4 ms·

Yes, but that's actually a great thing. It allows Google to discern controversy. If people disagree about a fact, that's fine, Google can choose how to present

by darawk 9y ago

Yes, but that's actually a great thing. It allows Google to discern controversy. If people disagree about a fact, that's fine, Google can choose how to present facts that have that property. For the ones people do agree about, they can present them as truth.

trendia 9y ago
There are things that are false that everyone believes and things that are true that nobody believes... Google's algorithns weren't designed to tell the truth, only to tell what's popular.
- synesso 9y ago
  Otherwise known as "common sense". If this in an engine to promote common sense then we're just digging ourselves a bigger hole.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  Thank you. For example, one of the worst forms of evidence, that is not permitted as science, is eye witness testimony. People are too fallible be relied on. We only forget that because of our judicial system, unfortunately. But what's even worse than that is what's next in line: a collection of testimonial opinions, or a democracy on truth, especially one run by a non-opensource algorithm. Maybe nothing bad will come of this, but every step Google makes has me worried that they will abuse their power. There's something that seems dangerous about a nation of people fact checking primarily via a single corporation. Remember when NASA burned up the Challenger space shuttle because of the groupthink that prevented a couple engineers from letting everyone know that they knew this would happen? And NASA is not evil, nor have incentives to allow this, which is why we need to work together to be dilligent to protect ourselves from these problems--they easily sneak in.
- darawk 9y ago
  I'm not sure what your point is. If a thing is true but nobody believes it, then there is no way to determine that truth from Google searches in the first place.
  - trendia 9y ago
    That's exactly my point. Google is advertising this as a truth-telling mechanism, but it's a "majority belief" telling one instead.
    - themacguffinman 9y ago
      Did you actually read the link? It's clear that this Google feature is designed to identify fact checks from websites, as opposed to providing an authoritative fact check itself. If you run a website that hosts fact checks, you are now encouraged to annotate these fact check articles with "ClaimReview" elements that describe the fact in question and your website's verdict on the fact. In the search results, users see "Fact check by Example.com". Google does not present fact checks as a "truth-telling mechanism" in any way, shape, or form.
      - JetSpiegel 9y ago
        > In the search results, users see "Fact check by Example.com" Correction, the users sees "Fact Check by example.com: False" https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/images/factcheck-example-result.png https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/images/... If that is Google is not "presenting as truth-telling mechanism", it's a hell of a dark pattern.
        themacguffinman 9y ago
        It is completely clear that the fact check comes from a particular source. Stop calling it a "dark pattern" when this element is not deceptive in any way, shape or form.
smsm42 9y ago
It's not like people didn't know how to disagree on the internet before. Google, however, purports to structure this disagreement in a way that predefines certain semantic roles. For example, it designates one content provider as "fact-checker", and their claims as inherently more authoritative (because fact-check is always more authoritative than the article under the check, isn't it?) and capable of rendering verdicts which can not be further challenged, while the other role is completely passive - and even the claims are formulated not by the original article but by the checker, leaving the whole authority only in the hands of the checker role. This does not look like a good setup to structure the discussion. Why somebody would get so much authority just for using some API? It's like giving people password-less sudo access and then wondering will it work well.
- darawk 9y ago
  Why are you assuming that Google is going to trust these people implicitly? They are providing markup so they can associate claims of fact with identities. They can then choose how to weight those claims using other evidence.
  - smsm42 9y ago
    > Why are you assuming that Google is going to trust these people implicitly? How are they going not to? Hand-verify each provider and each claim? Not scalable and volatile, reliable site today can become trashy in two years. It's either completely uncurated list (welcome, 4chan trolls, food bonanza for you!) or list curated according to biases of a small overworked team isolated somewhere deep in the guts of Google corporate behemoth. What other options are there for selection? > They are providing markup so they can associate claims of fact with identities URLs already provide that markup. Google's markup assigns specific elevated role to "fact-checkers", implying they are somehow more authoritative than the original article, otherwise there won't be any need for special designated status for them. > They can then choose how to weight those claims using other evidence. That's what I am afraid of - that they (Google) would choose to weight the claims according to how they see fit, thus blocking from me information they consider not necessary for me and skewing my informational stream.

by darawk 9y ago

trendia 9y ago

There are things that are false that everyone believes and things that are true that nobody believes... Google's algorithns weren't designed to tell the truth, only to tell what's popular.

synesso 9y ago
Otherwise known as "common sense". If this in an engine to promote common sense then we're just digging ourselves a bigger hole.
wallace_f 9y ago
Thank you. For example, one of the worst forms of evidence, that is not permitted as science, is eye witness testimony. People are too fallible be relied on. We only forget that because of our judicial system, unfortunately. But what's even worse than that is what's next in line: a collection of testimonial opinions, or a democracy on truth, especially one run by a non-opensource algorithm. Maybe nothing bad will come of this, but every step Google makes has me worried that they will abuse their power. There's something that seems dangerous about a nation of people fact checking primarily via a single corporation. Remember when NASA burned up the Challenger space shuttle because of the groupthink that prevented a couple engineers from letting everyone know that they knew this would happen? And NASA is not evil, nor have incentives to allow this, which is why we need to work together to be dilligent to protect ourselves from these problems--they easily sneak in.
darawk 9y ago
I'm not sure what your point is. If a thing is true but nobody believes it, then there is no way to determine that truth from Google searches in the first place.
- trendia 9y ago
  That's exactly my point. Google is advertising this as a truth-telling mechanism, but it's a "majority belief" telling one instead.
  - themacguffinman 9y ago
    Did you actually read the link? It's clear that this Google feature is designed to identify fact checks from websites, as opposed to providing an authoritative fact check itself. If you run a website that hosts fact checks, you are now encouraged to annotate these fact check articles with "ClaimReview" elements that describe the fact in question and your website's verdict on the fact. In the search results, users see "Fact check by Example.com". Google does not present fact checks as a "truth-telling mechanism" in any way, shape, or form.
    - JetSpiegel 9y ago
      > In the search results, users see "Fact check by Example.com" Correction, the users sees "Fact Check by example.com: False" https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/images/factcheck-example-result.png https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/images/... If that is Google is not "presenting as truth-telling mechanism", it's a hell of a dark pattern.
      - themacguffinman 9y ago
        It is completely clear that the fact check comes from a particular source. Stop calling it a "dark pattern" when this element is not deceptive in any way, shape or form.

smsm42 9y ago

It's not like people didn't know how to disagree on the internet before. Google, however, purports to structure this disagreement in a way that predefines certain semantic roles. For example, it designates one content provider as "fact-checker", and their claims as inherently more authoritative (because fact-check is always more authoritative than the article under the check, isn't it?) and capable of rendering verdicts which can not be further challenged, while the other role is completely passive - and even the claims are formulated not by the original article but by the checker, leaving the whole authority only in the hands of the checker role. This does not look like a good setup to structure the discussion. Why somebody would get so much authority just for using some API? It's like giving people password-less sudo access and then wondering will it work well.

darawk 9y ago
Why are you assuming that Google is going to trust these people implicitly? They are providing markup so they can associate claims of fact with identities. They can then choose how to weight those claims using other evidence.
- smsm42 9y ago
  > Why are you assuming that Google is going to trust these people implicitly? How are they going not to? Hand-verify each provider and each claim? Not scalable and volatile, reliable site today can become trashy in two years. It's either completely uncurated list (welcome, 4chan trolls, food bonanza for you!) or list curated according to biases of a small overworked team isolated somewhere deep in the guts of Google corporate behemoth. What other options are there for selection? > They are providing markup so they can associate claims of fact with identities URLs already provide that markup. Google's markup assigns specific elevated role to "fact-checkers", implying they are somehow more authoritative than the original article, otherwise there won't be any need for special designated status for them. > They can then choose how to weight those claims using other evidence. That's what I am afraid of - that they (Google) would choose to weight the claims according to how they see fit, thus blocking from me information they consider not necessary for me and skewing my informational stream.