TLDR; Google allows you to search any name and will auto fill the word Perjury after it when you start to type ‘perj’. However, when you type Ken’s name it does not auto complete the word perjury after it even after typing ‘perjury’ in full (unless you type his first name Kenneth, as shown below). Sus to say the least. Google… free the information. We need more eyes on the truth.
Try Ken instead of Kenneth, it doesn’t fill for me…
Have you seen “The Social Dilemma” (Netfl!x) or “The Creepy Line” (Amaz0n Prime)? [shout out to u/PapaTheSmurf] in the comments for the reference. If not, I recommend them. A good portion of the documentaries dives into the implicit and indirect powers of contained search networks for the distribution of information (the bubble of data that is provided to us by trusted sources: Go0gle, Fac3book, etc…). The fact that Go0gle categorizes what information is distributed when searching, is a powerful tool, up for sale (to a degree, and for a price one can accomplish a lot).
Go0gle’s auto-fill… and the fact that Go0gle can serve you up what it thinks you’re asking for, (we’ve all had that feeling at some point that it can read our minds, right?), is a very powerful aid in research, but can and is used to direct your focus in ways you may not be aware of. Go0gle makes money off of this. Go0gle would tell you, the level of control they have over this feature is harmless, and that they go to great lengths to ensure it’s not used for nefarious purposes. The data has always suggested otherwise (seriously watch that documentary mentioned above).
I promise I’ll tie this into K3n Griff1n in a moment, but first an example to demonstrate how this can be used. Thought experiment (set all your personal beliefs aside and imagine you’re a HS student for a moment, with no knowledge of politics, clear of opinions and biases — poof you’re a clean slate):
Let’s say your Civics (Government/History) teacher gave you an assignment look into a past president of your choice for a class. You’re not sure which one you want to write about so you start the name of presidents before you were born. You know very little, if anything about President Clinton — so you start to type his name…
Before you get to the letter n in his last name Go0gle has already suggested a few fills to your search and you subconsciously become aware impeachment (a hot topic in politics recently) is associated with his name. You’re in search mode, gathering information, first impressions — you may not realize how impressionable you are to what Google provides you. You also see this name, Monica Lewinsky, which doesn’t seem to fit (remember you’re a kid looking up info to write a paper), and you wonder ‘who is this, and why is the name so important to this president?’ — ‘Hillary doesn’t show up in this list, wasn’t she a presidential candidate recently’ you wonder?
You may click on the auto fill sending you down a path, which leads to a lot of information about Bill Clinton’s presidency from a center focus of his affair with Monica and impeachment. Wow you think, even presidential candidates aren’t immune from having a wife’s husband’s boyfriend girlfriend? To be fair, this was a defining moment of Clinton’s presidency (I think everyone can agree regardless of your stance on the guy), but that might not have been what you were after for your assignment. Regardless, you’ve been influenced from this information, and you make the decision to look up another president to write about… you want your assignment to matter, to focus on something you’re interested in…
How different might your first impression of Bill Clinton been if Go0gle had served you up what you were really thinking as you started typing…
Bringing this back to K3n Griff1n (why the brevity you ask, just in case his minions are searching, the 3 and the 1 makes a hurdle for them to jump on this with downvotes prior to it getting much attention, in theory; reality is, I know downvotes are coming, regardless). Here is a search of K3n Griff1n (without the brevity that is):
Mayo, nice (tee hee). popcorn (yep). No GME (really?)… No perjury (but it’s trending, majorly right now)… No Monika (ok ok, to be expected). So let’s add the p to help Go0gle out…
That plane though (we watchin)… Philanthropy (what a $#@%ing joke). Ok Go0gle, seriously, do I have to make it more obvious… I’ll spell it out for ya (literally).
What?! Seriously, ok so you’ve removed perjury from the search with Ken Griffin?
Let’s try Matt Griffin (I just made that up… sorry Matt Griffin if you exist and are reading this)
Interesting… Let’s try Matt Davis (another name I chose out of thin air, any association with a real Matt Davis is coincidence only).
It also suggests perjury by the letter r in perjury… For a control sample let’s try something ridiculous like fictional character
hot dog… I even searched my own name (my parents had a sense of humor in calling me Random)… and it auto filled perjury before I could get to the J.
FWIW, I don’t recommend doing this, because Go0gle likes to associate your searching (particularly of yourself) with reality. I just don’t care… and with a name like Mr. Name, I can hide in the noise. That is to say this doesn’t stop you from putting a random name in there (feel free to use mine). Try someone who hasn’t been convicted, but is under suspicion of perjury charges, and you’ll see it auto populate (in some cases, before you even get to the p in perjury).
But K3n Griff1n… doesn’t auto fill perjury, at all even after you type the full word in. Unless you search his name as Kenneth (as seen at the top of this post)… I wonder if that’ll be removed soon? Maybe he ran out of money to pay for that… short problems are real.
fwiw, I’ve used a VPN out of northern Europe, but I also changed to California and received the same results above. I’ve pinged a few friends to check and have gotten mixed results back from them. Some say that after searching for Griff1n once, then it auto populates to perjury after that, others are seeing similar results to what I’m seeing above.
Please let me know if you notice anything different.
Disclaimer: I have confirmed the following activity is currently being seen by at least a half dozen others as of the time of this posting. That said, I’m just one person and this is a small sample of people. Do your own searching and see what you find…
Edit: Typo
Edit 2: another minor typo
Edit 3: shout out to u/PapaTheSmurf for “The Creepy Line” reference (added above)
Edit 4: Thanks to u/EtherGorilla for the following comment (adding to the post for visibil1ty)
This is honestly really scary and I am trying to find a simple explanation but I can’t. I thought maybe it’s a famous person thing so I tried some random celebrities… nope. Perjury WILL autofill for Jennifer Lopez or Mariah Carey.
Let’s try some financial sector people… Vlad Tenev also will NOT autofill for perjury like Ken Griffin. So then I thought… maybe this is for all famous stock market people? So I tried Warren Buffet. Warren Buffet DOES autofill for perjury. This is really tripping me out!