Rick Santorum asks Google to help him, Google says no
By Delia PlessSeptember 21st, 2011, 12:45 pmComments (16)
What do you do when gay-rights activists manage to get a neologism for lube and fecal matter at the top of Google searches for your name? Blame Google.
Instead of, you know, apologizing for being a bigot, Rick Santorum contacted Google yesterday to demand that they remove spreadingsantorum.com as the top hit for his name. In case the Senator's insults against Google as irresponsible purveyors of filth didn't work, Santorum also played the (not very effective) "you would never do that to Joe Biden" card. "If something was up there about Joe Biden, they'd get rid of it," he told Politico. (There are a few problems with that comment. Mainly the fact that Joe Biden isn't a homophobe.)
You might have been able to see this one coming, but Google's not taking anything down. A Google spokesperson advised Santorum that if he wants this problem to go away, he "should contact the webmaster of the page directly." But, let's be honest. When this:
is the result of Googling your name, the damage has been done.
.jpg)
Commentarium (16 Comments)
*laughs hysterically*
dan savage's greatest triumph!
And those conservative search sites Yahoo! and Bing have removed it from the top of their results. Oh wait....
The internet. The web tubes are just not safe for bigots.
Santorum could ask God to help him instead of Google, and get the same result.
+1
Absolutely guarantee this will get turned around and used for paybacks and get even nastier, 'cause thats what bullies do - still, it serves him right.
I don't understand why he takes it so personally though. Apparently he's really quite sensitive.
Santorum vs. Boehner -- sensitivity-off?
There is a god. Don't believe in one, but Rick does.
He is the victim of a Gay Jihad!
All kidding aside, how can this clown be a presidential candidate?
Ever since Reagan, being a clown is a requirement for republican candidates. A Roschach inkblot won't work if it's an actual image - it has to be "empty".
poor guy.
I LOVE IT! Justice is served.
I think he doesn't seem to understand how search engines work in an open internet (unlike China, that is; different discussion). The more you talk about someone, the more hits said someone will get, and appropriately, the more search engines ranks a particular subject, whatever it is: if VP Biden were to say, have been found to turn into a reverse-vampire during Saturday nights, guess what, so would the popularity of the said subject matter, thus a particular ranking ensues; automatically, without any help from any humans at Google, Inc.
The story in this case is that even when this kind of things happens to people like Rick Santorum, they never get the message that they are slimy, repugnant creatures. Getting voted out of office and never getting more than 1 or 2 percent in the GOP Presidential polls never gets it across either.
Rick Santorum didn't contact Google yesterday, although he did inquire about what they could do in the past. In some ways, it is in Google's best interest not to have people game their algorithims because it leads to things like comment spam, corporations paying to bury bad publicity or artificially raise good publicity.
Now you say something