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So, with the msm thoroughly discredited for all eternity by the events of early November, should infowars be afforded a higher degree of trust than say, the nyt

So, with the msm thoroughly discredited for all eternity by the events of early November, should infowars be afforded a higher degree of trust than say, the nytimes, reuters, etc?

cookiecaper 10y ago
The thread is kind of off-topic since we're talking about the overarching propaganda narrative here, not cherry-picked publications. I'm not looking to assign a trust rating to anyone in particular. I'm sure every outlet has strengths and weaknesses. The core issue is that Google's behavior indicates they no longer view themselves as a neutral, merit-driven internet index willing to accept the public's aggregate credibility sentiment. They now see themselves as a supervisor, an entity whose role is to ensure that the "wrong" things are not given publicity, despite the actual, reflected sentiment of Google users. There are surely pros and cons to that, but it's a diversion from Google's original mission, and it's reasonable to be skeptical about it.
- aswanson 10y ago
  Googles stated mission is "to make the world's information universally useful and accessible." By definition, this would mean to filter out disinformation. Your interpretation of this as an "aggregate credibility index" is demonstrably antithetical to the mission of spreading information. If the entire planet placed credibility in "1+1=7", the google calculator should not be rewritten to reflect global credibility scores.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    PageRank counted the number of inbound links to a page under the theory that the resources people were organically electing to point to were superior than others. This was and is the foundation of Google's search, and it's what allowed them to succeed against massive incumbents like Yahoo. The concept that the general public can tell what's worthwhile is the fundamental component of Google's success (as well as the theory behind news aggregators like reddit and this very platform). The theory was that most people would intrinsically reject falsehoods like 1+1=7 and that they would intrinsically gravitate towards facts like 1+1=2. It was an investment in the wisdom of crowds, in democracy. Perhaps this concept is no longer useful, but top-down editorialism is a departure from what most people perceive Google to be about, whether you agree that it's a good direction or not.
- SerLava 10y ago
  >Google's behavior indicates they no longer view themselves as a neutral, merit-driven internet index willing to accept the public's aggregate credibility sentiment. Their algorithms could never be described as accepting the public's aggregate credibility sentiment. Only view and citation frequency. If thousands of people mention/link to an article just to say "what a bunch of dreck, THIS publication is the problem with American discourse" Google would rank that article highly for whatever topic it addresses. Google is attempting to push its algorithms roughly closer to a merit-driven index that accepts the public's aggregate credibility sentiment. They have been pushing towards this end little by little for a long time. They already mostly solved the problem where medical questions were answered by ten psuedo-medical websites pushing deadly fake remedies and scamming the sick. Those results come up much less often now. Look up any common disease-- the blue thing on the right was provided by the Mayo Clinic and a huge team of doctors verifying facts. That was over a year ago I think.

So, with the msm thoroughly discredited for all eternity by the events of early November, should infowars be afforded a higher degree of trust than say, the nytimes, reuters, etc?

cookiecaper 10y ago

The thread is kind of off-topic since we're talking about the overarching propaganda narrative here, not cherry-picked publications. I'm not looking to assign a trust rating to anyone in particular. I'm sure every outlet has strengths and weaknesses. The core issue is that Google's behavior indicates they no longer view themselves as a neutral, merit-driven internet index willing to accept the public's aggregate credibility sentiment. They now see themselves as a supervisor, an entity whose role is to ensure that the "wrong" things are not given publicity, despite the actual, reflected sentiment of Google users. There are surely pros and cons to that, but it's a diversion from Google's original mission, and it's reasonable to be skeptical about it.

aswanson 10y ago
Googles stated mission is "to make the world's information universally useful and accessible." By definition, this would mean to filter out disinformation. Your interpretation of this as an "aggregate credibility index" is demonstrably antithetical to the mission of spreading information. If the entire planet placed credibility in "1+1=7", the google calculator should not be rewritten to reflect global credibility scores.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  PageRank counted the number of inbound links to a page under the theory that the resources people were organically electing to point to were superior than others. This was and is the foundation of Google's search, and it's what allowed them to succeed against massive incumbents like Yahoo. The concept that the general public can tell what's worthwhile is the fundamental component of Google's success (as well as the theory behind news aggregators like reddit and this very platform). The theory was that most people would intrinsically reject falsehoods like 1+1=7 and that they would intrinsically gravitate towards facts like 1+1=2. It was an investment in the wisdom of crowds, in democracy. Perhaps this concept is no longer useful, but top-down editorialism is a departure from what most people perceive Google to be about, whether you agree that it's a good direction or not.
SerLava 10y ago
>Google's behavior indicates they no longer view themselves as a neutral, merit-driven internet index willing to accept the public's aggregate credibility sentiment. Their algorithms could never be described as accepting the public's aggregate credibility sentiment. Only view and citation frequency. If thousands of people mention/link to an article just to say "what a bunch of dreck, THIS publication is the problem with American discourse" Google would rank that article highly for whatever topic it addresses. Google is attempting to push its algorithms roughly closer to a merit-driven index that accepts the public's aggregate credibility sentiment. They have been pushing towards this end little by little for a long time. They already mostly solved the problem where medical questions were answered by ten psuedo-medical websites pushing deadly fake remedies and scamming the sick. Those results come up much less often now. Look up any common disease-- the blue thing on the right was provided by the Mayo Clinic and a huge team of doctors verifying facts. That was over a year ago I think.