Seven Words You Can't Say On Google Instant

theodp writes "Back in 1972, Georgle Carlin gave us the Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television. Thirty-eight years later, Valleywag reports on The Definitive List of Words Google Thinks Are Naughty. You've probably noticed how the new Google Instant tries to guess what you're searching for while you type — unless it thinks your search is dirty, in which case you'll be forced to actually press ENTER to see your results. Leave it to the enterprising folks at 2600 to compile an exhaustive list of words and phrases Google Instant won't auto-search for."

Re:I'm surprised.

[Anonymous Coward]

And google has the gaul to climb on a soap box about censorship, the great wall filters of Australia etc.

Grammar Nazi says: That's gall not gaul. Gauls are French people (technically some Germans are Gauls as well, but I digress).

It's really not censorship, as they still allow you full access the content. They are just making sure that you have a chance to save yourself if you type 'goat selection' and miss the space :)

Re: Dear Puritans

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does everyone assume that Puritans never got any?

"On many questions and specially in view of the marriage bed, the Puritans were the indulgent party, ... they were much more Chestertonian than their adversaries [the Roman Catholics]. The idea that a Puritan was a repressed and repressive person would have astonished Sir Thomas More and Luther about equally."

C. S. Lewis (1969). Selected Literary Essays. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052107441X. Page 116–117

As long as they kept it in their pants until marriage, sex was considered a Gift From God.

Seriously... RTFHB

Re:I'm surprised.

[Anubis IV]

There's no censorship here. Merely hiding potentially unsavory searches from people that aren't looking for them. You can still reach everything you want to about amateur porn in Gaul, for instance, while I make fun of people that have the gall to come down on one side of a topic without apparently understanding it completely.

Re:Filter on results

[Hope Thelps]

Could it be that this system blacklists the words based on the content to be displayed and not based on the input itself?

No. For example "amateur[anything]" is blocked. So "amateur", "amateur theatrics", "amateur night", "amateurish", "amateur diy" etc etc are all blocked. It's implausible to suppose that no combination produces acceptable search results. Also "[anything] is evil" is blocked. Thid is definitely a blacklist of search term patters, not results.

Re:Fair enough

[Anonymous Coward]

The above-mention "a2m" could easily be a part of a serial code I'm entering, and I appreciate google's assuming that, if I want potentially embarrassing content, I can be bothered to press enter.

Furthermore, if you keep entering the serial code then Google might produce relevant instant search results. Consider the blacklisted word tittIes. If you enter titti, the search results go blank. If you add a b, you start getting results again. Interestingly enough, if you delete the b, to go back to titti, you get results that were suppressed before (and are, in this case, rather innocent).

Re:I'm surprised.

[geekoid]

Making someone actual hit enter is not censorship.