Semantic Manipulation is one of the most difficult problems to overcome with internet content, more-so within the context of searching.   In the following article we hope to educate you just what this means and just how bad a problem it can be, but also why we think directories can benefit over search engines when it comes to taking control of this phenomenon so widely abused.

So what is Semantic Manipulation?

Semantic manipulation can be defined as the ‘manipulation of words’.   In simpler terms, semantics is basically the way we interpret words and ‘manipulation’ is, well, what it says it is.
The animal Kingdom can give us two instant examples of where words or terms can be semantically manipulated, look at birds as an example of semantics, a ‘cock’ is male bird, a ‘tit’ is a type of bird, both these totally innocent bird related words can quite easily fall prey to semantics, we don’t think we need to expand on this.  It’s the same with terms like ‘teenage sex’ can certainly be misconstrued as something bad when in reality the search might be for a totally innocent reason like the pitfalls of ‘teenage sex’, statistics on ‘teenage sex’, and so on.    Because the word ’sex’ has been mentioned most filters instantly recognize this as a blacklisted word and the search suffers.

At the time of writing this text we did a test search using Google with the settings on ‘moderately safe’ so as not to totally block the word sex which might have been the case if it is was set to what Google term ‘Strict Filtering’.  Below are the results we obtained for the first page.   For obvious reasons, we’ve taken away the hyperlinks, also perhaps editing some text so as not to offend.

• Free Sex Pictures: Teen Sex, Busty Young Models, Nude Hot Babes …
• Facts on American Teens’ Sexual and Reproductive Health
• YouTube - Teenage Sex Fight
• Teen Pregnancy Prevention: Fact Sheets - Sex and Drugs

What this shows is that even on a ‘moderate’ setting the best search engine in the World still turns up pornography of a level which in our eyes shouldn’t just be banned it should be outlawed.   We’re not prudes, we just don’t believe in depravity, and believe us when we say some of this content was bordering on that!

Search Engine Results versus the Directory?

We found that even if search engines are set to ‘Strict Filtering’ they still fall short on providing safe results.   Even with the settings of one one of the most popular search engines put to this highest level of ‘Strict Filtering’ we found that it was actually open to worse semantic abuse!

For our experiment we typed in what perhaps the curious 13 year old teenage boy would type in using his ‘Parent Restricted’ search.  In this case it was ‘Pretty Teens’, we’re not even going to print what we found save to say we took a screenshot of the results as evidence of how disgusting material gets its way into even the heaviest filtered search.

As excellent as some search engines are at filtering, and in all honesty it was pretty good, it was still very unsafe.  No, we go even further than that; it was so disgusting that we decided to report it to the search engine in question.   What was worse is that semantics were being utilized to an even higher efficiency to such a degree that even we failed to understand what the result meant so out of necessity we went to check; The first shocking result didn’t take long to find, it was on the first page of results as well..

• Pretty teens in Bukkake action

Naively we though that this was some kind of Japanese martial art?, or perhaps something like Origami, it certainly sounds like, how far off the truth could we have been!

We genuinely wish we hadn’t investigated further but out of the need to support our research we did, and because of this we are not even prepared to divulge what bukkake is in the word here just in case the curious do a search on it. * We strongly advise NOT to check out what this term means.

If genuine researchers wish to obtain further information regarding these these results simply contact us and we’ll provide you with the link and or a watered down description.

The eye doesn’t lie!

The advantages of the human eye over search engines and their filters are huge, and certainly outweigh the deficits. A well edited directory such as ours simply won’t allow for such semantic manipulation, because it’s all but impossible to fool the human eye, (especially a trained one) a human reviewed directory is always going to be a far safer search environment than even the best filtered search engine.  The examples we gave above are heavily watered down, but even then we think we’ve demonstrated the inherent dangers of semantic manipulation.

As advanced as search engines may get they will never beat the human, that’s for sure, and because any language will always to some degree be open to semantic manipulation there will always remain a risk, this was pretty clear when we did a search using the filters on the search engines set to the highest levels!   There was no question that the results were better, but what we found happened was that the search engines had no way to discriminate between a good search using certain keyword, and a bad search.

This is one of the major hurdles that a search engine will always face.   Because they can’t fully distinguish right from wrong thier search quality will always remain open to compromise as illustrated above.  It was also pretty evident that they couldn’t recognise certain words or content cleverly disguised by the increasingly manipulative webmaster.

So is our directory totally safe?

There will never be a guarantee that any search is going to be 100% safe, even with the best editorial strategies in the world.   Because of the nature of the internet, and the fact it can change in content literally in seconds there will always remain a risk.   Any directory or search engine claiming othwerwise would be seriously miseleading you.

The risk however is greatly reduced with a family safe search directory like ours because we employ systems that alert us to content change which our editors quickly address.   Combine this with intial vigilance and the ability to prevent semantic manipulation and we’re already well ahead of the search engines.  Maintaining this editorial integrity by using an army of volunteers who report offending sites to us this allows us to keep on top of the results we provide which ultimately provides the searcher with the peace of mind that they are unlikely to find a much safer search than the well managed Directory.

Text kindly donated and copyright of the Cantufind Directory