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Google Is Tweaking Its Search Algorithms To Better Deal With Harassers
14 Jun, 2021 / 06:47 AM / Google

Source: https://me.mashable.com/

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Google Search is heavily used across the globe so the fact that the search giant regularly updates the service with more features and redesigns it from time to time too isn't much of a surprise.

At I/O last month, Google revealed that it's working on a new under;ying technology called Multitask Unified Model, or short for MUM to fetch answers to more complex search queries. Well, the company has now revealed that it'll be further enhancing its Search experience in a bid to protect people from harassment of different kinds.

Google, as of now, flags harassment on people manually reporting websites that post content about them without their consent and demand payment for its removal. A typical example of this is often revenge porn where malicious actors post explicit, non-consensual content of someone online. As a part of this process, Google investigates the knowledge provided by someone tormented by this harassment, and subsequently removes the page from search results while also demoting the website's overall ranking.

The search giant plans to further enhance this process by not only targeting the malicious site but also reducing the ranking of comparable "low quality" predatory websites that appear in search results. This could aid in protecting people that are targeted by repeated harassment via unfavourable information posted about them online without their consent.

"Over the years of building Search, our approach has remained consistent: We take examples of queries where we’re not doing the best job in providing high quality results, and look for ways to make improvements to our algorithms."

"In this way, we don’t “fix” individual queries, since they’re often a symptom of a class of problems that affect many different queries. Our ability to address issues continues to lead the industry, and we’ve deployed advanced technology, tools and quality signals over the last two decades, making Search work better every day," Google says.