Google denies it favours Islam

By Lucy Halfhead  on Tuesday 12 January 2010

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Reports that Google filters out criticisms of Islam, but not other religions, have been denied by the search engine.

If you type 'Christianity is' or 'Buddhism is' into the search engine, Google offers a range of suggestions to complete the phrase, reflecting the most common links found. Most of these suggestions are negative.

Top suggestions for searches for 'Christianity is', for example, include 'a lie' 'false' 'a cult' 'wrong' and other offensive terms. 'Buddhism is' brings up 'wrong' and 'not a religion'.

But type in 'Islam is' and no suggestions come up, leading to accusations that Google is favouring the religion.

Google has denied the claims, however, and says this is the result of a software glitch that it is correcting.

It says it aims to filter out 'pornographic terms, dirty words, and hate and violence terms', but that it is not protecting Islam from criticism.

Changing 'Islam is' to other similar phrases backs Google up, says the Telegraph. 'Islam must' generates the suggestions 'be destroyed', 'die', 'be stopped', 'end' and 'go'.

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Tuesday 12 January 2010

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