Google's NSFW filter option SafeSearch has been updated to automatically hide explicit content from showing up in search results, which means you'll just have to be a lot more specific about what you're looking for when it comes to adult-only content. Read Google's official statement via CNET:

"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. 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."

Starting today, Russian authorities can blacklist and shut down access to websites containing alleged child pornography, as well as extremist, drug-related or otherwise illegal content without a due process. Since its passage in mid-July, the legislation has faced many criticisms for its open-ended implications and a concerted opposition from a coalition of Russian websites.

"Big ideas" conference TED came under fire today for apparently censoring a TED talk about income inequality and tax policy by Seattle-based venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, but TED founder Chris Anderson is saying that's not exactly what happened.

Apparently, the reason that Hanauer's talk wasn't posted to the TED website wasn't because -- as the speaker himself posited -- "[my] arguments threaten an economic orthodoxy and political structure that many powerful people have a huge stake in defending." It's because it just wasn't good enough.

Anderson:

[The censorship] story [is] so misleading [that] it would be funny […] except it successfully launched an aggressive online campaign against us. [...] [It's actually] a non-story about a talk not being chosen, because we believed we had better ones, [that] somehow got turned into a scandal about censorship. Which is like saying that if I call the New York Times and they turn down my request to publish an op-ed by me, they're censoring me.

Ouch.

Despite not making it to the TED site, Hanauer's talk is now online (and, judging by the audience reaction, it was actually quite well received).

[tnw]