Google’s new ‘upsetting-offensive’ tag aims to improve quality of search results
The guideline directs ‘quality raters’ to flag factually incorrect data or content that can be considered a racial slur.
Tech major Google is trying to improve the quality of its search results with a new “upsetting-offensive” category for content. Under this, content that can be deemed as racial slurs, pro-hate or violence against a particular community can be flagged, as well as links that lead to factually incorrect data, AP reported on Thursday.
To highlight such results, Google will bring on board “quality raters” as contractors to form a review team. The group will be responsible for surfing through websites bringing to notice questionable content, including pornography. While flagging such content will not affect the search results altogether, it will help alter an algorithm that will bring reliable sources higher in the results and push down the flagged links.
Google has added the “upsetting-offensive” category to its list of guidelines for quality checks, which runs into 160 page. It directs quality raters to “flag to all web results that contain upsetting or offensive content from the perspective of users in your locale, even if the result satisfies the user intent”. The company has not commented on the changes, so far. They were first reported in the blog Search Engine Land.