5 ms·

Google Top Stories Serves Breitbart Bullshit on Climate Science

18 points by bogle 10y ago

bogle 10y ago
Umm, just ban Breitbart? Seems pretty simple! :)
- tropo 10y ago
  This helps build the business case for a conservative-leaning Google clone.
  - bogle 10y ago
    meh. People can already filter their searches with search operators, for instance, "-washingtonpost -jezebel -theguardian #makeamericagreatagain" for those on the right.
Chris2048 10y ago
I'd like to point out something - I admit Breitbart is biased, but a little balance is needed here; My google news suggestions are full of liberal news articles, not just WaPo, but random blog-like articles from sites I've never heard of, buzzfeed clones that could have been created just the previous week. I wonder why, because my you-tube suggestions are mostly Milo, Ben Shapiro etcetc - no suggestion I'm a Jezebel reader, yet I keep getting HuffPo articles put before my; Why is this? Are there just more of these sites on the internet, or is it a bias in google news?
- wj 10y ago
  I up-voted you because I didn't think you deserved to be down-voted and because I believe that there is a problem with including blog articles in news results because I think it waters down the word as few blogs do original reporting. Rather they just add spin. (I also don't think there is "liberal news" or conservative news. Rather there are different interpretations of facts. And because those generate so many arguments I think an interesting browser plugin would be one where readers could engage in a Lincoln-Douglas debate about questions raised by news.)
  - jpadkins 10y ago
    what's the difference between a blog and news?
    - wj 10y ago
      For me the distinction is that news organizations do original reporting while blogs usually do not.
    - bogle 10y ago
      Journalism is a discipline of verifying your sources. A news agency would be expected to do this but a blog may not.
  - bogle 10y ago
    "different interpretations of the facts" may be true sometimes but not in this specific example. Denying climate change makes as much sense, factually, as claiming the world is flat. As xkcd would have it, "Science. It works, bitches."
  - Chris2048 10y ago
    Sadly, it's possible I was down-voted for revealing that I like watching Milo / Shapiro vids, and dislike buzzfeed / HuffPo; In this case, I wasn't critical of them, just made the case that they are not to my tastes, given I that ask google not to show me similar sites. It would be nice if there were merely 'different' interpretations of the news, but I find that the biases fall on certain topics or talking points too often to not notice. The most infuriating aspect of this is the assumptions - the things that are assumed but not discussed. Incidentally, I'd include 'opinion' pieces in mainstream news outlets as similar to blogs - they also shouldn't be freely mixed in.
    - wj 10y ago
      I'm also not a fan of opinion pieces but I do like analysis (I really enjoy the Economist because they seem to do a better job providing context and analyzing the consequences of news events than most news sources.) I tend fall more on the liberal side (I like to call myself a liberal libertarian) and I am also not a fan of Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post. I don't consider them news organizations though. However I do consider Fox News a news organization and think they can do better. I expect a conservative slant but sometimes their home page resembles a supermarket tabloid too much for my tastes. For me I have given up on American news media pretty much entirely and use BBC News 30x more than CNN.

18 points by bogle 10y ago

bogle 10y ago

Umm, just ban Breitbart? Seems pretty simple! :)

tropo 10y ago
This helps build the business case for a conservative-leaning Google clone.
- bogle 10y ago
  meh. People can already filter their searches with search operators, for instance, "-washingtonpost -jezebel -theguardian #makeamericagreatagain" for those on the right.

Chris2048 10y ago

I'd like to point out something - I admit Breitbart is biased, but a little balance is needed here; My google news suggestions are full of liberal news articles, not just WaPo, but random blog-like articles from sites I've never heard of, buzzfeed clones that could have been created just the previous week. I wonder why, because my you-tube suggestions are mostly Milo, Ben Shapiro etcetc - no suggestion I'm a Jezebel reader, yet I keep getting HuffPo articles put before my; Why is this? Are there just more of these sites on the internet, or is it a bias in google news?

wj 10y ago
I up-voted you because I didn't think you deserved to be down-voted and because I believe that there is a problem with including blog articles in news results because I think it waters down the word as few blogs do original reporting. Rather they just add spin. (I also don't think there is "liberal news" or conservative news. Rather there are different interpretations of facts. And because those generate so many arguments I think an interesting browser plugin would be one where readers could engage in a Lincoln-Douglas debate about questions raised by news.)
- jpadkins 10y ago
  what's the difference between a blog and news?
  - wj 10y ago
    For me the distinction is that news organizations do original reporting while blogs usually do not.
  - bogle 10y ago
    Journalism is a discipline of verifying your sources. A news agency would be expected to do this but a blog may not.
- bogle 10y ago
  "different interpretations of the facts" may be true sometimes but not in this specific example. Denying climate change makes as much sense, factually, as claiming the world is flat. As xkcd would have it, "Science. It works, bitches."
- Chris2048 10y ago
  Sadly, it's possible I was down-voted for revealing that I like watching Milo / Shapiro vids, and dislike buzzfeed / HuffPo; In this case, I wasn't critical of them, just made the case that they are not to my tastes, given I that ask google not to show me similar sites. It would be nice if there were merely 'different' interpretations of the news, but I find that the biases fall on certain topics or talking points too often to not notice. The most infuriating aspect of this is the assumptions - the things that are assumed but not discussed. Incidentally, I'd include 'opinion' pieces in mainstream news outlets as similar to blogs - they also shouldn't be freely mixed in.
  - wj 10y ago
    I'm also not a fan of opinion pieces but I do like analysis (I really enjoy the Economist because they seem to do a better job providing context and analyzing the consequences of news events than most news sources.) I tend fall more on the liberal side (I like to call myself a liberal libertarian) and I am also not a fan of Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post. I don't consider them news organizations though. However I do consider Fox News a news organization and think they can do better. I expect a conservative slant but sometimes their home page resembles a supermarket tabloid too much for my tastes. For me I have given up on American news media pretty much entirely and use BBC News 30x more than CNN.