YAHOO! DISPLAYS BIAS AGAINST CATHOLICS (very obvious)

Catholic League ^ | 12-3-01

[Notwithstanding]

December 3, 2001

YAHOO! DISPLAYS BIAS AGAINST CATHOLICS

The Internet portal, Yahoo!, displays a bias against Catholics that it refuses to correct. When the word “Catholic” is typed in to the search engine site, the second of the Category Matches has a listing called “Christian History > Catholic Inquisition.” By clicking on that category, the listings of “Torture” and “Witch Hunts” appear. But when the words “Protestant,” “Judaism,” or “Islam” are typed in, no negative episodes associated with these religions are listed. No other Internet portal shows an anti-Catholic bias.

Just as disturbing, when “Catholicism” is typed in, the first listing under Web Site Matches is “The Case Against Catholicism.” It consists mainly of the work of “Joseph McCabe’s Rationalist Encyclopedia.” More accurately, it consists of some of the most remarkably twisted interpretations of the history of the Catholic Church ever produced. The second listing is called “Gay and Lesbian Catholicism”: it is loaded with criticism of the Church’s teachings on sexuality. Interestingly, the official Vatican website, “The Holy See,” is listed fourth.

Catholic League president William Donohue addressed this issue today:

“On November 2, I wrote a letter to Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel stating my objections to his portal’s bias against Catholicism. He has chosen not to respond and that is why I am making this matter public. Indeed, since my letter was written, things have only gotten worse: the ‘Joseph McCabe’ contribution to anti-Catholicism was entered after November 2.

“Nothing I have objected to is outside the control of Yahoo! If they wanted to correct this situation they could easily do so. Evidently, they do not care if they offend Catholics. But maybe they’ll change their tune once they are avalanched with complaints. We will begin by posting our complaint on our website, www.catholicleague.org, and will ask people to write to Mr. Semel. We will also publish Mr. Semel’s address in the next issue of our monthly journal, Catalyst.”

Mr. Terry Semel

Chairman, CEO

Yahoo! Inc.

701 First Avenue

Sunnyvale, CA 94089

(408) 349-3300

(408) 349-3301 (Fax)

[2banana]

use google.com

[E. Pluribus Unum]

With your obvious talent for being offended, you should just go through the entire dictionary and see how many word-orderings you can find offensive, then report back to us.

[Nora]

Flag

[thefactor]

google is owned by yahoo.

[lds23]

Just like when you search for "Limbaugh" the first thing that shows up is the "FAIR" report, which supposedly blasts the truthfulness of his reportage, and some satire site.

[Alberta's Child]

Someone needs to help me with this one. I thought these search engines used their search "order" as a revenue source -- the websites that show up at the top of each list are the ones that pay the most to be there.

[mattdono]

I am thinking dogpile.com.

[DallasJ7]

Wow...and when you search for "Clinton" on Yahoo the first category that comes up is Clinton Administration Humor with a listing of sites that make fun of the Clintons. So I guess they're biased against the Clintons too. Some people really do try to offend themselves as much as possible.

[TopQuark]

I have followed the link Christianity > Catholic on Yahoo and received a huge list that has nothing in common with what is described in the letter.

Is it possible the complainer might not know how to do a search?

[Notwithstanding]

If what you say is true about Limbaugh (I believe you) then the exact same bias is at hand: a bias against those forces of traditional virtue which the media and academic elitists fear the most because they are the biggest threat to the dominance of their continued regime. Limbaugh makes them afraid because he has gotten in their way. The Catholic church is huge and is the only global opponent to counter their crapola consistently. As an INSTITUTION the Catholic Church is a force to be reckoned with, notwithstanding the many individuals claiming to be Catholic who are beige and lukewarm about their faith.

[Notwithstanding]

Not the link - the search. Big difference. Donohue does not get lathered up unless he has done his research.

[Arthalion]

I'm Catholic, and this is just stupid. The keyword search functions by matching your keywords with relevant information out of their database (Hey, I do this for a living). There is NO way, short of completely purging anti-Catholic information from their site, that they can prevent this stuff from showing up in your search results. So why does "Catholic Inquisition" show up second? Because "Catholic" is your search term and the FIRST database keyword for that particular link, so the engine assumes that the link is relevant. It doesn't care one bit about what's actually in the page, it's just a stupid computer matching words.

What do you want them to do, write a special inclusion into their search algorithms just to make Catholics happy? Don't be silly.

[jlogajan]

We used to do a trick with the first calculators so that you'd put in some common numbers, add them together and turn the display upside down and it would say Standard Oil or something. Conspiracies run very very deep -- keep the tin foil within reach at all times.

[jlogajan]

Shell Oil -- it's coming back to me now.

[Notwithstanding]

Funny how you aren't bitching about this one: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/582834/posts

Seems you have your own bias.

[Notwithstanding]

55378008 = BOOBLESS

[AlaskaErik]

When the word “Catholic” is typed in to the search engine site, the second of the Category Matches has a listing called “Christian History > Catholic Inquisition.”

Why does Yahoo go to "Christian History"? That has nothing to do with Catholic history.

[thefactor]

579,502 x 4 = ?

[ArrogantBustard]

Try using the "search" field, doing exactly what is mentioned in the article: search on the words "catholic" and "catholicism". For the word "catholic" I think he's nit-picking a bit. For the word "catholicism" he's exactly right. Try it.

AB