Google no longer lists the National Rifle Association as a "human rights group" following a Raw Story article last week that highlighted Google's own search description of the gun rights organization.
Google did not return Raw Story requests for comments about the change, which affects the NRA's prominently placed "knowledge panel" — a Google-generated box containing descriptive and statistical information that appears when someone searches for the group.
"Human rights group” has been listed immediately below the NRA’s name and next to the organization’s logo.
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Google spokesperson Colette Garcia previously declined to answer specific questions about her company's description of the NRA, which anti-gun advocates consider complicit in a sharp rise in firearms-related deaths throughout the United States.
Instead, Garcia emailed links to two Google primers on “knowledge panels,” including a 2020 blog item that explains how Google’s “knowledge graph” — a system that “understands facts and information about entities from materials shared across the web, as well as from open source and licensed databases” — populates knowledge panels on notable groups such as the NRA.
Google’s blog item notes that “inaccuracies in the knowledge graph can occasionally happen” and invites feedback from users who may consider something amiss.
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“We analyze feedback like this to understand how any actual inaccuracies got past our systems, so that we can make improvements generally across the knowledge graph overall,” Google’s blog item reads. “We also remove inaccurate facts that come to our attention for violating our policies, especially prioritizing issues relating to public interest topics such as civic, medical, scientific, and historical issues or where there’s a risk of serious and immediate harm.”
The NRA self-identifies in variety of ways: “America's longest-standing civil rights organization,” “foremost defender of Second Amendment rights,” “premier firearms education organization,” “major political force,” winner of “big battles for your gun rights.”
While the NRA occasionally has argued that “self-defense is a basic human right,” such as in a statement from 2008, it does not overtly advertise itself as a human rights group.
The NRA did not return Raw Story's requests for comment.
Google's "knowledge panel" for the National Rifle Association (right side) listed the organization as a "human rights group" until late last week. (Source: Google)
Current'y, Google's "knowledge panel" for the National Rifle Association (right side) does not list the organization as a "human rights group." (Source: Google)
