HACKER Q&A
📣 banmeagaindan2

Subtracting off unwanted porn results is not allowed anywhere – why?


Has anybody else noticed you cannot use the subtraction operator on any porn sites?

This strikes me as needing explanation. It is like a world for which every choice exists - except the choice to opt out.

There are people who want all the porn - there are people who want no porn - but between a bigger group has some fetishes and are disgusted by others. Why then does the standard negation operator not work on any mainstream porn channel?

I could make some guesses - but you have to admit this is a deliberate choice by the porn search engines - I know everybody on HN knows this is not a technical issue - so I'm asking if this is a known business decision or a known social intervention.


  👤 geoah Accepted Answer ✓
Could it have more to do with user experience than business or social reasons? ie people meaning to use dashes instead of the boolean operator and instead by mistake removing results from their searches?