HACKER Q&A
📣 d-z-m

Why is 1776 a black-holed keyword on YouTube?


If the keyword "1776" appears anywhere in your YouTube search, the auto-complete functionality vanishes. As far as I can tell, this is not the case with any other important year. Does anyone know why this is the case?


  👤 akuchling Accepted Answer ✓
Probably for far-right reasons; January 6th was called a "1776 Moment" by Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, and the Proud Boys once sold merchandise with 1776 on it. So auto-complete on its own probably suggests a bunch of alt-right terms.

👤 PaulHoule
I’d imagine it is appropriated by people like the Jan 6 rioters or the folks who think it is not patriotic enough to fly an American flag so they have to grey it out and turn one stripe blue…. Stuff like that, people who think the symbols of America belong to only some Americans as opposed to all of us.

👤 defrost
It's locale related, from Australia I get multiple completions, the first of which is

1776cc vw engine

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=1776cc+vw+engin...

which is 100% not related to my search history (scrubbed cookies, weekly VM reset, no particular interest in cars or engine blocks).

There are many history and controversy related suggested completions for "1788".


👤 julienreszka
I confirm that I could reproduce the bug. I use YouTube France

👤 sys32768
I also get no auto-complete from "In Congress, July 4, 1776" or even "In Congress, J" even though "In Congress, K" does give autocompletes.

There could be Loyalist programmers employed by YouTube who are still holding out digitally against the rebel colonists.


👤 tuckerpo
It's confirmed: Google is run by Redcoats.

👤 bsuvc
Also, it appears to never suggest an autocomplete containing the number 1776 either.

For example, if I type "July 4 177" it shows "July 4 1774" and "July 4 1775", but not "July 4 1776".

This obviously is intentional, but why? Searching for 1776 still produces results, but why censor the auto-complete?

I find if I type some other obviously controversial phrases, it auto-completes for them.


👤 nickdothutton
If stomping on 1776 searches and recommendations doesn’t impact ad revenue significantly, then Google can do it with no meaningful downside.

👤 BearhatBeer
Government censorship nannies from, likely, the FBI (re: Twitter Files), in their partnership with YouTube, decided that's bad and they don't want people searching for it. Turns out all this corporate censorship that's been going on, which is heckin' OK because it's just CORPORATE censorship, is government censorship too. But it's cool because it's designed to stop fascism, NOT democratic socialism.

Slava Ukrainia!


👤 hnburnsy
Looks like the July 4th Google Doodle was celebrating Americas independence. https://www.google.com/doodles/fourth-of-july-2023

👤 edgarvaldes
Interesting how this very thread will reinforce (for Google indexer) the unwanted associations between the number and the other terms.

👤 Etrnl_President
Because 1776 is the answer to 1984?