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> In other words, I think it's not StormFront that's "gaming" the system. The system is made of people, some of whom really really like StormFront, and Google's

> In other words, I think it's not StormFront that's "gaming" the system. The system is made of people, some of whom really really like StormFront, and Google's results (for better or worse) just reflect that reality. This needs to be more widely recognized. Google autocomplete results, fake news on Facebook, etc. are they way they are because a significant number of people lack critical thinking skills or seek affirmation of their current beliefs. People want to read those things -- if they didn't click on them, they would not end up being so visible. This means that tweaking Google's algorithm, or filtering fake news from Facebook, will backfire and appear to be censorship. It will drive the people who are interested in reading fake news to work harder to find it, and it will erode their trust in mainstream media. In other words, such a solution would worsen the problem it intends to solve. This isn't really a technical problem. It's a consequence of human nature, and I'm pessimistic about the viability of the technological solutions that have been proposed so far. This also reinforces my view that most people don't have good critical thinking skills. I've taught college students who would believe pretty much anything they read online. Nobody ever taught them that they should verify what they read before they believe it. I really wish school curricula would include better education in this area. But some of my Facebook friends who "like" the fake news stories are teachers, so I'm pessimistic about this as well.

justinph 10y ago
> This means that tweaking Google's algorithm, or filtering fake news from Facebook, will backfire and appear to be censorship. It will drive the people who are interested in reading fake news to work harder to find it, and it will erode their trust in mainstream media. In other words, such a solution would worsen the problem it intends to solve. Good. Make it hard to find. Make people have to dig into the vile corners of the internet to find it. Google isn't a public utility that is obligated to serve these hate groups. Stormfront doesn't have to be blocked from having their packets routed. Google just doesn't have to take any part in helping them surface their beliefs.
- halflings 10y ago
  Whether explicit or implicit, that would still be targeting certain opinion groups... because yes, antisemitism and many types of racism and hate speech are still just opinions until acted upon. If somebody is looking for hate speech, they should find hate speech. I understand that search engines should avoid promoting hate speech when it is not needed, but like the parent comment showed that is currently the case for Google.
  - fjdlwlv 10y ago
    Storefront is an interesting case because Southern Poverty Law Center has counted 100 murders committed by their users (or registered members, I forget which). I don't know stormfront's usage numbers, by I bet that's a pretty high ratio for a web site.
- prodigal_erik 10y ago
  Suppressing an idea gives it legitimacy. It looks like liberals don't believe their own arguments so they went with dirty tricks.
- twblalock 10y ago
  If Google does what you suggest, the far-right's claims about censorship and the mainstream media being out to get them will become true.
state_less 10y ago
Try getting anywhere near the same exposure if your site is on page 20 instead of page 1 of Google's search results. This isn't censorship. Lies are not relevant search results in general, nevermind a lies clickyness. It's pushing misinformation out of the public consciousness.
- keithnz 10y ago
  I think you want google to be something it's not. Lies / Truth are not googles goals. It reflects what people believe because they create content which is consumed and linked to by other people. Trying to work out what are lies/truth gets super super murky when it comes to religion. Not to mention people actually want to search for what people believe, I want to know what holocaust deniers think, I want to know what climate deniers think, that shouldn't be filtered from me. But, it exposes a bigger problem about the problem of consuming information, how we, as humans, determine what to believe when exposed to everyones beliefs. Especially for people who are young and can latch onto ideas very quickly.
  - state_less 10y ago
    Google's job is to give you relevant search results to queries. Putting misinformation at the top of the page is irrelevant and damaging to the goal of informing. For example questions like, "does global warming exist?" Notice link number 2. for that query. It's from a source townhall, this source is irrelevant, just as my opinion would be irrelevant on the matter of global warming. Whether a page has backlinks is irrelevant if it's full of lies. So push them down the page some, flagged as spam.
    - twblalock 10y ago
      > Whether a page has backlinks is irrelevant if it's full of lies. So push them down the page some, flagged as spam. Who would have the authority to do this, and why should they be trusted? How could we get rid of them when they start hiding true things they don't want people to know about? What would their job title be? Minister of Truth? (I suppose you'd need to get permission from Orwell's estate to use that title, which is probably a sign that you should think twice about what you're doing.)
caf 10y ago
This also reinforces my view that most people don't have good critical thinking skills. I've taught college students who would believe pretty much anything they read online. Nobody ever taught them that they should verify what they read before they believe it. My favourite recent example of this was some bullshit article being shared on Facebook, making the claim that "this December has 5 Saturdays, 5 Sundays and 5 Mondays, something that only happens every 823 years" and going on to make some numeralogical claims on this basis. OK, so the "every 823 years" bit false, but I can see that you might need more than the average amount of mathematical intuition to see that right away - but the claim that this December has 5 Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays is easily disproved by glancing at a calendar! Yet this was repeatedly re-shared by people who didn't even do this tiny amount of fact-checking that they were easily equipped to do (the device that they were reading Facebook with certainly had a calendar function!).
- xupybd 10y ago
  Yeah I came across the same thing. It was re-shared from several years ago, I didn't bother to check that it was true on that year, but that was also a red flag that it was false.
- candiodari 10y ago
  The problem is that the reverse is also true. The US and EU Governments expect us to believe things that are obviously untrue. The biggest current example, I think is the Syrian proxy war. Obvious reality is that the US caused the war, and the EU and US and Saudi Arabia are supporting it, and specifically supporting the rebel side that is committing ethnic and religious cleansing. And Obama is supporting it, and so is the EU. Meanwhile Russia based tv channels put out videos of rebels with suicide vests, and American equipment ... what conclusion are we supposed to draw ? The message of both US and EU and even Saudi Arabia's government is that they simply want to protect the local population. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the middle east know that if there is one thing the rebels will not do, it's protect the local population. I call bullshit. The economy is another. I find the state of the US economy as reported by the US government, especially where it comes to employment, to be very hard to believe. It just does not seem to match what is obvious when visiting relatives. But employment is one thing. Inflation is very much not what it is claimed to be (and Obamacare is a big factor in that - which seems convenient), but it's not just that. Rent, fuel, public transport, ... all of it just doesn't match what my eyes see, inflation-wise. I see about 6% inflation in a big middle-American city in my expenses. And some numbers themselves are equally in "how can that possibly be true ?" territory. Goods transferred, energy usage, building activity, all of these numbers are supposed to represent core parts of the economy. They're all significantly down, in some cases very significantly, and yet ... the economy grows pretty much exactly at the rate the government predicted it would ... A bit less, but not much. The EU ... same thing. France's economy is growing at 0.5% per year ? I call bullshit. 5% per year drop ... now that might be true. But anyone higher than a 2% per year drop just isn't a realistic figure for France. Marseille definitely has it worse than that, and even Paris is stagnant or slightly better than stagnant at best. Nobody is happy. Hell, even the numbers out of China on the economy are highly suspect. Exports are way down, obviously, by the measurement of what is being shipped out of China. Given that this has had zero effect on production, which has in fact gone up, one of two things has happened : either the internal market transformation has already happened (hah !), or they ... are ... bullshit. Judging by what I hear from Chinese people who have visited relatives but live in Australia it is very much the bullshit situation. The state of the refugee problem in the EU is another one. You have the public news flow about nothing being wrong, about the EU just peacefully absorbing some refugees, no problem. And then you have the reality leaks through moments, which are in fact being repressed by the press, and sadly here I know that for a fact. Cars, hundreds every weekend, are being torched in every large French city. Entire neighborhoods are no-go zones. There are "demonstrations" on a monthly basis in pretty much every large city in Holland, Belgium, France and Germany. I've seen 5 of them. 5 ! I am not really there that often. The amount of looting during those demonstrations is absurd (ie. walking through the shopping street on the day after has them looking like a warzone). The security measures shops are taking in response are also very, very visible. And yet in the newspapers ... nothing. You have to look on fora to find these events. On occasion glimpses of reality break through, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_S8eKMDlJk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_S8eKMDlJk, or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb3rNkkCAJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb3rNkkCAJY, or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbKS7tt6g-4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbKS7tt6g-4 (note how Syrian they look by the way. Reality is there is no Syrian refugee problem. There is a Middle African refugee problem, but "somehow" this has escaped the attention of newspapers). Another detail to escape the attention of everyone : at least 75% are very dark to black males aged 15-25 (likely not from Northern Africa as they use scarves and thick jackets even in 20-25 degree temperatures). There are almost no families among the refugees. Almost none at all. Given the composition of the refugee flow, they won't peacefully settle and join socity. They can't, if they wanted to, build families, as that requires a roughly 50-50 gender split. They certainly don't appear to want to) Thirdly, this whole Russia spying thing. The thing under investigation are wikileaks releases, or at least, that's a big part of it. So it comes down simply to ... do I believe Julien Assange, or do I believe Hillary Clinton ? Well sorry to put it like this, but there's no contest here. Julien Assange has built up a far higher level of trust, and for instance proven that Hillary is a warmonger, in direct contradiction to what she's saying publicly. So sorry to point this out, but again I'll be believing Assange here.

justinph 10y ago

> This means that tweaking Google's algorithm, or filtering fake news from Facebook, will backfire and appear to be censorship. It will drive the people who are interested in reading fake news to work harder to find it, and it will erode their trust in mainstream media. In other words, such a solution would worsen the problem it intends to solve. Good. Make it hard to find. Make people have to dig into the vile corners of the internet to find it. Google isn't a public utility that is obligated to serve these hate groups. Stormfront doesn't have to be blocked from having their packets routed. Google just doesn't have to take any part in helping them surface their beliefs.

halflings 10y ago
Whether explicit or implicit, that would still be targeting certain opinion groups... because yes, antisemitism and many types of racism and hate speech are still just opinions until acted upon. If somebody is looking for hate speech, they should find hate speech. I understand that search engines should avoid promoting hate speech when it is not needed, but like the parent comment showed that is currently the case for Google.
- fjdlwlv 10y ago
  Storefront is an interesting case because Southern Poverty Law Center has counted 100 murders committed by their users (or registered members, I forget which). I don't know stormfront's usage numbers, by I bet that's a pretty high ratio for a web site.
prodigal_erik 10y ago
Suppressing an idea gives it legitimacy. It looks like liberals don't believe their own arguments so they went with dirty tricks.
twblalock 10y ago
If Google does what you suggest, the far-right's claims about censorship and the mainstream media being out to get them will become true.

state_less 10y ago

Try getting anywhere near the same exposure if your site is on page 20 instead of page 1 of Google's search results. This isn't censorship. Lies are not relevant search results in general, nevermind a lies clickyness. It's pushing misinformation out of the public consciousness.

keithnz 10y ago
I think you want google to be something it's not. Lies / Truth are not googles goals. It reflects what people believe because they create content which is consumed and linked to by other people. Trying to work out what are lies/truth gets super super murky when it comes to religion. Not to mention people actually want to search for what people believe, I want to know what holocaust deniers think, I want to know what climate deniers think, that shouldn't be filtered from me. But, it exposes a bigger problem about the problem of consuming information, how we, as humans, determine what to believe when exposed to everyones beliefs. Especially for people who are young and can latch onto ideas very quickly.
- state_less 10y ago
  Google's job is to give you relevant search results to queries. Putting misinformation at the top of the page is irrelevant and damaging to the goal of informing. For example questions like, "does global warming exist?" Notice link number 2. for that query. It's from a source townhall, this source is irrelevant, just as my opinion would be irrelevant on the matter of global warming. Whether a page has backlinks is irrelevant if it's full of lies. So push them down the page some, flagged as spam.
  - twblalock 10y ago
    > Whether a page has backlinks is irrelevant if it's full of lies. So push them down the page some, flagged as spam. Who would have the authority to do this, and why should they be trusted? How could we get rid of them when they start hiding true things they don't want people to know about? What would their job title be? Minister of Truth? (I suppose you'd need to get permission from Orwell's estate to use that title, which is probably a sign that you should think twice about what you're doing.)

caf 10y ago

This also reinforces my view that most people don't have good critical thinking skills. I've taught college students who would believe pretty much anything they read online. Nobody ever taught them that they should verify what they read before they believe it. My favourite recent example of this was some bullshit article being shared on Facebook, making the claim that "this December has 5 Saturdays, 5 Sundays and 5 Mondays, something that only happens every 823 years" and going on to make some numeralogical claims on this basis. OK, so the "every 823 years" bit false, but I can see that you might need more than the average amount of mathematical intuition to see that right away - but the claim that this December has 5 Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays is easily disproved by glancing at a calendar! Yet this was repeatedly re-shared by people who didn't even do this tiny amount of fact-checking that they were easily equipped to do (the device that they were reading Facebook with certainly had a calendar function!).

xupybd 10y ago
Yeah I came across the same thing. It was re-shared from several years ago, I didn't bother to check that it was true on that year, but that was also a red flag that it was false.
candiodari 10y ago
The problem is that the reverse is also true. The US and EU Governments expect us to believe things that are obviously untrue. The biggest current example, I think is the Syrian proxy war. Obvious reality is that the US caused the war, and the EU and US and Saudi Arabia are supporting it, and specifically supporting the rebel side that is committing ethnic and religious cleansing. And Obama is supporting it, and so is the EU. Meanwhile Russia based tv channels put out videos of rebels with suicide vests, and American equipment ... what conclusion are we supposed to draw ? The message of both US and EU and even Saudi Arabia's government is that they simply want to protect the local population. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the middle east know that if there is one thing the rebels will not do, it's protect the local population. I call bullshit. The economy is another. I find the state of the US economy as reported by the US government, especially where it comes to employment, to be very hard to believe. It just does not seem to match what is obvious when visiting relatives. But employment is one thing. Inflation is very much not what it is claimed to be (and Obamacare is a big factor in that - which seems convenient), but it's not just that. Rent, fuel, public transport, ... all of it just doesn't match what my eyes see, inflation-wise. I see about 6% inflation in a big middle-American city in my expenses. And some numbers themselves are equally in "how can that possibly be true ?" territory. Goods transferred, energy usage, building activity, all of these numbers are supposed to represent core parts of the economy. They're all significantly down, in some cases very significantly, and yet ... the economy grows pretty much exactly at the rate the government predicted it would ... A bit less, but not much. The EU ... same thing. France's economy is growing at 0.5% per year ? I call bullshit. 5% per year drop ... now that might be true. But anyone higher than a 2% per year drop just isn't a realistic figure for France. Marseille definitely has it worse than that, and even Paris is stagnant or slightly better than stagnant at best. Nobody is happy. Hell, even the numbers out of China on the economy are highly suspect. Exports are way down, obviously, by the measurement of what is being shipped out of China. Given that this has had zero effect on production, which has in fact gone up, one of two things has happened : either the internal market transformation has already happened (hah !), or they ... are ... bullshit. Judging by what I hear from Chinese people who have visited relatives but live in Australia it is very much the bullshit situation. The state of the refugee problem in the EU is another one. You have the public news flow about nothing being wrong, about the EU just peacefully absorbing some refugees, no problem. And then you have the reality leaks through moments, which are in fact being repressed by the press, and sadly here I know that for a fact. Cars, hundreds every weekend, are being torched in every large French city. Entire neighborhoods are no-go zones. There are "demonstrations" on a monthly basis in pretty much every large city in Holland, Belgium, France and Germany. I've seen 5 of them. 5 ! I am not really there that often. The amount of looting during those demonstrations is absurd (ie. walking through the shopping street on the day after has them looking like a warzone). The security measures shops are taking in response are also very, very visible. And yet in the newspapers ... nothing. You have to look on fora to find these events. On occasion glimpses of reality break through, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_S8eKMDlJk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_S8eKMDlJk, or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb3rNkkCAJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb3rNkkCAJY, or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbKS7tt6g-4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbKS7tt6g-4 (note how Syrian they look by the way. Reality is there is no Syrian refugee problem. There is a Middle African refugee problem, but "somehow" this has escaped the attention of newspapers). Another detail to escape the attention of everyone : at least 75% are very dark to black males aged 15-25 (likely not from Northern Africa as they use scarves and thick jackets even in 20-25 degree temperatures). There are almost no families among the refugees. Almost none at all. Given the composition of the refugee flow, they won't peacefully settle and join socity. They can't, if they wanted to, build families, as that requires a roughly 50-50 gender split. They certainly don't appear to want to) Thirdly, this whole Russia spying thing. The thing under investigation are wikileaks releases, or at least, that's a big part of it. So it comes down simply to ... do I believe Julien Assange, or do I believe Hillary Clinton ? Well sorry to put it like this, but there's no contest here. Julien Assange has built up a far higher level of trust, and for instance proven that Hillary is a warmonger, in direct contradiction to what she's saying publicly. So sorry to point this out, but again I'll be believing Assange here.