When you start typing something into Google it gives suggestions based on what is searched most often by people typing in the words you are typing at the time. This feature is helpful sometimes, but more often, just interesting to see what is popular on the internet. Alex Micek, of Tumbledry.org, pointed out the very surprising suggestions that it gives you when you start off with the word “is” (followed by a space).
I took a screen shot for prosperity:
Not only was it the most popular suggestion, but the top four most searched for phrases on google beginning with “is” are inquiries about Obama being a muslim. I didn’t even realize that this was such a big issue because the media seems to mostly focus on his ethnicity versus Hillary’s gender. It would be nice if it came down to things like, I don’t know, issues and moral character. The sad part isn’t the amount of people that googled the question, because they would have probably ended up on the Snopes article that says the rumor is false. The sad part isn’t even the large amount of people that didn’t bother to google it, blindly taking the chain e-mail, or myspace bulletin, for fact. The sad part is that it even matters.
One Comment
interesting post.
you’re right, i think google searches says ALOT about people, groups, ideology’s.
and it is very sad that it matters, or the kind of hatred or misunderstanding that could be behind asking the top four suggestions!