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You think holocaust denial sites are high quality sources of information? If you asked a librarian for information about the holocaust would they present you wi

You think holocaust denial sites are high quality sources of information? If you asked a librarian for information about the holocaust would they present you with this information? Nope.

inimino 10y ago
Google is not a librarian. The expectation of search engines in the early days was that they were neutral parties and reflected whatever ideas were current on the Web itself. Since then, people gaming Google results for political reasons, and the occasional Google countermeasures such as this one, have become routine. In the current climate the technological gatekeepers are being explicitly politicized very quickly. To me this is part of a rejection of personal responsibility for political opinions and an urge to lay blame. I wonder if we won't soon see distinct social media and even search engines with distinct political biases, as we do already with traditional media.
- wcummings 10y ago
  PageRank is hardly neutral. I don't believe this was ever an expectation among educated users. The number of back links a site gets, or its gov/edu tld have nothing to do with its content.
  - inimino 10y ago
    It's an algorithm, so it is by definition neutral with regard to things that are invisible to algorithms. Back links are (were) a proxy for content quality, as are domains. Setting per-domain weights is not neutral, but incoming links as a measure is. That is to say, it is not open to political bias on the part of Google. The shift towards increasing political interference with these algorithms raises additional issues. Google becomes responsible for what you are able to see, rather than just showing you what exists on the web relevant to your query. You may remember that Google exited the world's largest market some time ago precisely because they were not willing to accept political influence on search results.
    - wcummings 10y ago
      Not to be too glib, but not denying the Holocaust is a good proxy for quality content. "Political bias" has nothing to do with it, whether the Holocaust happened is a matter of fact, not political opinion. You can't fault Google for removing disinformation.
      - inimino 10y ago
        You can't depoliticize history. History is inherently political. Either stating or denying historical fact is political speech. Indeed, you are being glib because this happens to be a clear cut issue. Precisely because it is a clear cut issue, it is also totally irrelevant in this particular case. The tiny minority of deniers will still be a tiny minority whether Google tweaks its search results or not. If not for some outrage-baiting journos, none of us would ever have seen or cared about these search results. The cases where this matters are precisely those where things are not so clear cut. Who do you want to define disinformation when it is not so clear? Google employees?
kbart 10y ago
"If you asked a librarian for information about the holocaust would they present you with this information? Nope." If it's non-biased library, of course they would. There are plenty of books that deny holocaust or at least doubt it's popular version.

You think holocaust denial sites are high quality sources of information? If you asked a librarian for information about the holocaust would they present you with this information? Nope.

inimino 10y ago

Google is not a librarian. The expectation of search engines in the early days was that they were neutral parties and reflected whatever ideas were current on the Web itself. Since then, people gaming Google results for political reasons, and the occasional Google countermeasures such as this one, have become routine. In the current climate the technological gatekeepers are being explicitly politicized very quickly. To me this is part of a rejection of personal responsibility for political opinions and an urge to lay blame. I wonder if we won't soon see distinct social media and even search engines with distinct political biases, as we do already with traditional media.

wcummings 10y ago
PageRank is hardly neutral. I don't believe this was ever an expectation among educated users. The number of back links a site gets, or its gov/edu tld have nothing to do with its content.
- inimino 10y ago
  It's an algorithm, so it is by definition neutral with regard to things that are invisible to algorithms. Back links are (were) a proxy for content quality, as are domains. Setting per-domain weights is not neutral, but incoming links as a measure is. That is to say, it is not open to political bias on the part of Google. The shift towards increasing political interference with these algorithms raises additional issues. Google becomes responsible for what you are able to see, rather than just showing you what exists on the web relevant to your query. You may remember that Google exited the world's largest market some time ago precisely because they were not willing to accept political influence on search results.
  - wcummings 10y ago
    Not to be too glib, but not denying the Holocaust is a good proxy for quality content. "Political bias" has nothing to do with it, whether the Holocaust happened is a matter of fact, not political opinion. You can't fault Google for removing disinformation.
    - inimino 10y ago
      You can't depoliticize history. History is inherently political. Either stating or denying historical fact is political speech. Indeed, you are being glib because this happens to be a clear cut issue. Precisely because it is a clear cut issue, it is also totally irrelevant in this particular case. The tiny minority of deniers will still be a tiny minority whether Google tweaks its search results or not. If not for some outrage-baiting journos, none of us would ever have seen or cared about these search results. The cases where this matters are precisely those where things are not so clear cut. Who do you want to define disinformation when it is not so clear? Google employees?

kbart 10y ago

"If you asked a librarian for information about the holocaust would they present you with this information? Nope." If it's non-biased library, of course they would. There are plenty of books that deny holocaust or at least doubt it's popular version.