5 ms·

Could not disagree more. I am generally pretty liberal but get news stories from Breitbart, Fox news, etc all the time in my feed. I like to read all sides s

Could not disagree more. I am generally pretty liberal but get news stories from Breitbart, Fox news, etc all the time in my feed. I like to read all sides so love this aspect of Google news. Heck I get negative Google stories from Google. Can't ask for more neutral.

Bartweiss 9y ago
Is there some feedback feature or something you use to get a helpful range of stories? My experience with Google News isn't so much bias or a bubble as uselessness. Source quality, comprehensiveness, and coverage depth seem totally irrelevant, like I'm just getting a feed of every news site a bunch of people clicked on recently. It's the same stuff as Facebook's trending bar, at about the same level of shallow and unfocused. And occasionally, it seems like a major story is incompatible with my profile, or has a keyword collision with other topics, or something, and so disappears almost completely. I tried Google News and Google Now with real eagerness, but my experience with both of them was just shockingly low quality.
- Moto7451 9y ago
  You can weigh your news sources. I intentionally give a little more weight to sources I don’t always agree with but aren’t obviously biased. Things like fake news spreaders, conspiracy theorist, government propaganda machines, or fair topical sites that simply don’t interest me (mostly Celebrity News and Gossip) get black holed. You can find those sliders in your settings. Also they ask you periodically on the desktop homepage. Pro tip: if you hate the mobile or new UI as much as I do, set your user agent to iPhone and go to google.com/nwshp. For whatever reason that magical incantation gives you the classic home page (with the sliders I mentioned in easy access/obvious places). I’ll be really excited if someone knows how to just set that globally in settings. I haven’t found it.
  - joecool1029 9y ago
    >You can weigh your news sources. Neat site that does it for you: https://www.allsides.com/ https://www.allsides.com/
    - vesrah 9y ago
      Thank you for this, hadn't run across a site as well presented as this.
  - kolpa 9y ago
    This helps if you love/hate a few sources; not if you want a wide range of non-garbage sources; and especially not if you want the non-garbage stories from one source like CNN or WaPo or FoxNews that has some very good news and a lot of hot-button middlebrow-opinion-masquerading-as-news trash that bubbles to the top of the dungheap.
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    Thanks for this, I actually didn't know about that. Might be a product I'll like once I put a bit of effort into cleaning it up. I'm worried I'll share kolpa's problem, where sources I use for certain like CNN are also full of absolute dreck I don't want to see. But with a bit of luck I can put together a "news of the day" feed, and I'll just go to those touchier sources directly when I expect a specific piece to be usable.
  - azinman2 9y ago
    Reuters is good for that. Because they resell to other newspapers they're more fact oriented and less opinion.
  - jacksmith21006 9y ago
    I do NOT weight any news sources. It is just what happens or the default. I like all sides personally. But know some do not. Probably most do not. I am naturally a super curious person. I have zero problem with the UI on all devices. A big part is I am also use to it as I read news a lot.
- notahacker 9y ago
  This. The impression of vanilla Google News is that searching for an event will give you stories/opinions from publications of random type/quality/bias/nationality/age randomly grouped (and even more randomly regrouped when you click "view all") and so weakly classified it sometimes surfaces compilations of reader comments as "in depth" articles. It doesn't even seem to bother highlighting paywalls anymore.
- inetknght 9y ago
  I have used many feedback forms that Google provides. I am convinced that they completely ignore my feedback.
- jacksmith21006 9y ago
  Can't tell you why get both sides but do. Love last week I had back to back articles 1) Kid suspended from school for not walking out during the gun walkout. 2) kid spanked in Arkansas spanked for walking out. About perfect. I am more center left but like to hear all aspects. Does drive my wife crazy when she walks in the room and I am watching Fox News. Do then turn off and put on MSNBC.
- jacksmith21006 9y ago
  No it just happens. But at times I get a dialog of "is this card valuable to you". Which pretty much for everything I answer yes. But the default is a mixture. Plus I use Google services a lot and for a long time as I try to keep all my data at Google instead of spread around. So everything from DNS, to TV as we have YouTube TV. We have Google Homes, etc. Wish we could use Fi but I have a huge family so not financially practical. That would keep my location data away from my wireless provider.
AJRF 9y ago
Wow you really, REALLY like Google based on your comment history
- catch_up 9y ago
  Probably works there, or is paid to be PR.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- azinman2 9y ago
  Interesting observation. Kind of crazy and not normal. I wonder if the account is a PR implant, or just a really really enthusiastic Google employee.
- dang 9y ago
  I understand the temptation to interpret people's comments that way, but users are far too quick to jump to conclusions about astroturfing or PR, and cross into personal attack in the process. That damages the community at least as much as what you all are insinuating, if it's true—and it's usually not true. For example, I doubt that a shill would write about their Cobol programming experience. I just wrote more about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16632589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16632589
needToSay 9y ago
I have read Hacker News for over 4 years now. I had to make an account to make my first comment: I took a look at your profile history because someone else suggested it here and it's staggering. It's like the epitome of the "paid shill" meme. Please tell us why literally every comment you have given is about Google and how great their products are? It almost reads like PR statements. Are you paid to do it?
specialist 9y ago
The remedy to information overload (spam) is better filters. I demand the filter bubble that we were promised. We live in an attention economy. My most valuable resource is my time. The inclusion of trog media is precisely why I won't use Google News. I couldn't figure out how to exclude it. What little benefit Google News, Twitter, Facebook provide is more than offset by the negative impact of their quest for our attention.
kolpa 9y ago
There's a lot more to 'news diversity' than the basic "left-wing" vs "right-wing" opposing views on hot-button controversies of the moment. The topic selection is as important as the bias selection.
dleslie 9y ago
What about the South Asian Times, The Hindu, South China Morning Post, Russia Today, AL Jazeera, et Al? They cover world news, in English, and yet I rarely find them on Google News, and I suspect it's location-based filtering that's to blame.
Pigo 9y ago
I've had the same experience. For some reason Google thinks I want bi-daily reports on Trump's bathroom schedule, or what utensil he ate with. Which I can almost understand why I get that because so many people apparently want that, but that is literally ALL I get from them. And believe me, that is not figured out by skillful mining of my data.

Bartweiss 9y ago

Is there some feedback feature or something you use to get a helpful range of stories? My experience with Google News isn't so much bias or a bubble as uselessness. Source quality, comprehensiveness, and coverage depth seem totally irrelevant, like I'm just getting a feed of every news site a bunch of people clicked on recently. It's the same stuff as Facebook's trending bar, at about the same level of shallow and unfocused. And occasionally, it seems like a major story is incompatible with my profile, or has a keyword collision with other topics, or something, and so disappears almost completely. I tried Google News and Google Now with real eagerness, but my experience with both of them was just shockingly low quality.

Moto7451 9y ago
You can weigh your news sources. I intentionally give a little more weight to sources I don’t always agree with but aren’t obviously biased. Things like fake news spreaders, conspiracy theorist, government propaganda machines, or fair topical sites that simply don’t interest me (mostly Celebrity News and Gossip) get black holed. You can find those sliders in your settings. Also they ask you periodically on the desktop homepage. Pro tip: if you hate the mobile or new UI as much as I do, set your user agent to iPhone and go to google.com/nwshp. For whatever reason that magical incantation gives you the classic home page (with the sliders I mentioned in easy access/obvious places). I’ll be really excited if someone knows how to just set that globally in settings. I haven’t found it.
- joecool1029 9y ago
  >You can weigh your news sources. Neat site that does it for you: https://www.allsides.com/ https://www.allsides.com/
  - vesrah 9y ago
    Thank you for this, hadn't run across a site as well presented as this.
- kolpa 9y ago
  This helps if you love/hate a few sources; not if you want a wide range of non-garbage sources; and especially not if you want the non-garbage stories from one source like CNN or WaPo or FoxNews that has some very good news and a lot of hot-button middlebrow-opinion-masquerading-as-news trash that bubbles to the top of the dungheap.
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  Thanks for this, I actually didn't know about that. Might be a product I'll like once I put a bit of effort into cleaning it up. I'm worried I'll share kolpa's problem, where sources I use for certain like CNN are also full of absolute dreck I don't want to see. But with a bit of luck I can put together a "news of the day" feed, and I'll just go to those touchier sources directly when I expect a specific piece to be usable.
- azinman2 9y ago
  Reuters is good for that. Because they resell to other newspapers they're more fact oriented and less opinion.
- jacksmith21006 9y ago
  I do NOT weight any news sources. It is just what happens or the default. I like all sides personally. But know some do not. Probably most do not. I am naturally a super curious person. I have zero problem with the UI on all devices. A big part is I am also use to it as I read news a lot.
notahacker 9y ago
This. The impression of vanilla Google News is that searching for an event will give you stories/opinions from publications of random type/quality/bias/nationality/age randomly grouped (and even more randomly regrouped when you click "view all") and so weakly classified it sometimes surfaces compilations of reader comments as "in depth" articles. It doesn't even seem to bother highlighting paywalls anymore.
inetknght 9y ago
I have used many feedback forms that Google provides. I am convinced that they completely ignore my feedback.
jacksmith21006 9y ago
Can't tell you why get both sides but do. Love last week I had back to back articles 1) Kid suspended from school for not walking out during the gun walkout. 2) kid spanked in Arkansas spanked for walking out. About perfect. I am more center left but like to hear all aspects. Does drive my wife crazy when she walks in the room and I am watching Fox News. Do then turn off and put on MSNBC.
jacksmith21006 9y ago
No it just happens. But at times I get a dialog of "is this card valuable to you". Which pretty much for everything I answer yes. But the default is a mixture. Plus I use Google services a lot and for a long time as I try to keep all my data at Google instead of spread around. So everything from DNS, to TV as we have YouTube TV. We have Google Homes, etc. Wish we could use Fi but I have a huge family so not financially practical. That would keep my location data away from my wireless provider.

AJRF 9y ago

Wow you really, REALLY like Google based on your comment history

catch_up 9y ago
Probably works there, or is paid to be PR.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
azinman2 9y ago
Interesting observation. Kind of crazy and not normal. I wonder if the account is a PR implant, or just a really really enthusiastic Google employee.
dang 9y ago
I understand the temptation to interpret people's comments that way, but users are far too quick to jump to conclusions about astroturfing or PR, and cross into personal attack in the process. That damages the community at least as much as what you all are insinuating, if it's true—and it's usually not true. For example, I doubt that a shill would write about their Cobol programming experience. I just wrote more about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16632589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16632589

needToSay 9y ago

I have read Hacker News for over 4 years now. I had to make an account to make my first comment: I took a look at your profile history because someone else suggested it here and it's staggering. It's like the epitome of the "paid shill" meme. Please tell us why literally every comment you have given is about Google and how great their products are? It almost reads like PR statements. Are you paid to do it?

specialist 9y ago

The remedy to information overload (spam) is better filters. I demand the filter bubble that we were promised. We live in an attention economy. My most valuable resource is my time. The inclusion of trog media is precisely why I won't use Google News. I couldn't figure out how to exclude it. What little benefit Google News, Twitter, Facebook provide is more than offset by the negative impact of their quest for our attention.

kolpa 9y ago

There's a lot more to 'news diversity' than the basic "left-wing" vs "right-wing" opposing views on hot-button controversies of the moment. The topic selection is as important as the bias selection.

dleslie 9y ago

What about the South Asian Times, The Hindu, South China Morning Post, Russia Today, AL Jazeera, et Al? They cover world news, in English, and yet I rarely find them on Google News, and I suspect it's location-based filtering that's to blame.

Pigo 9y ago

I've had the same experience. For some reason Google thinks I want bi-daily reports on Trump's bathroom schedule, or what utensil he ate with. Which I can almost understand why I get that because so many people apparently want that, but that is literally ALL I get from them. And believe me, that is not figured out by skillful mining of my data.