If you have been paying attention to any news source lately, you have no doubt seen stories about radical Muslims stabbing, driving over, exploding or shooting multitudes of innocent people while yelling “Allahu Akbar.”
The press doesn’t even cover them all. If you want to get a realistic picture of how many people are being injured and killed by radical Muslims, look no further than the List of Killings in the Name of Islam: Last 30 Days list.
Even that list, maintained by the TheReligionofPeace.com is only partial. Most of the incidents on the list are terror attacks, while a handful are honor killings or Sharia executions.
At the time of this writing, in the last 30 days, there were 164 Islamic attacks in 29 countries, in which 1561 people were killed and 1832 injured.
However, one Muslim in Texas thinks that it is Google that is making his religion look bad, not the scores of terrorist attacks and carnage.
The Huffington Post actually ran this headline today: Google Search Is Doing Irreparable Harm To Muslims
If the harm is irreparable, what is the point of trying to fix it? HuffPo doesn’t answer that obvious question, but they aren’t dealing with a real problem so it’s okay. What they did do was bring this ridiculous story about a imam from Texas who is talking on Google’s Islamophobia. First, this is what he sees is wrong:
…when a user searches Google for information on Islam, the results often link to propaganda, anti-Muslim hate and outright lies. The algorithm for the world’s largest search engine is definitely not doing the right thing ― especially when it comes to the first page of results, where most users stop their searches.
Basic searches for words like “Muslim” and “Islam” return reasonable results with links to reputable sites. But more specific terms, like “sharia,” “jihad” or “taqiyya” ― often co-opted by white supremacists ― return links to Islamophobic sites filled with misinformation.
Imagine that, when someone searched “jihad,” a word wich means a Muslim holy war used in the context of acts of terror against Westerners, the results show information on Muslim terrorism. While liberals may call that Islamophobic, normal people would say it is an accurate search result.
If you type in “alt-right” you get white supremacist results. If you type in “illegal alien rapist” you get more proof of Obama’s failed immigration policies. If you type in “Asian hooker” you get Asian hookers. These are not examples of Google being racist; it’s Google returning results that people are looking for.
The same thing happens with the autofill function. If a user types in “does islam,” the first suggestion that pops up to complete the query is “does islam permit terrorism.” Another egregious example occurs when a user inputs “do muslim.” The autofill results include “do muslim women need saving.”
There are endless possibilities for misinformation, and the consequences are disturbing.
I just typed in “Is the Huffington Post” and the first autofill was “reliable.” The third was “biased.” These autofill results are based on the most common things people search for. It’s just a technological function that is neither racist or hateful, but generally accurate.
As if that’s not stupid enough, check out how the imam plans on combat this Google “hatred.”
But Omar Suleiman, a Muslim American imam from Dallas and founder of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, has a plan to take on Google.
Suleiman and his team have been publishing reports on controversial topics in Islam ― like jihad ― in the hopes of influencing the search algorithm. His goal is to flood the search results with accurate information on Islam.
So a handful of pro-Islam articles versus millions of news stories about radical Islamic terrorism?
Google results are based in part on popularity of the article and the number of links to that article. No one is going to read or link to some Muslim Imams “Islam is awesome” articles.
A better way for Muslims to get positive press is to strongly come out against killing innocent people in the name of Allah. Another problem is the masses of Muslims who believe violent punishments for non-violent offenses is acceptable. If any Muslim simply believes it is acceptable to stone a woman for cheating or hang someone for being gay, they are clearly radicalized.
If people stop seeing suicide bombings and hearing Islamic leaders calling for the death of all infidels, maybe they would trust the religion a little more. When was the last time you heard about a Buddhist mowing people down in a truck? Or have about a Jew or Christian shooting a nightclub full of people to death?
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