Google tweaks image search results to make sexually-explicit images harder to find in U.S.

Google has made it harder to find po on the inteet - to the outrage of many users.

The world's number one search engine tweaked an algorithm for their image search database in the U.S. making it harder to find sexually-explicit images.

Immediately taking notice of the change on Wednesday, users launched a firestorm in online complaints stirring an explanation by Google that included a defense against allegations of 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,' Google said in a statement.

'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,' it continued.

Today flipping on the SafeSearch filter will entirely wipe clean any results for search words like 'po' or 'boobs.'

But tuing it off, users may find they have to be just a bit more specific to find more graphic content, if that's what they're looking for.

 

Off or on? Seen left, users can tu the SafeSearch option on or off during a U.S. Google search while right, three options for search results are seen for a U.K. Google search

'Oh great, now I have to explicitly state what I am looking for, which then gets saved to my search history so I can't pretend I just stumbled on it,' one Google user wrote to a report on the change by CNET.

Banding together on sites like Reddit to report and discuss the change, upset users shared their complaints and perhaps jests to check out other search engines for their future needs.

'...compare censorship between Google and Bing's search engines. I'd never thought I'd say this, but Bing.com is actually more useful at this moment,' a Reddit user wrote.