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March 17, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Google “review teams” will begin to flag “upsetting-offensive” content in search results, meaning “better” content will rank higher. 

Google “hopes this will prevent such content from crowding out factual, accurate and trustworthy information in the top search results,” according to Search Engine Land. The new guidelines say offensive content includes “content that promotes hate or violence against a group of people based on criteria including (but not limited to) race or ethnicity, religion, gender, nationality or citizenship, disability, age, sexual orientation, or veteran status.”

The examples Search Engine Land reported indicate websites promoting racism and Holocaust denial would be flagged. So would a website titled “Proof that Islam is Evil, Violent, and Intolerant – Straight from the Koran.” 

“Being flagged as 'Upsetting-Offensive' by a quality rater does not actually mean that a page or site will be identified this way in Google’s actual search engine,” Search Engine Land reported. “Instead, it’s data that Google uses so that its search algorithms can automatically spot pages generally that should be flagged.”

One wonders how pro-life websites will fair under this new system, and what will happen to websites that promote Catholic or orthodox Christian teaching on marriage and human sexuality.