It’s no secret that Google is slowly suppressing offbeat content or channels on YouTube that don’t support the political and social views the company is promoting for reasons we’ll leave for conspiracy theory lists. Even our own startup YouTube channel had four of its six videos flagged for demonetization.

10 Most Absurd Things Banned On Politically Correct College Campuses

I pointed out that it was a form of soft censorship but was rebuffed with such responses as “you don’t have to comply: we just won’t pay you”. Nice one Google. As other advertising companies grew in size and we were able to switch away from Google’s ad network, things improved. However, Google owns the biggest search Engine in the world and they are now using that (along with Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter who are censoring like mad) to manipulate content: you can publish what you like, but if Google doesn’t like it, it is hidden from search results. While this behavior doesn’t break the law, it does mean that you can’t survive publishing content that goes against the narrative being promoted by Social Media giants. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see that this will lead to the dumbing down and sterilization of online content and push people to such places as the Dark Web for genuine content.

Yesterday’s QANon list by Mary Fetzer inspired me to put this list together. So, here are the ten most popular articles we published, that Google requested we suppress in one way or another.

10 Banned Controversial Album Covers
By Maggot, 291 Comments

Read The List: 10 Banned Controversial Album Covers

A great list by one of our most beloved commenters and readers Maggot. My favorite line from the list: “Today of course, I am older and wiser, and so I can offer a much more mature commentary on the artistry of this photo: Did you see the racks on those babes?!” To answer: yes, Maggot, we saw them. Even if the powers that be really didn’t want us to.

Maggot’s introduction, in part, reads: “What is “art”? Over the years there have been many record albums or CDs released with what was deemed to be controversial or offensive cover artwork. Censorship and attempts to define the limits of free speech is a subject worthy of debating, and of course “offensive” imagery is in the eye of the beholder. As such, some of these might seem rather tame by today’s standards, but nonetheless they originally elicited enough controversy, public outcry, or heavy-handed pressure from major retailers, to cause censoring actions.”

9 Things You Didn’t Know About Pornography
By Jamie Frater, 295 Comments

Read The List: Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Pornography

We should have retitled this one: “Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Pornography And Never Will If Google Gets Their Way”. Here is the introduction: “Erotica has existed since man first was able to think. A once large industry has now burst out as a giant in entertainment due to the Internet. Most people with access to the net has seen pornography either intentionally or accidentally. This list takes a look at some of the more obscure facts surrounding pornography.”

8 Details That Make History’s Worst Tragedies Even Worse
By Mark Oliver, 327 Comments

Read The List: 10 Details That Make History’s Worst Tragedies Even Worse

I’ll leave it up to you to guess which particular entry on this list really bothered Big Brother. Here is Mark’s introduction to this fascinating list: “We like to imagine that we learn from our tragedies—that when the worst moment comes, people change their ways and start working together to make things right. But sometimes, even after the catastrophe is over, the tragedy continues. People get swept up in the havoc and chaos of the moment and do things that make history’s worst moments even worse. And in the aftermath, some of our darkest moments are left with details too bleak to make it into the history books.”

7Spunky Facts About Sperm
By Petros Absalon, 387 Comments

Read The List: 10 Spunky Facts About Sperm

Oh come on! What on earth is wrong with a sciencey list about sperm? Perhaps it needed to be combined with a list about ova for the censors to allow it. Too much “white” male privilege perhaps. The introduction: “Sperm and semen are as common as men in the world. However, aside from knowing that it comes from the male genitals and is important for making babies, there are still a lot of amazing things about it that many of us don’t know. For example, during World War I, British spies had the bright idea to use semen as invisible ink. After one agent decided to store his semen in a bottle, the letters he sent using the invisible ink stank so much that his handlers were forced to send him a letter telling him that a ‘fresh operation is necessary for each letter.’”

6 Incestuous Relationships In the Bible
By Jamie Frater, 387 Comments

Read The List: Top 6 Incestuous Relationships In the Bible

How could this not be controversial? the Bible and sex together on one list! Here is the introduction I wrote for the list before Google slapped a chain on it: “Religious scholars say that God suspended the laws of incest in the early days of man in order to ensure that man spread on the earth. In the words of the commentators of the Douay Rheims Bible: “God [dispensed] with such marriages in the beginning of the world, as mankind could not otherwise be propagated.” Despite that, these tales are not all simply matters of procreation – particularly item 1. So, here is a list of 6 of the more questionable relationships in the Bible.”

10 Beloved Children’s Books Banned For Stupid Reasons

5 Incendiary Facts About Incest
By Eliza Lenz, 438 Comments

Read The List: 10 Incendiary Facts About Incest

It seems that Google really hates incest . . . perhaps it hits a little close to home for someone on their Propaganda and Censorship team. This list certain did leave some rather hot under the collar. Eliza opens thusly: “We all seem to know that incest is wrong, either through cultural conditioning or what appear to be innate evolutionary cues, yet some humans can’t seem to resist the urge to bed their relatives. In fact, since the DNA of every living human is 99.9 percent the same, it may be much more common than we think. Still, that doesn’t mean incest is a good thing. As we will see, breeding with a close relative can result in some dire consequences.”

4 Animals That Practice Homosexuality
By Andrew Blackstone, 446 Comments

Read The List: 10 Animals That Practice Homosexuality

When Hollywood decided they needed to educate us all on nature vs nurture, a number of wildly popular TV shows such as Will and Grace and Parks and Recreation dedicated entire episodes to informing us that animals—particularly penguins—are gay and it’s okay. Thank God for Hollywood saving the gays; where would we be without them? Probably still burning at the stake. Anyway, for some reason Google decided that we shouldn’t publish similar content and our list of ten gay animals was given the chop. Here’s the intro:

“Scientific research is spotting a surprising range of animals that engage in same-sex relationships. In this mind-expanding list, we will look at the “Lesbian Albatrosses” of Hawaii; male dolphins who keep boyfriends; and same-sex seagull couples who adopt young to raise together. In the animal world, big surprises always await us.”

3 Beautiful Celebrity Brunettes
By Randall, 563 Comments

Read The List: Top 25 Beautiful Celebrity Brunettes

I’m sure most readers will have seen the hit TV show from Netflix (before it lost its mojo) called Stranger Things. Believe it or not the mother from the show (Winona Ryder) was once a beautiful brunette who had men swooning (actually men didn’t swoon like they do these days—they probably grunted instead). Pictured here and number one on the list by our now-missing much loved regular, Randall. Needless to say a large number of the comments were from people disgruntled at the “sexualization” of women. They must have written Google and asked to have us cancelled, judging by the nasty ban letter we got. Here’s part of the rather long intro:

“The brunette, in history, has always been seen as the temptress, the siren; from Lilith of Hebrew mythology to Shakespeare’s ‘dark lady of the sonnets,’ the brunette has been the woman who gives men pause even while we desire her, as though we sense there’s a dangerous cleverness in her that will destroy us.”

2 Ways Pornography Shapes The World
By Chris Jenkins, 599 Comments

Read The List: 10 Ways Pornography Shapes The World

A really interesting list that has some incredibly unexpected entries. If you hated the Brunette list, this one will really drive you crazy. Here’s a bit of the intro: “Pornography is often associated with deviant behavior and sexual violence. Many people at least assume it has a negative effect on those who view it, especially young people. These individuals, then, may be surprised to hear that pornography has helped guard the Constitution, redefine art, and even keep young women safe.” Like I said, “unexpected”.

1 Shocking Cases Of Female Sexual Predators
By Damien B., 698 Comments

Read The List: 10 Shocking Cases Of Female Sexual Predators

This is a very disturbing list and no reason was given by Google for its banning. It covers a number of real life cases of predation against children by women in positions of power over them. Google has not typically had a problem with lists dealing with deviance perpetrated by men or general predatory-type lists. The intro is short. Here it is in its entirety: “When we think of sexual predators, the image that springs to mind is usually a man. However, there are many recorded cases of women committing such vile acts. Below are 10 sexual assaults in which the perpetrator was a woman.”

Top 10 Foods That Are Banned In The US

Google is the foremost search engine in the world. It is so important that many consider it the gateway to the internet. Unfortunately, Google uses its dominant position to determine what we (and its workers) can see, say, do or publish.

Top 10 Ways Google Does Evil

Before we go into the details, we need to understand that Google is not always acting on its own. Sometimes, it is just another puppet on the strings of a more powerful group we call the government.

10 It forces websites to edit or delete their content

Google AdSense is the largest ad network on the internet. It is also one of the most censored. Google forces partner websites to censor their content to its taste. By censor, we mean it forces them to either edit or delete anything it does not like.

Website owners have only one choice and that is to comply, if they still want to remain on the AdSense network.

Google says it only tells website owners to remove content that are not “family-friendly”. However, website owners have pointed out that the meaning of “family-friendly” is at the discretion of Google.

Website owners only receive emails asking them to remove ads from certain content for violating Google’s “Terms and Conditions”. This is the best a website owner will receive from Google. Requests for more information will always hit a brick wall.^[1]

9 It almost created a censored search engine for China

Google was a major force in the Chinese search engine market until it exited the country in 2010. Google said it left because it could not cope with China’s censorship laws. It appears, however, that Google had a change of heart few years later.

In 2017, The Intercept revealed Google was planning to return to China and was willing obey the Chinese government this time. It was developing a search engine that censored results on democracy, human rights, religion and protests. Google called the search engine Dragonfly.

Google only canceled the project after series of protests. It appears, however, that we have not heard the last of it. While appearing before the US Senate, Karan Bhatia, Google’s vice president of public policy, said he could not confirm that Google will not build another censored search engine for China.^[2]

8 It censors search results and YouTube videos for politicians and billionaires

Many governments, including those of the so-called free world, often direct Google to censor certain contents on blogger, search and YouTube. Governments (and political parties and billionaires) tell Google to remove content for a variety of reasons. Defamation, privacy, hate speech, national security and copyright infringement are some well-grounded reasons we know. Winning elections and swaying public opinion in political matters is another (that is most definitely not well-grounded).

There are many illogical reasons a government will ask Google to remove something from the internet. Governments can (and do) ask Google to remove anything they find offensive. It doesn’t need to break any law. The government just needs to hate it.

Argentina made Google remove content exposing a government official for sexual harassment. Brazil made Google remove blog posts and search results that criticized court judges and exposed fraud.

Germany asked Google to delete a Google Maps review involving two government officials working with the child protective service. The officials had allegedly sexually abused two children. However, the district administration transferred one of the affected personnel from the region instead of sending them to court.

There are many more and this is just a tip of the iceberg. Google says it doesn’t always comply with these requests, but we do not how true this is.^[3]

7 It ended its weekly TGIF meetings

In 2019, Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, canceled the weekly Thank God Its Friday (TGIF) meetings. Going forward, the meeting will hold once a month and discussions are restricted to Google’s business.

The weekly TGIF meeting was a Google tradition that dates back to 1999. Google was a small company at the time and the meetings were what you will expect from a close-knit community.

The meetings got tensed as Google grew larger. Discussions often revolved round workplace issues. Employees complained about Google’s censorship, close relationship with the US government, sexual harassment and so on.

The meetings strained the relationship between employees and management. Even Page and Brin stopped attending because they just couldn’t deal with it. The memos of the meetings also leaked to the press, which was embarrassing for Google.^[4]

6 It stopped the Swedish government from adding a word to its language

In 2012, the Language Council of Sweden added a new word to the Swedish language. That word was “ogooglebar”, which it described as “[Something] you can’t find on the web with the use of a search engine”.

Google took interest in the word and asked the council to replace “a search engine” with “Google”. The council refused, saying Swedes already used it for anything they could not find using any search engine. Google, however, insisted it wanted the word to refer to anything that is not on Google.

The council refused and removed the word from its official list of Swedish words. A spokeswoman said the word remained a Swedish word, even if it was not going to be official. Google may stop the council from using the word, but it cannot stop regular Swedes from using it in their day-to-day conversations.^[5]

Top 10 Disturbing Facts About Google

5 It removed hundreds of Donald Trump ads for no reason

In 2019, YouTube took down over 300 of Trump’s reelection ads for no reason. Actually, it said it took the ads down for breaching “company policy”.

YouTube refused to provide more information about how the ads breached “company policy” or what company policy it breached. It however denied removing the ads for political reasons. Its CEO, Susan Wojcicki, said the ads were unapproved. This is even though the ads had been running for a few days.^[6]

4 It punished employees for protesting against sexual harassment

In November 2018, 20,000 employees and contractors walked out of Google’s offices in 50 cities across the world. They were protesting several issues including worker’s rights, sexual harassment and Google’s poor treatment of contractors.

The protest was a success. Google made some changes to appease the protesters and praised Claire Stapleton and six others for their role in the protest. That was just on the surface. Underground, it declared war on Stapleton and other protest leaders.

Stapleton left Google the following year. She said her career took a downward turn after the protest. Her supervisors shunned and put her under so much stress that she just had to resign.^[7]

They threatened to demote her and only backtracked after she involved her lawyers. However, they got more hostile towards her, gave her work to other people and advised her to go on medical leave.^[8]

3 It blacklisted inoffensive instant search results

Until a few years ago, Google had an instant search feature where it showed you real-time search results as you entered your search term into the search bar. Users soon noticed the feature stopped working when they typed certain words. They later discovered the feature tripped off because Google had censored those words.

While many of the words were vulgar, some were innocuous with no sexual undertone. This includes words like Latina, ectasy, amateur, ball kicking, Asian babe, fantasies, fetal, girl on, incest, licked, lovers, mature, submissive, teen and Google is evil.^[9]

A spokesperson said the search giant had a problem with its algorithm. The algorithm censored a word if previous users used it as part of a sexual term. However, this affected searchers seeking nonsexual results. The spokesperson said Google was working on removing inoffensive words from its list of censored words.^[10]

2 It banned employees from discussing politics at work

Google has mailing lists and forums where employees debate, share information or just discuss random topics of interest. Everyone could discuss anything on the forums and mailing lists until 2019, when executives banned political discussions.

Executives also forbade employees from making statements that “insulted, demeaned or humiliated” other employees or the company’s business partners. The meaning of “business partner” is vague. However, judging by Google’s recent antics (including the firing of two conservative programmers), your guess is as good as mine.^[11]

1 It blacklisted an entire subdomain

Google censors any website it suspects of spamming its users. However, it once took things to the extreme when it blocked every website under the .co.cc subdomain.

The subdomain had over 11 million websites, making it one of the largest domains in the world. It belonged to a South Korean company that allowed users create free websites and up to 15,000 websites for just $1,000.

Google said it blocked the subdomain for hosting many spam websites. While that sounds reasonable, it does not change the fact that Google had taken things too far. That subdomain contained many legitimate websites.^[12]

10 Of The Creepiest Locations On Google Maps

We may not realize it, but Google Maps has revolutionized our lives in more ways than one. Most of the apps we use wouldn’t be possible without their tech. We no longer have to rely on bystanders for navigation, and for the first time, we can actually see all the travel destinations we’d never be able to visit in high detail.

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Ways Google Does Evil

That being said, there have been times when Google Maps has managed to give us quite the creeps too. People have found some bizarre and mysterious stuff just looking through Google Maps and its Street View feature, ranging from harmlessly creepy to downright horrifying.

10 A Possible Scientology Base

Scientology is a weird mix of science and religion—with quite a bit of aliens thrown in—that we really don’t have the space to get into right now. We often hear bout it when a Hollywood celebrity gets associated with it, which is probably for the best as it’s all too complicated to understand.

What’s weird, however, is that there several sites around the U.S.A. and the world suspected to be Scientology bases. One of them is the Trementina Base in New Mexico, which is visible from Google maps. It’s just two overlapping circles with diamond shapes in their centers, and someone has clearly gone to great lengths to make it.

While most people thought that it was a facility meant to flag aliens making their way to Earth (or something), an ex-Scientologist denied the claim as that would be ridiculous. No, according to him, the facility actually has a sensible purpose, which is to guide other members towards L. Ron Hubbard’s works that have apparently been written on gold sheets and kept in titanium boxes.

9 Bodies in a Dumpster

Catching just a quick glimpse of this Google Maps image might be a bit disturbing. Have you stumbled across a town of murderers or cannibals? The moment seems to have occurred on trash collection day, with garbage cans lining the pavement at the side of the road. Among the bins, boxes, and generic rubbish, however, there are some rather creepy additions to the pile of unwanted goods. Stuffed into the cans or scattered at the side of the road is a collection of what has been described as “dead bodies.”

The user who came across this image described the scene, writing: “Google Street View captures a dumpster full of dead bodies in Chile!” Indeed, around six human-like figures can be seen among the rest of the trash. One is face down in front of the cans, and another stuffed upside down into a can with its legs flailing in the air. Slumped beside the third bin, one of the figures almost looks like it is sitting on the curb. Another body can be seen wedged into a can so that just its head and arms pop out. While the scene may have left users aghast—at first—on closer inspection, it seems these human forms might not be actual people. The color and fabric-like material they appear to be made from suggests they are actually mannequins.

8 Giant Disfigured Bunny

Imagine just browsing through Google Maps and accidentally running into a giant, disfigured pink bunny out of nowhere. Located in Northern Italy, its face is all out of shape and visibly screaming, giving the whole thing an even more unsettling vibe. If you stumble upon it, you may assume that your app is glitching or that someone actually went to great lengths to build a giant creepy bunny for people looking from above. Fortunately, it’s the latter, and it doesn’t involve the occult.

In reality, the bunny is a part of an art installation by a Viennese collective and is meant to serve as a hangout spot for visitors. One of the members says that it’s supposed to be a huge thing that makes you feel small, which it probably does if you see it up close. From afar, though, it has that look of an abandoned, mangled bunny that so many horror movies begin with.

7 Nogoro, Japan

If you’re ever exploring the Japanese countryside on Maps, the chances are that you’ll stumble upon the sparsely-populated village of Nogoro. From a distance, it may look like it’s full of people casually chilling around all over town. Zoom in a bit, and you’ll realize they’re actually lifeless dolls. We hope you didn’t do this when you were all alone at night.

The village is actually on its way to being completely abandoned, as its residents keep leaving it for better opportunities in the cities. The dolls are made by a woman named Ayano Tsukimi as a tribute to its departed, which is inexplicably the only way she could come up with to do that. We don’t know about you, but knowing that all of those dolls represent someone who is now dead does raise the creepy factor of the whole thing for us.

6 Underwater Pyramids

While we’re strictly against conspiracy theories (unless they’re creepy or awesome), mysterious locations found on Google Maps have done their part in giving credence to many of them. One of them is the underwater pyramid found on Google Maps in the Bahamas.

Many tabloids and conspiracy-lovers hailed the discovery as proof of aliens, Atlantis, and a wide variety of other things that probably aren’t real. It was found by a conspiracy theorist, too, though that doesn’t mean that the structure doesn’t actually exist. Some experts believe that it may have been something built by an ancient civilization, though they also admit that there’s no way to disprove that it’s not a secret alien base.

5 Pigeon People

If you explore the streets of West Tokyo on Maps, you may run into a row of people just standing and looking at you. They may come across as people just staring at the Google’s Street View crew out of curiosity, except all of them have their pigeon masks on. Aside from the legitimate question of “where did they even get so many pigeon masks to begin with”—it’s all rather inexplicable and unsettling.

As it turns out, the pigeon people were locals who knew about the Google crew and wanted to appear in the final photo of the street. It’s all rather harmless and fun, provided you know the explanation.

4 Abandoned Gas Masks

Exploring Pripyat in Ukraine—the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history—is a horrifying experience in general. It is now a ghost town with abandoned buildings that won’t be inhabited again for a long, long time to come. And it has that dilapidated look we here at thoroughly love.

However, the creepiest sight in the whole town has to be the room full of abandoned masks, which is saying a lot in a town full of creepy sights. We don’t know if it’s so disturbing because there are so many of them or that they’re child-sized and located inside an abandoned school.

3 El Bronx , Colombia

El Bronx in Bogota, Colombia, had managed to earn the reputation of one of the most dangerous places in the city before it was demolished. One of the most crime-riddled regions in the country, it certainly didn’t make for a nice walk at night, or any time of the day, really.

While the area doesn’t exist anymore, Google’s Street View Crew managed to capture it at the peak of its glory. Unfortunately, what may look like normal streets of a slum are made multiple times more horrifying if you knew that the neighborhood was known for child prostitution and murder. Some of those buildings also housed murder victims at times, who were then fed to starving dogs as a message to rival gangs.

2Ariel Castro’s Blurred-Out House

When it comes to highly-publicized, gruesome acts of crime, very few cases manage to grip national conscience like that of Ariel Castro. He kidnapped three women and kept them hostage for over nine years and was only arrested when one of them escaped with her six-year-old child (whom she conceived and gave birth to while in captivity). Castro was charged with multiple counts of rape, aggravated murder, kidnapping, and attempted murder, among others.

So, how is it related to map locations? The house Castro kept the women in could be seen on Google Street View. Except now, it’s completely blurred out. We’d say that it’d have been equally creepy if the house was just there, but seeing it blurred out because of the seriousness of the crime somehow makes it even more disturbing.

1 Murder Victim

For those who’ve always wondered if Google Maps has ever accidentally recorded a serious crime, we’re here to tell you that—yes, it has. The case in question was of a 14-year-old boy in Richmond, California, whose dead body showed up on Google Maps. It was seen with police cars and a bunch of detectives standing around, suggesting that it was taken after the body was found.

Understandably, the images brought back some emotions for the victim’s father, who immediately requested Google to remove the image. It was gone from their maps within days, though it does make us wonder if Google Maps still has accidental images of other serious crimes around the world.

About The Author: You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant, or get in touch with him for writing gigs.

Many people will cringe at the thought of working for free, especially for a trillion-dollar corporation like Google. To summarize the truth in one sentence, we have all worked (and are still working) for Google for free.

Every now and then, Google gives us a few simple tasks to complete. These tasks are so easy that you won’t realize they are part of a larger and more complicated project that would have cost Google billions of dollars in salaries and payments.

Top 10 Ways Google Is Censoring Free Speech

10 Book translators

If you’ve ever solved a CAPTCHA, you know, those annoying curly letters on blurry backgrounds that Google used to ask us to solve to prove we are not robots, then you’ve worked for Google for free. Specifically, you helped Google digitize all the books in its Google Books archive. Thank you!

Every CAPTCHA had two words. One was a control word to prove to Google that you knew what you are doing, while the other was the new word Google wanted to transcribe. Since Google didn’t specify which was which, we had to put equal efforts into solving both correctly.

Google used CAPTCHA to digitize its entire book archive and every New York Times newspaper printed since 1851. It did this within two years and without paying a single cent to anyone. Well done Google, well done!^[1]

9 Autonomous car trainers

If you hated CAPTCHA, reCAPTCHA is worse. It is CAPTCHA on steroids. You see those annoying images of signposts, cars, buses and traffic lights Google occasionally asks you to tag to prove you are not a robot? That is reCAPTCHA.

I may appear to be a bit hard on reCAPTCHA, but if you’ve ever spent a few precious seconds deliberating on whether the traffic light pole is part of the traffic light, or just abandoned Google for a few hours because you kept getting reCAPTCHA after reCAPTCHA, you will understand why I’m pissed off.

Why do you think reCAPTCHA only contains those things you only see while driving down a road, or to be more specific, those things a self-driving car will see while driving down a road?

It’s because Google is using reCAPTCHA to train its artificial intelligence for driverless cars. You are teaching driverless cars how to recognize objects, one reCAPTCHA at a time.

Google confirmed this on its developer blog at the time it introduced reCAPTCHA in 2012. It said it was “redirecting the efforts” we put into solving CAPTCHA into improving machine learning. As if anyone ever said they loved solving CAPTCHA.^[2]

8 Image labeler

Image Labeler is Google’s most shameful attempt at making us work for free. As much as we hate to say this, it worked. Google released Image Labeler as a game. It then used that game to improve its image search result while we had fun while working for free.

Google released the first version of the Image Labeler over a decade ago. The web-based game showed two random strangers the same photo and asked them to tag it before the countdown timer counted down to zero.

The players got some points if any of their tags matched one of the several tags of their partner. There was also a scoreboard where both players could see who was winning.^[3]

Image Labeler is still around today but not as a game. Google just shows you an image and asks questions like “Does this image contain water?” and “Is this a drawing?” You only need to click one of the Yes or No buttons. And while you’re at it, remember that you are still working for free.^[4]

7 Mobile traffic sensors

If you use Google Maps, you would have noticed that Google usually knows the traffic situation of your route. How do you think Google knows this information? It’s with your android smartphone, of course.

Everyone with an android phone doubles as a mobile traffic sensor for Google Maps. When several phones are stuck on a stretch or road, Google knows there is a traffic jam there. When they’re far apart, Google knows the road is free.

German artist, Simon Weckert, manipulated this system earlier this year when he stuffed 99 android phones into a cart, which he pushed through the streets of Berlin. Google Maps instantly listed every road he passed as “congested” even though they were free.

To drive his point home, Weckert even pushed his cart past the front of Google’s offices. No one noticed anything. A Google spokesperson later said they love seeing such creative use of Google Maps because it helps them improve the product. What else could they have said?^[5]

6 Unaware cartographers

A cartographer is someone who draws or makes maps. That includes anyone who ever used the now defunct Google Map Maker.

Released in 2008, Map Maker allowed anyone tag places and upload pictures of roads, rivers, buildings, businesses and other landmarks of interest to Google Maps. However, the tool had one fatal flaw that would later lead to its demise.

That flaw was its lack of adequate moderation. Google only moderated entries uploaded by new users. It did not moderate images or information from existing users.

This soon led to abuse. One user was so pissed off with the lack of moderation that he uploaded a photo of Android’s logo urinating on Apple’s logo in place of the photo of some location outside Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He added a message discrediting Google’s review policy.

Google responded by shutting down Map Maker.^[6]

Top 10 Disturbing Facts About Google

5 Human seismometers

Seismometers are instruments used to detect earthquakes. Despite their importance, many earthquake-prone states and countries cannot afford one since they are costly to build and maintain.

Enter Google, the multinational conglomerate that likes free work even though its owner, Alphabet, is worth over $1 trillion. Google is currently building the world’s largest and cheapest seismometer, using the two most common items out there.

That’s you and your android smartphone.

Smartphones make good seismometers because they contain accelerometers. That’s how your phone detects whether you’re holding it in portrait or landscape mode.

While the accelerometer in a single smartphone is not big enough to detect an earthquake, hundreds, thousands or even millions of tiny accelerators can detect one if they work together. Google calls this program ShakeAlert.

Like Google’s human traffic sensors, you don’t need to do anything to help Google detect earthquakes. You only need to have your android smartphone in your pocket and be in the wrong place at the wrong time.^[7]

4 Google local guide

Half of Google users are looking for information on some local business or location. Since Google cannot afford to, sorry, does not want to pay employees or contractors to help it gather that information, it set up the Local Guides program.

Local guides add comments, photos and reviews of popular locations to Google Maps. You will be correct if you called this the successor of the failed Map Maker we talked about in the previous entry.

This is where it gets interesting. Google does not pay local guides for their work. Instead, it rewards them with points for any information they add to Google Maps. Now, what do you think happens when the local guide get enough points?

They get a badge and continue working to earn more points for a bigger badge. The cycle continues until they earn the biggest badge, which is as useless as graffiti on a peeling wall.

Local guides who work hard enough may also receive gifts ranging from a pair of socks to a phone case, and one terabyte storage space on Google cloud. Before anyone decides to become a local guide because of the free storage space, we should add that the “gift” only lasts for two years before Google starts asking for money.

Google also added that successful local guides might receive some rewards from its partners. Google did not provide information on who these partners are or what those benefits are. However, some local guides have received discounts on online courses on Udemy.^[8]

If you think that sounds good, wait until you hear that Udemy always discounts its courses for everyone.^[9]

3 Content moderators

In 2017, thousands of businesses pulled their ads from YouTube after their ads appeared on suggestive, controversial and extreme videos that did not represent their brand. What no one talked about at the time was how those ads ended up in those videos. YouTube has a large team of paid moderators, doesn’t it?

Yes, it does, but they are not enough. Google will need over 50,000 employees or contractors if it ever hopes to watch and moderate every video uploaded on YouTube. That’s hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in salaries, bonuses and allowances.

Since Google doesn’t want to pay that money, it depends on regular users like you and me to help it moderate YouTube. It’s paid moderators only step in when enough unpaid moderators (again, that’s you and me) flag a video. This means YouTube will not moderate inappropriate videos unless we report them.^[10]

2 YouTube translator

In March 2017, around the same time YouTube (and Google) were taking a beating for showing ads on controversial videos, YouTube released a feature to allow users translate the titles and descriptions of any video into other languages. As usual, this position is unpaid even though it is a lot of work.

Google claimed the feature would allow video creators “connect with audiences” that do not speak their language. However, we all know YouTube did that to encourage more people to watch videos, which means more money for them. By them, I mean YouTube and not the creators.^[11]

1 360 photographers

Street View is a Google Maps feature that allows users view 360 degrees around a position. Imagine standing on a single point and turning round until you return to your starting position. That’s how Street View works.

360 photos are shot by people Google calls “Google Street View trusted photographers”. The position is a real one even though Google does not appear to trust the photographers enough to pay them for their work. Google says it gives the photographers some rewards but wait until you find out what those “rewards” are.

Beginner photographers need to take 50 photos to receive a Google Street View badge. They are then upgraded to something Google calls Trusted Pro. As a trusted pro, they receive free training on how to sell their photography services to private businesses that want to appear on Street View.

Thereafter, Google adds them to the list of photographers it can recommend to nearby businesses that want to be on Street View. The business pays the photographer for their services, and Google makes it clear that it will not involve itself in any dispute they may have.

To sweeten the deal, Google also gives the photographer some discounts on some stickers to encourage clients visiting the business to view the business on the Google Street View app. If they have more money to spare, Google suggests they buy the $7.59 Google Cardboard for their client.

Successful 360 photographers advise would-be photographers to bypass Google and offer their services directly to businesses that want to be on Street View. They will receive payment for all their photos and may even put their own sticker in the business instead of Google’s.^[12]

This entry is incomplete without the story of the photographer who spent $2,390 dollars on 360 cameras, internet and other gear he needed to become a Street View photographer. What do you think Google gave him when he reached the 50 images mark?

He received an offer to rent a movie for just $0.99.^[13]

Top 10 Ways Google Does Evil