Google has adjusted the way that its image search works, especially for those looking for naughty pictures and video.
The Verge has confirmed through cross-browser searches that explicit content is being filtered out for certain Google image search queries in the U.S. and U.K. Even people who have "safe search" turned off are affected.
What's interesting is that Google's German image search site seems to be exempt from the changes.
Google gave an official statement to CNET:
We are not censoring any adult content, and want to show users exactly what they are looking for -- but we aim not to show sexually-explicit results unless a user is specifically searching for them. We use algorithms to select the most relevant results for a given query. If you're looking for adult content, you can find it without having to change the default setting -- you just may need to be more explicit in your query if your search terms are potentially ambiguous. The image search settings now work the same way as in web search.
Instead of having three options for search safety (off, moderate, and safe) users are now only given two options, which simply let you turn safe search off or on. The setting is turned off at first but users are now presented with a pop-up warning when the search engine detects that you are searching for explicit content for the first time.
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