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Search Engine Suggests Kazakhstan is a “Satan's Den”

Categories: Central Asia & Caucasus, Kazakhstan, Citizen Media

Popular web search engines often have bizarre autocomplete suggestions. Kazakhstani blogger Fyodor Kovalyov writes [1] [ru]:

Сейчас решил узнать о наиболее значимых событиях уходящего года, произошедших в разных городах Казахстана, и пришёл в тихий ужас – если верить поисковой системе Yandex.kz [2], то мы живём, как минимум, в логове сатаны!

I have just tried to find out about the most significant events that have occurred in the various cities of Kazakhstan over the past year. The results are shocking: if one believes the search engine Yandex.kz [2] [Russian search engine popular in the country], we live in a Satan's den!

The blogger carried out several Yandex searches by typing in the word “in” followed by the names of major Kazakh cities in the search field. He then made screenshots of the generated autocomplete suggestions. If one believes the screenshots posted [1] [ru] by the blogger, Kazakhstan is a truly scary place. Kovalyov notes, however, that other search engines generate “more positive” autocomplete predictions about Kazakhstan.