Google plans to change its search algorithm to prevent sites that extort people to remove slanderous content from appearing in search results for people's names
In response to Times articles, the search giant is changing its algorithm, part of a major shift in how Google polices harmful content.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google's move against slander-extortion sites extends a decade-long arc in which Times reporting and regulatory pressure have pushed the company to police harmful content through its ranking algorithm rather than case-by-case takedowns. The template was set when Google began removing nonconsensual explicit images from search results on request in 2015, followed by extending right-to-be-forgotten removals to all domains viewed from the EU.
Since then the pattern has broadened from removing specific links to reshaping rankings wholesale: the 2019 reworking of how original news reporting is ranked, the 2024 downranking of AI-generated content that summarizes others' work, and the 2024 rollout of tools to suppress explicit deepfakes at scale. The extortion crackdown is the first of these aimed squarely at sites whose business model depends on staying visible in name searches.
First-order effects
- Sites that extort people to remove slanderous posts lose their leverage in name searches, since their pages sink out of the results victims are most likely to see — attacking the demand side rather than chasing individual takedown requests.
- Reputation-victim customers who were previously pressured into paying these sites get a structural alternative: waiting out the demotion instead of negotiating with an extortionist.
Second-order effects
- Extortion operators face forced adaptation — toward platforms Google does not rank the same way, such as social media and direct outreach, shifting where harassment and reputational harm actually occur.
- Other large search and discovery platforms come under comparable pressure from journalists and regulators to show they are not the distribution layer for the same extortion economy.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, ranking itself becomes Google's principal content-governance instrument — a shift from court-style adjudication of individual URLs to class-of-harm demotions decided internally, raising questions about accountability that neither the 2015 nor 2016 precedents had to answer.
The trend: Google is steadily converting its search ranking system into a first-line content-moderation mechanism, expanding harm-by-harm from explicit images and right-to-be-forgotten links through AI spam and deepfakes to defamation-driven extortion.