5 ms·

Controlling the information that we're exposed to is incredibly powerful. If you tweak the results - positively or negatively - it's easy to nudge, influence, a

Controlling the information that we're exposed to is incredibly powerful. If you tweak the results - positively or negatively - it's easy to nudge, influence, and eventually convince people of what you want. As I've cited often: > "We predicted that our manipulation would produce a very small effect, if any, but that’s not what we found. On average, we were able to shift the proportion of people favouring any given candidate by more than 20 per cent overall and more than 60 per cent in some demographic groups. Even more disturbing, 99.5 per cent of our participants showed no awareness that they were viewing biased search rankings – in other words, that they were being manipulated." Ref: https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-alters-our-thoughts https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-...

doctorless 9y ago
It's interesting. I conducted an experiment on various forms of social media using a form of advanced chatbots of my own creation and found similar results. I'm not surprised to see others found the same results by different means. It's all in the ability to put people into echo chambers. Worse, the effect is reinforcing. Once you've stopped the influence, the group dynamics stay in tact, and help reinforce the effects.
anotherbrownguy 9y ago
One example of Google trying to manipulate the last US elections: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/09/13/hillary-google-bias-confirmed-experiment/ http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/09/13/hillary-google-bias...
- IMTDb 9y ago
  Yeah breitbart is probably the most neutral source on this issue.
  - kiproping 9y ago
    Are there any truly non-biased news sources left anymore?
    - krapp 9y ago
      Are you implying that because bias exists, all news sources are equally credible?
      - yahna 9y ago
        It's just whataboutism and false equivalencies. Standard tactics.
    - JBReefer 9y ago
      No, but I believe you can trust those that are open about their biases. For example, The Economist is very, very open about being a pro-free trade, pro-free market, pro-individual rights organ, in the tradition of classical liberalism. When you read a piece on, say, immigration in The Economist, you can suss the truth out because of this. Like it or not, the same is probably true of Breitbart - for example, I'd take their coverage of Chicago gun violence with a grain of salt, but would probably pa attention to their coverage of the opioid crises, than the ivory tower view of the NY Times. What scares me more is when organizations claim to be impartial, like Google, Facebook, or the Times. Claiming to be impartial is claiming to represent absolute truth.
  - anotherbrownguy 9y ago
    Why does it matter it is "biased"? It was the only mainstream news agency that reported this in this detail. Other news outlets reported it too: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/06/10/google-says-search-isnt-biased-toward-hillary-clinton/85725014/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/06/10/google-s... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3785801/Is-Google-manipulating-autocomplete-results-favor-Clinton.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3785801/Is-Google-ma... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/google-denies-manipulating-search-results-to-favor-hillary-clinton/article/2593562 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/google-denies-manipulating... https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2017/05/30/google-gave-hillary-clinton-popular-vote-victory/ https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2017/05/30/google-gave-hill... I checked it myself during the time and Breitbart article is entirely correct.
    - caseysoftware 9y ago
      But but but.. an unperson said it, therefore it is false and a half step from heresy.
      - zentiggr 9y ago
        Doubleplusungoodspeak
    - yahna 9y ago
      > Why does it matter it is "biased"? because "Biased" isn't really the term that Breitbart deserves. "liars", "frauds", "propaganda" are closer.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  They're parroting a biased source (#3) reporting a ludicrous "experiment" from a biased (#2) conspiracy theorising (#1) actor. It's a dog shit story from front to back. 1. He's tried this claim before - http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/google-2016-election-121766 http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/google-2016-e... 2. He has previous with Google which makes him egregiously biased against them - https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/one-mans-fight-with-google-over-a-security-warning/ https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/one-mans-fight-wit... 3. Sputnik News is a Russian government controlled news agency and therefore somewhat unreliable in the best of cases etc. etc. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Epstein's institute turned out to be Russian funded.
a_imho 9y ago
Looking ahead to the November 2016 US presidential election, I see clear signs that Google is backing Hillary Clinton. Disclaimer, as a European I only loosely followed the election and our local media was very much pro Hillary. I had the image everyone concluded her presidency was in the bag and the election was a mere formality, in fact Trump's campaign was described as an elaborate trolling attempt until winning the republican nomination. However the results (with a good deal of hindsight) seems to show the internet/media's ability to influence opinions is much smaller then they predict.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > the results (with a good deal of hindsight) seems to show the internet/media's ability to influence opinions is much smaller On the contrary, it shows that it can swing an election even in just the last few days - witness the orgiastic coverage from the press of Comey's -complete- non-announcement about Weiner's laptop. That swung a significant number of undecideds to Trump in the days following. (And this is ignoring the previous year of "BUT HER EMAILS" coverage that was complete bullshit whilst ignoring the actually important things that Trump was saying and doing.) (Also ignoring the Russian troll army promoting Trump on Twitter etc. because we don't have enough details on what they did yet.)
- doktrin 9y ago
  > However the results (with a good deal of hindsight) seems to show the internet/media's ability to influence opinions is much smaller then they predict. On the contrary. The internet & media's ability to influence opinions was on full display this last election. Trump won because of the internet, not despite it.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    Yeah, the Trump campaign spent tens of millions of dollars more than Clinton on online advertising, using the profiles they have of most of the country to target people they believed they could influence in states they believed would be close. https://www.wired.com/2016/11/facebook-won-trump-election-not-just-fake-news/ https://www.wired.com/2016/11/facebook-won-trump-election-no... https://medium.com/startup-grind/how-the-trump-campaign-built-an-identity-database-and-used-facebook-ads-to-win-the-election-4ff7d24269ac https://medium.com/startup-grind/how-the-trump-campaign-buil...

doctorless 9y ago

It's interesting. I conducted an experiment on various forms of social media using a form of advanced chatbots of my own creation and found similar results. I'm not surprised to see others found the same results by different means. It's all in the ability to put people into echo chambers. Worse, the effect is reinforcing. Once you've stopped the influence, the group dynamics stay in tact, and help reinforce the effects.

anotherbrownguy 9y ago

One example of Google trying to manipulate the last US elections: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/09/13/hillary-google-bias-confirmed-experiment/ http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/09/13/hillary-google-bias...

IMTDb 9y ago
Yeah breitbart is probably the most neutral source on this issue.
- kiproping 9y ago
  Are there any truly non-biased news sources left anymore?
  - krapp 9y ago
    Are you implying that because bias exists, all news sources are equally credible?
    - yahna 9y ago
      It's just whataboutism and false equivalencies. Standard tactics.
  - JBReefer 9y ago
    No, but I believe you can trust those that are open about their biases. For example, The Economist is very, very open about being a pro-free trade, pro-free market, pro-individual rights organ, in the tradition of classical liberalism. When you read a piece on, say, immigration in The Economist, you can suss the truth out because of this. Like it or not, the same is probably true of Breitbart - for example, I'd take their coverage of Chicago gun violence with a grain of salt, but would probably pa attention to their coverage of the opioid crises, than the ivory tower view of the NY Times. What scares me more is when organizations claim to be impartial, like Google, Facebook, or the Times. Claiming to be impartial is claiming to represent absolute truth.
- anotherbrownguy 9y ago
  Why does it matter it is "biased"? It was the only mainstream news agency that reported this in this detail. Other news outlets reported it too: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/06/10/google-says-search-isnt-biased-toward-hillary-clinton/85725014/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/06/10/google-s... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3785801/Is-Google-manipulating-autocomplete-results-favor-Clinton.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3785801/Is-Google-ma... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/google-denies-manipulating-search-results-to-favor-hillary-clinton/article/2593562 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/google-denies-manipulating... https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2017/05/30/google-gave-hillary-clinton-popular-vote-victory/ https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2017/05/30/google-gave-hill... I checked it myself during the time and Breitbart article is entirely correct.
  - caseysoftware 9y ago
    But but but.. an unperson said it, therefore it is false and a half step from heresy.
    - zentiggr 9y ago
      Doubleplusungoodspeak
  - yahna 9y ago
    > Why does it matter it is "biased"? because "Biased" isn't really the term that Breitbart deserves. "liars", "frauds", "propaganda" are closer.
zimpenfish 9y ago
They're parroting a biased source (#3) reporting a ludicrous "experiment" from a biased (#2) conspiracy theorising (#1) actor. It's a dog shit story from front to back. 1. He's tried this claim before - http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/google-2016-election-121766 http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/google-2016-e... 2. He has previous with Google which makes him egregiously biased against them - https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/one-mans-fight-with-google-over-a-security-warning/ https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/one-mans-fight-wit... 3. Sputnik News is a Russian government controlled news agency and therefore somewhat unreliable in the best of cases etc. etc. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Epstein's institute turned out to be Russian funded.

a_imho 9y ago

Looking ahead to the November 2016 US presidential election, I see clear signs that Google is backing Hillary Clinton. Disclaimer, as a European I only loosely followed the election and our local media was very much pro Hillary. I had the image everyone concluded her presidency was in the bag and the election was a mere formality, in fact Trump's campaign was described as an elaborate trolling attempt until winning the republican nomination. However the results (with a good deal of hindsight) seems to show the internet/media's ability to influence opinions is much smaller then they predict.

zimpenfish 9y ago
> the results (with a good deal of hindsight) seems to show the internet/media's ability to influence opinions is much smaller On the contrary, it shows that it can swing an election even in just the last few days - witness the orgiastic coverage from the press of Comey's -complete- non-announcement about Weiner's laptop. That swung a significant number of undecideds to Trump in the days following. (And this is ignoring the previous year of "BUT HER EMAILS" coverage that was complete bullshit whilst ignoring the actually important things that Trump was saying and doing.) (Also ignoring the Russian troll army promoting Trump on Twitter etc. because we don't have enough details on what they did yet.)
doktrin 9y ago
> However the results (with a good deal of hindsight) seems to show the internet/media's ability to influence opinions is much smaller then they predict. On the contrary. The internet & media's ability to influence opinions was on full display this last election. Trump won because of the internet, not despite it.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Yeah, the Trump campaign spent tens of millions of dollars more than Clinton on online advertising, using the profiles they have of most of the country to target people they believed they could influence in states they believed would be close. https://www.wired.com/2016/11/facebook-won-trump-election-not-just-fake-news/ https://www.wired.com/2016/11/facebook-won-trump-election-no... https://medium.com/startup-grind/how-the-trump-campaign-built-an-identity-database-and-used-facebook-ads-to-win-the-election-4ff7d24269ac https://medium.com/startup-grind/how-the-trump-campaign-buil...