[ale] OT sort of: youtube search results in Linux

[Scott Plante]

I was aware Google personalized search results, but do you suggest that would explain returning a list of videos for something like "stupid Obama supporters" but then having none of those videos play? I don't suspect Google was doing something evil, but it does seem like some other weird kink or error was in play. I would be interested to learn if Damon was signed into Google on either the Linux box that didn't work, the Windows box, that did, or neither, or both. Also if the same browser was used on both platforms. 


Scott 

----- Original Message -----

From: "David Tomaschik" <david at systemoverlord.com> 
To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts" <ale at ale.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, November 6, 2012 11:37:43 PM 
Subject: Re: [ale] OT sort of: youtube search results in Linux 

https://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=54041 describes the information Google uses to personalize search results for users, and it varies based on whether they are signed in or not. You can use https://www.google.com/history/optout to opt out of any personalized search information. 



[Disclosure: I work for Google, so if you believe Google is evil, you'll probably assume I'm feeding you the party line. That being said, I am not speaking on behalf of Google in any official capacity, any opinions presented are my own, etc.] 



On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 6:12 PM, arxaaron < arxaaron at gmail.com > wrote: 


I'd expect that most of these inconsistencies just came from 
bumping into the thin soapy film of your filter bubbles. 

It is my understanding that the automatic "customizing" filters 
on search engines and such identify us by our system 
finger prints, which include metrics on a number of factors 
like OS, browser version, source IP, etc., etc. Switching to 
a machine with a different OS / Browser would put you in 
a different bubble, probably a slightly larger one if you don't 
use that OS / browser combo often. 

It's scary to think how this marketroid customer targeting 
is sealing all of us into our own lonely, exclusionary cells... 

< http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_ pariser_beware_online_filter_ bubbles.html > 

in peace 
aaron 






On 2012/11/06, at 11:33 , Damon Chesser wrote: 


<blockquote>
OK, so there is a bit of irony here for you, I will let you find it: 

In-law posted a vid of "stupid Romney supporters" who were interviewed. 
Now we all know there are stupid "insert name" supporters for 
everybody. So I went to youtube and searched for "stupid Obama 
supporters" with the intent of posting back a good nature retort. 

Not one of the "stupid Obama supporters" videos worked. 

All of the "stupid Romney supporters" videos, that I searched for to 
troubleshoot, worked. 

This bothered me greatly. Youtube is not the government, they can 
censor anything they like, but it bothered me. 

I booted into windows and now the "Stupid Obama supporters" videos all 
worked! Phew no censors. 

No explanation. No moralizing, and I am sure you can see irony. 

On a separate issue, I searched for Mossberg ar15 in Google and only 
found parts to buy, search for it in bing (shudder) and I get links to 
business selling Mossberg ar15s. Not sure what is going on there yet. 

Discus. 

-- 
Damon L. Chesser 
damon at damtek.com 
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ dchesser 


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-- 
David Tomaschik 
OpenPGP: 0x5DEA789B 
http://systemoverlord.com 
david at systemoverlord.com 

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