The Googlization of Everything

Seattle Times Newspaper:

Swastika tops Google searches

By David Sarno

Los Angeles Times

The swastika, the symbol of Nazism, still provokes strong feelings of fear and anger. So it was something of a shock when late last week the swastika suddenly hit the top of Google's Hot Trends list, which tracks the 100 terms U.S. Google users are searching for most furiously. It hovered there for several hours. Then the swastika disappeared from the list.

It became the Web mystery du jour: How did the swastika get there, why did it become so popular and who, or what, caused its demise? The search for the answer sent Google-watchers on a chase that led through China, Tel Aviv, London and finally back to the secretive company's Silicon Valley, Calif., headquarters, from which Google issued a rare apology.

The tale began Thursday when Web users started to notice that one of Google's most intensively searched terms that morning was not a term at all, but a symbol — the swastika. Often, the terms on the list reflect a burst of interest in some news- or commerce-related event, and readers can use the list as a kind of cultural heat map — for example, when the iPhone 3G went on sale on Friday. Yet somehow the swastika had ascended to the top of the list without a single swastika-related news story or blog post.

Various theories made their way around. A blogger named Dan at a site called "tdaxp" noticed the strange phenomenon. "The swastika is a traditional Chinese good-luck character, the Olympics are coming up and good luck is on the Chinese mind."

Also, the Chinese media had just reported on a scandal: The owners of a commercial complex in the Xi'an province had adorned their building with a mural of what was described as "a long black train with a Nazi-inspired swastika" on the locomotive. Xinhua news agency quoted a bystander: "If it's creative, the businessmen were neglecting people's feelings; if that wasn't their intention, then they do not understand that part of history."

But these theories were discounted quickly: Google's Hot Trends samples only U.S. searches.

Meanwhile, there was the other, perhaps thornier issue of why the swastika suddenly disappeared from Google's Hot Trends list. Generally, when a term is searched by enough people to shoot it to the top spot, it takes hours for it to fade from the list. An initial inquiry to Google on what might have happened to the swastika was met with a cagey reply. Instead of saying why it vanished, Google suggested its own theory of why it had appeared.

An e-mailed statement suggested that the searches had come from "a popular Internet bulletin board," many of whose members were trying to "find out more about this symbol."

Enter 4chan, one of the Internet's most trafficked "image boards" — a place where members congregate to chat and swap photos and images — many of them related to Japanese anime cartoons. One particularly well-known section of 4chan is called "b" — a rowdy back channel filled with obscene images and profanity-riddled discussion.

Google, it turned out, was right — probably. There is no way to verify the chain of events, as 4chan posts are not archived and generally cycle out of view within minutes. And a moderator for 4chan said, "I've seen nothing to denote 4chan was involved at all." ...