6 ms·

What can Google do to prevent this from happening? If Google really wants to organize the worlds information and make it usable for everybody, they have to mak

What can Google do to prevent this from happening? If Google really wants to organize the worlds information and make it usable for everybody, they have to make sure Google news is a news source you can trust. Pagerank is not going to cut it. A couple of suggestions: - prevent less reputable websites from showing up for political queries at all - ignore articles with headlines in ALL CAPS - work with a dedicated team of editors, like politifact, to give websites an honestyrank - be transparent, show honesty rank in the search results Any other ideas?

jrnichols 10y ago
A start would not let anything that is run on Wordpress or Tumblr become the top news result for something. That's where most of the spam/fake websites seem to be these days.
- treehau5 10y ago
  Then you filter out legitimate news websites. source: run a legitimate news site built on Wordpress.
  - Nition 10y ago
    I assume you mean your site runs on a Wordpress back-end, but in the case of this article the dodgy 70 News site is literally running on Wordpress.com's free hosting (it's 70news.wordpress.com). I suspect that's what the original poster meant since they mentioned Tumblr as well.
    - treehau5 10y ago
      Oh ok, yes sorry misunderstood!
    - jrnichols 10y ago
      that's exactly what I meant, yes. I'm surprised that something on a *.wordpress.com domain is even ranking as high as it is!
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- szx 10y ago
  The following appear on Google News, aren't on Wordpress, and contribute their fair share of misinformation: http://www.infowars.com/ http://www.infowars.com/ http://usdefensewatch.com/ http://usdefensewatch.com/ http://therealstrategy.com/ http://therealstrategy.com/ http://www.neonnettle.com/ http://www.neonnettle.com/
mikeash 10y ago
I have the opposite question: what did Google do in order to allow this to happen in the first place? I thought the "news" results were supposed to be at least vaguely curated, and weren't just another way to show results from the entire web. How did 70news.wordpress.com end up in Google's list of "news" sites?
- hellofunk 10y ago
  I am compelled to agree that this seems like a deep flaw in google's ranking algorithm, at a minimum.
- Melk 10y ago
  By "top news link" the author is talking about the top link in Google's web search results. That website doesn't show up on news.google.com.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    It showed up under "news" for me. Not anymore, though. I assume they've fixed it. Edit: actually, it's still there if I use a desktop browser. It's on the main results page, but in the "in the news" section, not just in the main results.
valarauca1 10y ago
What can Google do to prevent this from happening? Actually very little. A strong argument can be made that market forces dictate people want their false opinions confirmed, and if you fail to provide that they will stop using your service. It is really no different then losing trust. If you assume a service as a bias, like say promoting an agenda you disagree with. You may start using that service less and less. Google combats this with individual search preferences. So it's search results rarely leave your internet safe space. If you promote a honesty index you lose this safe guard. Suddenly search results will challenge people's opinions, and they may stop using the service.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- dopamean 10y ago
  If we're calling this "fake" news because the facts being reported are actually lies then you're implying that people want to be lied to. I happen to think there is some truth to that but I doubt people would be willing to explicitly say "I want to be lied to by the news" as would be required for anyone to really complain about Google leaving fake news sites out of search results.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
camperman 10y ago
I got a couple: - Stop censoring searches based on political party - Stop working directly with political parties https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/12403 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/12403
- rashkov 10y ago
  That memo says nothing at all about censoring searches based on political party. It suggests working with technology companies to make good use of their beta programs and new platform features, which is something you can do yourself. Adding a scary wikileaks link shouldn't make your point for you
  - camperman 10y ago
    The link does not apply to the first point. Google censoring searches for Hillary's health for example is well documented. Re the second one, if I DON'T add a Wikileaks link then you'll complain the information is not sourced. So here's a more comprehensive one then: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-01/wikileaks-reveals-googles-strategic-plan-help-democrats-win-election http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-01/wikileaks-reveals-g...
    - rashkov 10y ago
      I am not seeing a smoking gun here, really the evidence presented is completely circumstantial and does not seriously support your assertion that Google is working directly with the Democratic Party. Yes, Eric Schmidt is a political operative now, and generally a lobbyist on behalf of Google. However the scare quote, about building a unified profile of a voter, absolutely does not indicate any data sharing between Google and the Clinton campaign! It's really sketchy of zero hedge to suggest that. Reading another article of theirs shows the same pattern. Leave the reader to make their own incorrect conclusions without providing any context. The article I'm seeing shows them quoting Putin who says that the west should allow for open discussion on all issues, instead of cracking down on his propaganda networks operating in the west. What hypocrisy! Russian media is one of the least free in the world! Zero hedge just lets him have the final word on their article, the reader left nodding his head in agreement with that Putin who tells the west how it really is. Disgusting.
mzw_mzw 10y ago
> work with a dedicated team of editors, like politifact, to give websites an honestyrank It turns out that PolitiFact is run by people who have their own unconscious biases and put their own thumbs on the scale. So now what?
- scholia 10y ago
  Politifact is biased in favor of truth and honest reporting. For which reason it has won a Pulitzer Prize and many other awards for outstanding journalism. Of course, people who don't want to hear the truth -- most Trump supporters, in my experience -- will deny reality or will try to undermine it in non-truthful ways. As a matter of fact, there are several other honest fact-checking sites besides Politifact. It would be somewhat interesting if these disagreed with Politifact's judgments, but they don't.
  - makomk 10y ago
    Which claims they consider worthy of examination, whether they choose to interpret the claims in a more or less favourable light, which figures they choose as their measure of things like inflation, and how important they consider any inaccuracies to the overall claim all act as thumbs on the scale. For example, I don't think they touched the claim that Trump has a secret communication channel with Russia, even though Clinton repeated it and demanded the FBI investigate it. (It was actually an entirely ordinary bulk email server sending out ads for Trump hotels.) A lot of people still seem to believe that one and think the FBI's rejection of it is proof they were conspiring to elect Trujmp.
    - scholia 10y ago
      They cover a lot, and they covered several with reference to Trump's ties to Russia. See below for some examples. Either way, it's certainly true that Trump repeatedly praised Putin, quoted Russian propaganda, disbelieved US intelligence about Russian hacking (it might have been an obese guy in a basement) and did nothing to disprove his links with Russia. This included being too scared to show his tax returns, which hasn't happened since Nixon. At least when you elected Nixon, you didn't know he was a crook. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/22/michael-morell/experts-say-donald-trumps-policies-dovetail-what-v/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/... http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/22/michael-morell/experts-say-donald-trumps-policies-dovetail-what-v/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/...
rhizome 10y ago
I would say Google has quite a task on their hand, and that truth-in-news recognition is much further behind than even facial recognition, which does not work in the wild.
icomefromreddit 10y ago
> work with a dedicated team of editors, like politifact, to give websites an honestyrank I'm sure that would work fine : https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/785299709342654465 https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/785299709342654465

jrnichols 10y ago

A start would not let anything that is run on Wordpress or Tumblr become the top news result for something. That's where most of the spam/fake websites seem to be these days.

treehau5 10y ago
Then you filter out legitimate news websites. source: run a legitimate news site built on Wordpress.
- Nition 10y ago
  I assume you mean your site runs on a Wordpress back-end, but in the case of this article the dodgy 70 News site is literally running on Wordpress.com's free hosting (it's 70news.wordpress.com). I suspect that's what the original poster meant since they mentioned Tumblr as well.
  - treehau5 10y ago
    Oh ok, yes sorry misunderstood!
  - jrnichols 10y ago
    that's exactly what I meant, yes. I'm surprised that something on a *.wordpress.com domain is even ranking as high as it is!
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
szx 10y ago
The following appear on Google News, aren't on Wordpress, and contribute their fair share of misinformation: http://www.infowars.com/ http://www.infowars.com/ http://usdefensewatch.com/ http://usdefensewatch.com/ http://therealstrategy.com/ http://therealstrategy.com/ http://www.neonnettle.com/ http://www.neonnettle.com/

mikeash 10y ago

I have the opposite question: what did Google do in order to allow this to happen in the first place? I thought the "news" results were supposed to be at least vaguely curated, and weren't just another way to show results from the entire web. How did 70news.wordpress.com end up in Google's list of "news" sites?

hellofunk 10y ago
I am compelled to agree that this seems like a deep flaw in google's ranking algorithm, at a minimum.
Melk 10y ago
By "top news link" the author is talking about the top link in Google's web search results. That website doesn't show up on news.google.com.
- mikeash 10y ago
  It showed up under "news" for me. Not anymore, though. I assume they've fixed it. Edit: actually, it's still there if I use a desktop browser. It's on the main results page, but in the "in the news" section, not just in the main results.

valarauca1 10y ago

What can Google do to prevent this from happening? Actually very little. A strong argument can be made that market forces dictate people want their false opinions confirmed, and if you fail to provide that they will stop using your service. It is really no different then losing trust. If you assume a service as a bias, like say promoting an agenda you disagree with. You may start using that service less and less. Google combats this with individual search preferences. So it's search results rarely leave your internet safe space. If you promote a honesty index you lose this safe guard. Suddenly search results will challenge people's opinions, and they may stop using the service.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dopamean 10y ago
If we're calling this "fake" news because the facts being reported are actually lies then you're implying that people want to be lied to. I happen to think there is some truth to that but I doubt people would be willing to explicitly say "I want to be lied to by the news" as would be required for anyone to really complain about Google leaving fake news sites out of search results.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

camperman 10y ago

I got a couple: - Stop censoring searches based on political party - Stop working directly with political parties https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/12403 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/12403

rashkov 10y ago
That memo says nothing at all about censoring searches based on political party. It suggests working with technology companies to make good use of their beta programs and new platform features, which is something you can do yourself. Adding a scary wikileaks link shouldn't make your point for you
- camperman 10y ago
  The link does not apply to the first point. Google censoring searches for Hillary's health for example is well documented. Re the second one, if I DON'T add a Wikileaks link then you'll complain the information is not sourced. So here's a more comprehensive one then: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-01/wikileaks-reveals-googles-strategic-plan-help-democrats-win-election http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-01/wikileaks-reveals-g...
  - rashkov 10y ago
    I am not seeing a smoking gun here, really the evidence presented is completely circumstantial and does not seriously support your assertion that Google is working directly with the Democratic Party. Yes, Eric Schmidt is a political operative now, and generally a lobbyist on behalf of Google. However the scare quote, about building a unified profile of a voter, absolutely does not indicate any data sharing between Google and the Clinton campaign! It's really sketchy of zero hedge to suggest that. Reading another article of theirs shows the same pattern. Leave the reader to make their own incorrect conclusions without providing any context. The article I'm seeing shows them quoting Putin who says that the west should allow for open discussion on all issues, instead of cracking down on his propaganda networks operating in the west. What hypocrisy! Russian media is one of the least free in the world! Zero hedge just lets him have the final word on their article, the reader left nodding his head in agreement with that Putin who tells the west how it really is. Disgusting.

mzw_mzw 10y ago

> work with a dedicated team of editors, like politifact, to give websites an honestyrank It turns out that PolitiFact is run by people who have their own unconscious biases and put their own thumbs on the scale. So now what?

scholia 10y ago
Politifact is biased in favor of truth and honest reporting. For which reason it has won a Pulitzer Prize and many other awards for outstanding journalism. Of course, people who don't want to hear the truth -- most Trump supporters, in my experience -- will deny reality or will try to undermine it in non-truthful ways. As a matter of fact, there are several other honest fact-checking sites besides Politifact. It would be somewhat interesting if these disagreed with Politifact's judgments, but they don't.
- makomk 10y ago
  Which claims they consider worthy of examination, whether they choose to interpret the claims in a more or less favourable light, which figures they choose as their measure of things like inflation, and how important they consider any inaccuracies to the overall claim all act as thumbs on the scale. For example, I don't think they touched the claim that Trump has a secret communication channel with Russia, even though Clinton repeated it and demanded the FBI investigate it. (It was actually an entirely ordinary bulk email server sending out ads for Trump hotels.) A lot of people still seem to believe that one and think the FBI's rejection of it is proof they were conspiring to elect Trujmp.
  - scholia 10y ago
    They cover a lot, and they covered several with reference to Trump's ties to Russia. See below for some examples. Either way, it's certainly true that Trump repeatedly praised Putin, quoted Russian propaganda, disbelieved US intelligence about Russian hacking (it might have been an obese guy in a basement) and did nothing to disprove his links with Russia. This included being too scared to show his tax returns, which hasn't happened since Nixon. At least when you elected Nixon, you didn't know he was a crook. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/22/michael-morell/experts-say-donald-trumps-policies-dovetail-what-v/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/... http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/22/michael-morell/experts-say-donald-trumps-policies-dovetail-what-v/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/...

rhizome 10y ago

I would say Google has quite a task on their hand, and that truth-in-news recognition is much further behind than even facial recognition, which does not work in the wild.

icomefromreddit 10y ago

> work with a dedicated team of editors, like politifact, to give websites an honestyrank I'm sure that would work fine : https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/785299709342654465 https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/785299709342654465