there, I understand. After learning what the mystery image was, I had to slam shut my computer and run around screaming for about five minutes. (To my poor officemates who encountered me during this initial freakout, I apologize. It couldn’t have been pleasant, but the only way to mitigate my pain was to spread it around.)
After the horror came the questions: What the fucking fuck? Should I report this to Google, or the police? It seemed clear that photographs of a baby’s raped anus had to be in violation of all sorts of laws, but a look at the photo’s original source answered my legal question, in the worst way possible.
The reason this photo of a raped baby’s anus is not child pornography—allegedly—is that the baby is dead, and the photo is post-mortem criminal evidence, presented as part of an Indian medical student’s thesis on pederasty (?!), which for some reason was posted online.
The moral: If you’re worried about accidentally encountering images that might ruin your life, switch your Google search preference to “moderate filtering.” I wish I’d done that before last Friday.
Insult to injury, or vice versa: Today’s story from Richland, WA. Sigh.
My, that’s a pretty flower. (For further narcotic diversion, go here.)
I thought Google image search defaults to moderate. Wouldn't that mean you, at one point or another, changed it to 'do not filter my results'?
Nobody asks for a dead baby's raped anus.
Yes, I changed my filter preference from unfiltered to moderate filter. I chose unfiltered initially due to residual Kinko's damage, which taught me not to trust large corporation's ideas of what should be censored. (Maybe things have changed, but once upon a time, Kinko's would not allow me to use the word 'crap' in an email.) That'll learn me.
I'm not saying anybody should expect to see a dead baby's raped anus. That's vile. That's beyond vile.
I'm just defending Google, which I love with all of my heart. If he were to have seen this picture with the moderate filter, that would be a different story.
You could still report this to Google. I don't think that image should pop up under any circumstance.
I heart Google too (especially the iGoogle page). The moral of this story isn't Google is evil, but that life in the internet age can be super fucked-up.
Moral of story received, and duly noted.
Welcome to the Internet, David!
Oh man, just consider yourself lucky it wasn't a picture of a rifle-blasted ham. ew
Has Bjork ever requested rifle-blasted ham?
Ahem.
I'm still trying to figure out what you typed.
Oh, and always search with moderate filter. Because you never know what NSFW images will come up even on completely normal searches.
You could try reporting it to Google, but I don't know if that will work.
Re: 11: "Hey look everybody! A Stranger writer riffed on the same received phrase that a Metroblogging Seattle blogger riffed on in 2006!"
I definitely have zero desire to EVER see that, nor do I particularly want others to find the image and pass it around, start using it as a goatse-style shock-image, et cetera.
However. Phrasing it as "featuring two common, non-pornographic words. The first word has five syllables, the second has three, and neither would raise a red flag from even the most prudish web browsers" makes it feel like Will Shortz's Sunday Puzzle on NPR, and now I can't help but fixate on what it might be, from a purely word-puzzle point of view.
I'm sure I can't be the only one. This isn't a request to know the words, let alone have them published here. Just... thought I'd throw this out there.
Re: 15: I'd rather have you guys puzzling over the search terms than fretting over how to get that goddamn image out of your heads.
Re: 14: Actually, I think it's pretty interesting how many writers Google has tried to kill.
I won't take the bait. No, I won't.
Google wants all bloggers dead. That way, they can stop spending so much on servers for caching all those searches of LOLOMGWTF blog posts.
It's all a conspiracy, I tell you. They're part of the Pentabulate now.
@15. I really want to know, too.
@16: the problem with not telling us, is that the only way for us to know for sure if we're right is to try different word combos and see if that horrible pic pops up. Or you could just tell us, and we won't look.
...so, the office has spent the afternoon trying to come up with what it could possibly be. We aren't actually checking any of our guesses, because we don't want to be right.
However, it does lend itself to gallows humor. The sickest 5-syllable-3-syllable one we thought of? "Unregulated adoption."
(I emphasize: we didn't check. If that's it, I don't want to know.)
i tried "Unregulated adoption" and didn't find anything.... it's safe, i swear!
Y'know, if someone wanted to find that image, they could google any number of things which you specified, because you did say where you found it. It'd be hit-or-miss, and I'm sure as hell not going to try it, but I'm just saying, the image is not lost to the cyberether forever. In that vein, I really do want to know what phrase you used that brought this image up.
I want to know because I want to make sure that I never, ever, google it.
I'm pregnant and curious sometimes about how my little fetus is developing, GOD, image searching on fetus + age brings up all kinds of terrifying dead fetus/baby images posted by anti-choice assholes.
Um, thanks for the warning, but did you have to describe the image so explicitly? "Disturbing image from a report on child abuse" would have been plenty sickening and still made the point...
@24,Agreed.
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