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What makes you think your family member is wrong? I used to work for Google, worked there for years. I am very familiar with how it works internally. For stan

What makes you think your family member is wrong? I used to work for Google, worked there for years. I am very familiar with how it works internally. For standard web search the algorithms are indeed very complex and the core PageRank concept is pretty democratic. It wouldn't be easy to bias it politically without it being widely known to employees. But Trump isn't talking about generic web search results. He's talking about news. News is treated specially by Google. News-relevant queries trigger the Google News oneboxes (well, universal search mixins). Google News does not use PageRank to rank news sources. News sources are whitelisted and I believe it's not documented anywhere how it decides how to rank stories. A simple test to decide whether News is biased or not is to look at its front page and see how often stories from Breitbart show up. Like it or not, Breitbart is (or appears to be) a popular and prolific news site: https://media.breitbart.com/media/2016/06/newswhip-may-june-breitbart-640x480.jpg https://media.breitbart.com/media/2016/06/newswhip-may-june-... I have never, not once, seen News rank any story from Breitbart anywhere. I just search [trump] on News. Here are the story sources it selected, in order: The Guardian, CNN, CNN, WashPo, CNN, CNN, The Guardian, CNN, CNN, Business Insider, CNN, Fox News, NBCNews, Fox News, New York Times, the Independent, CNN, WashPo, CNN, New York Times. Do you think that it's at least understandable, why a family member who observes such result lists might conclude that Google staff have an agenda? And do you agree that explaining this conclusion as stupidity (the Dunning-Kruger effect) is unnecessary given that neither you nor anyone else outside of a small team at Google actually knows what their news ranking algorithm is?

misiti3780 8y ago
I am saying my understanding of page rank is that it is basically impossible to bias - i do not work at google, but i have a background in math.
misiti3780 8y ago
maybe its not page rank, but as far as i can tell it is public information: https://www2007.org/papers/paper570.pdf https://www2007.org/papers/paper570.pdf. also, my family member was not talking about the news site, they were talking about google searches themselves being biased, as well as google search autocomplete being baised in favor a clinton (see this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcvfNExG8kw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcvfNExG8kw)
- repolfx 8y ago
  That paper is talking about user recommendations, not ranking. Your family member was without a doubt talking about Google News even if they weren't aware of it because results from News are mixed in to generic search results. If you search [trump] on web search then the top part of the page is dedicated entirely to results that come from News, not generic web search. The idea that Google News is unbiased is unsustainable, simply because humans whitelist news sources. It's not like web search where basically any web page can appear at any location automatically. There is no algorithm for deciding if a website is "news" or not. It's a human judgement. Google employees have literally cried in company meetings when Trump was elected, only someone very naive would believe these people are going to be neutral about what sources they allow and how they decide which sources are more authoritative than others. Do you believe it's a coincidence that Breitbart never ranks, despite having an Alexa rank essentially the same as the Washington Post, given how Google employees are reported to have acted lately? Your knowledge of maths is I'm afraid not very relevant to this topic because mathematics is simply a tool. Your family member is evaluating humans and their likely actions, not algorithms, and that is the correct thing to do because it's ultimately humans that control the algorithms. Google employees are perfectly capable of biasing its results and then lying about it to the public, without even being aware that they're doing it.
  - misiti3780 8y ago
    so your stance is 1) neither of us know if this is the case, (and thus this convo is pointless) or 2)i am universally wrong and google is biasing the new results ?
    - repolfx 8y ago
      The conversation isn't pointless! It started with you stating your belief that your family member is stupid (Dunning-Kruger effect) and that your knowledge of maths means you "know" that Google's results are unbiased. Well, honestly that concerned me because family relations are quite important. If the outcome of this conversation is you realise neither of you two know for sure then perhaps your view of your family member will go back to what it was, or even you may take their concerns more seriously and listen to them more closely. That would be a healthier family! Certainly, knowing maths is irrelevant to the debate you would have with them because maths has nothing to do with whether Google News is biased or not.
amaccuish 8y ago
Ok, so your argument seems to show that Google News has a bias towards generally accurate sources. I think it would be stupid and dangerous to rank Breitbart higher given its frequent inaccuracies. When Google is essentially curating this content, they've got their own image on the line.
- repolfx 8y ago
  CNN has frequently published news that is factually false in the past. What makes you so sure there's a big difference in accuracy?

misiti3780 8y ago

I am saying my understanding of page rank is that it is basically impossible to bias - i do not work at google, but i have a background in math.

misiti3780 8y ago

maybe its not page rank, but as far as i can tell it is public information: https://www2007.org/papers/paper570.pdf https://www2007.org/papers/paper570.pdf. also, my family member was not talking about the news site, they were talking about google searches themselves being biased, as well as google search autocomplete being baised in favor a clinton (see this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcvfNExG8kw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcvfNExG8kw)

repolfx 8y ago
That paper is talking about user recommendations, not ranking. Your family member was without a doubt talking about Google News even if they weren't aware of it because results from News are mixed in to generic search results. If you search [trump] on web search then the top part of the page is dedicated entirely to results that come from News, not generic web search. The idea that Google News is unbiased is unsustainable, simply because humans whitelist news sources. It's not like web search where basically any web page can appear at any location automatically. There is no algorithm for deciding if a website is "news" or not. It's a human judgement. Google employees have literally cried in company meetings when Trump was elected, only someone very naive would believe these people are going to be neutral about what sources they allow and how they decide which sources are more authoritative than others. Do you believe it's a coincidence that Breitbart never ranks, despite having an Alexa rank essentially the same as the Washington Post, given how Google employees are reported to have acted lately? Your knowledge of maths is I'm afraid not very relevant to this topic because mathematics is simply a tool. Your family member is evaluating humans and their likely actions, not algorithms, and that is the correct thing to do because it's ultimately humans that control the algorithms. Google employees are perfectly capable of biasing its results and then lying about it to the public, without even being aware that they're doing it.
- misiti3780 8y ago
  so your stance is 1) neither of us know if this is the case, (and thus this convo is pointless) or 2)i am universally wrong and google is biasing the new results ?
  - repolfx 8y ago
    The conversation isn't pointless! It started with you stating your belief that your family member is stupid (Dunning-Kruger effect) and that your knowledge of maths means you "know" that Google's results are unbiased. Well, honestly that concerned me because family relations are quite important. If the outcome of this conversation is you realise neither of you two know for sure then perhaps your view of your family member will go back to what it was, or even you may take their concerns more seriously and listen to them more closely. That would be a healthier family! Certainly, knowing maths is irrelevant to the debate you would have with them because maths has nothing to do with whether Google News is biased or not.

amaccuish 8y ago

Ok, so your argument seems to show that Google News has a bias towards generally accurate sources. I think it would be stupid and dangerous to rank Breitbart higher given its frequent inaccuracies. When Google is essentially curating this content, they've got their own image on the line.

repolfx 8y ago
CNN has frequently published news that is factually false in the past. What makes you so sure there's a big difference in accuracy?