Thread by @gchaslot

Update: Following my tweet on Thursday, Google fixed its autocomplete promoting that "civil war is inevitable"

Here's what Google autocomplete for "civil war is " looked like before Thursday:

THREAD

Today, there is only one suggestion saying that civil war is coming: 2/

But Google didn't fix it for other languages, for instance for French there is the same thing: 3/

In Spanish we also have one suggestion that that states that civil war is inevitable: 4/

Why does Google suggest that? Does the algorithm know something we don't? Having worked at Google, I don't think so. I think fearmongering is efficient for clicks, so Google *promotes* fearmongering.

5/

Now, imagine what many people think when they see "civil war is inevitable" coming from Google. Many must think there has be some truth to it. They might think they need to take action.

6/

Conclusion: when exposing dangerous algorithmic bugs, Google takes action.

Finding them one by one is not enough. So I'll continue working with researchers to create tools to help anyone find those bugs.

7/

PS: Here's the link to my Tweet from Thursday:

8/

https://twitter.com/gchaslot/status/1346958038889078785