On heartfelt discursive uses of Google autocomplete

There are two recent examples of search autocompletes (search predictions or search suggestions) in Google Search being used to help people think or feel a particular way. I think the claims are unfounded (or at least incomplete), even if effective or well-meaning because (1) search queries are not a perfect predictor of search intent and (2) autocompletes are not a perfect picture of actual searches.

Examples

It was easy to verify the actual autocompletes via searches of my own. Others also verified them on social media.

Comment

While perhaps discursively powerful (and maybe reflective of actual underlying reality), I do not think the claims made from these Google autocompletes or suggested searches are well-grounded. Autocomplete is designed to reduce keystrokes. While it can be used, as Francesca Tripodi (website | Twitter) notes, to add context and texture “to what’s going on in the world” (2022), it is not a comprehensive reflection of searching.

1. Search queries are not a perfect predictor of search intent

   • i.e. to (try to) purchase flights (a transactional query) or learn about them being cancelled (an informational query)?
   • i.e. to learn more about a topic (in exploratory search) or find a particular YouTube video (a navigational query or Known-item search)?
     • Or even the product of a ‘Google This Ploy’ (Caulfield, 2019); see comments from Mike Caulfield (website | Twitter) on the amplification of social bias and gaming in autocompletes (quoted below, in part)

2. Autocompletes are not a perfect picture of actual searches

   • Via Google Search Help > How Google autocomplete predictions work:

     These systems try to identify predictions that are violent, sexually explicit, hateful, disparaging, or dangerous, or which lead to such content."

   • It is possible that more popular topical queries that express a wide range of [why do…] are removed.

   • See commentary from Rosie Graham (website | Twitter) (2023) on these “exemption policies” (quoted below, in part)

Note: Some autocompletes rely more or less on localization. You can explore this by changing your location through a VPN, (as suggested down-thread in the first tweet), or, in Chromium browsers, through developer tools: Documentation > Chrome DevTools > Sensors: Emulate device sensors > Override geolocation

Related topics

• ‘Trending’ in search

Aside

Using suggests

See Ronald Robertson (website | Twitter)’s suggests to explore Google autocompletes programmatically (Robertson et al., 2019).

>>> import suggests
>>> s = suggests.get_suggests(‘flights to’, source=‘google’)
2023-10-10 13:39:09,681 | 35036 | INFO | suggests.logger | google | flights to
>>> s[‘suggests’]
[‘flights to israel’, ‘flights to vegas’, ‘flights to hawaii’, ‘flights to tel aviv’, ‘flights to vegas from seattle’, ‘flights to san diego’, ‘flights to miami’, ‘flights to las vegas’, ‘flights to maui’, ‘flights to hawaii from seattle’]
>>> s = suggests.get_suggests(‘why do’, source=‘google’)
2023-10-10 13:38:16,401 | 35036 | INFO | suggests.logger | google | why do
>>> s[‘suggests’]
[‘why does the us support israel’, ‘why does iran hate israel’, ‘why do dogs eat grass’, ‘why do dogs lick you’, ‘why do i sweat so much’, ‘why does my stomach hurt’, ‘why does egypt blockade gaza’, ‘why do cats knead’, ‘why do cats purr’, ‘why do cats make biscuits’]

Using Google Trends

• realtime search trends include this cluster
• delayed (does not include the last weekend, at the time of this writing); note the searches below are in English and focused on the US)
• https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=flights%20to%20israel&hl=en
  • Highest frequency for this search appears to be around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=why%20does%20the%20us%20support%20israel&hl=en
  • Highest frequency for this search appears to be around what Wikipedia calls the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, likely search intent is less asking the question then looking for a particular Noam Chomsky recording on YouTube (from Jul 02, 2016).
    • Here is a more recent recording with Chomsky on a panel: Prospects for Peace and Justice Israel and Palestine(organized by Boston Review and Standing Together)

Contemporaneous autocomplete on other search engines