There was a time when a casual Internet search for boobs turned up enough options in Google Images to keep even the choosiest of cha-cha appreciators happy— but no longer. Much to the dismay of certain types of Googlers (not us, of course), the search giant recently tweaked its SafeSearch algorithms, making it harder to find sexually explicit images even when the patented filter is turned off.
Now, users will have to be increasingly explicit in their search terms if they want to see explicit images in results. Under the new algorithms, a search for "boobs" turns up mostly clothed pictures even when SafeSearch is off. To get more topless images in your results, you'd have to search for "nude boobs."
In a statement to TheNextWeb, who initially reported on this story, Google said it doesn't consider the changes to search to be censorship.
"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," a spokesperson said. "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."
And all this time we thought the point of the Internet was not having to work to see boobs.
