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Google: Please Stop Telling Lies About Me

130 points by Pattio 8y ago

puzzle 8y ago
Interestingly, Google gets it right about Terry Gilliam. He was famous also for being the only non-British Monty Python, but he became a citizen and gave up his American passport. He's listed as "British screenwriter". I guess you could argue that he's that, sure, but a director first, so it doesn't get this one exactly right, either, but for different reasons. Anyway, although British is technically right, I'm probably not the only one that will forever consider him American. BTW, the Wikipedia snippet underneath says "Terrence Vance Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor, comedian and former member of the Monty Python comedy troupe." Makes you wonder...
sohkamyung 8y ago
For reference, author Greg Egan also had troubles with getting Google to stop putting up incorrect information on him, including photos of other people named Greg Egan on his profile [1] [1] http://www.gregegan.net/ESSAYS/GOOGLE/Google.html http://www.gregegan.net/ESSAYS/GOOGLE/Google.html
VikingCoder 8y ago
If you want Google to be authoritative, you're going to have a bad time. It's literally not designed to be a source of truth. It's designed to tell you what it finds on the Internet.
- LeoPanthera 8y ago
  > It's designed to tell you what it finds on the Internet. It used to be. Per-user algorithmically customized search results now means that it shows you what you want to find on the internet - which is not the same thing.
- x0x0 8y ago
  There's nothing in the upper right box on this search https://www.google.com/search?q=ehud+reiter&oq=ehud+reiter https://www.google.com/search?q=ehud+reiter&oq=ehud+reiter to indicate the person box isn't authoritative, or isn't intended to be authoritative...
- saagarjha 8y ago
  > It's literally not designed to be a source of truth. Google seems to be pushing very hard lately to be considered the source of truth, picking information out of context and putting it in their infobox with no explanation as to where they grabbed it from.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- fixermark 8y ago
  Knowledge graph makes this more challenging since it doesn't always do a good job of surfacing the source of the information. In this specific case, for example, the box that pops up indicating Ehud is an Israeli computer scientist says nothing about why the system believes that to be true.
- SquishyPanda23 8y ago
  Its mission is technically to "to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful." I would argue that organizing and making incorrect information universally acceptable meets some of the criteria, but it fails to be "useful."
  - VikingCoder 8y ago
    "Vaccines cause autism." "Vaccines don't cause autism." Both of those convey information. Both are expressed frequently. Only one is backed by research. And only one of those is true. At best, Google might be able to tell you which is backed by research. But that's no guarantee that it's the true answer. The study of epistemology is fascinating.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  " It's literally not designed to be a source of truth." The info top-right is presented as factual not as 'search results'.
- Barrin92 8y ago
  Given that Google is one of the, if not the single most important window to all internet content I don't think that is an acceptable status quo or a sufficient explanation. Surely if we use search engines most of us try to obtain relevant and factual information about the world, instead of trying to get some tautological answer out of the engine. The comparison here to journalism is apt. Technically, journalists could simply declare everything to be the mere invention of the journalist's mind, but we don't think that's acceptable for a lot of good reasons.
  - VikingCoder 8y ago
    Actually, the comparison to Librarians is more apt. If you want to find a book declaring that vaccines cause autism, you can find that book. Google tries really hard to have the Card Catalog system be as good as possible, but "solving" that problem is basically impossible.
    - Barrin92 8y ago
      I don't think that comparison is going to go over well for Google though, because we actually do curate contents in libraries and personally assist you in finding the right source for whatever information you seek. That is what a librarian does, one of the oldest and in many cultures respected professions you can choose. In contrast to Google, which might give you wild conspiracy theories about vaccines on page 1, with no help or indication whatsoever that something funky is going on, a library actually personally assists you. If Google was a library then that library would have no employees. The books would initially all lie around randomly, and whenever you want a book, you simply shout into the library, and some guy randomly throws 20 books at you. If you take one of the books the next time, the chance will be higher that someone else gets that book as well. Let me just say that I don't think that it would be a great library experience, especially if you try to fit the entire worlds information into a single one.
FVIIIvWF 8y ago
I thought the colon should be a comma instead. It misled me to thinking Google was unhappy about people telling lies about them.
- jnbiche 8y ago
  Actually, the author's use of the colon is correct, and your interpretation doesn't accord with the usual rules of grammar for colon usage. What I assume you're thinking of is the journalistic use of a colon as shorthand for attribution, normally used in headlines. In that case, the colon and person/organization fall at the end of the sentence. So you'll see things like, "We'll never pass upcoming bill: Rep Smith". But that's not what the author of the blog post wrote. Instead, he placed "Google" at the beginning of the sentence, writing "Google: Please Stop...". As such, he used the colon in accordance with one of its most common usages--as a means of address in correspondence, similar to common letter opening "Dear Mr. Smith: Please find enclosed...".
  - greenyoda 8y ago
    Also, the pronoun "me" is generally used to refer to a person, not a corporation. So there doesn't seem to be any ambiguity about the meaning of the title.
  - mattmcknight 8y ago
    The colon is also used at the beginning of the phrase in the sense of identifying the speaker in plays. When used in a letter it is commonly preceded by a salutation, as in your "Dear Mr Smith:" example.
  - jolmg 8y ago
    Actually, putting the attribution at the beginning is how transcripts are usually done. You can see it in articles that are mainly the transcript of an interview[1], or even in court transcripts[2]. > similar to common letter opening "Dear Mr. Smith: Please find enclosed...". It's been some time since I've written a letter, but I remember that the typical format uses a comma and not a colon. For example: Dear Mr. Smith, Please find enclosed... This[3] could be an example. [1] - https://techcrunch.com/2006/09/02/an-interview-with-vc-paul-graham-of-ycombinator/ https://techcrunch.com/2006/09/02/an-interview-with-vc-paul-... [2] - https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2018/17-532_32q3.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcr... [3] - https://www.fotolip.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/How-to-Write-a-Resignation-Letter-15.png https://www.fotolip.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/How-to-Wr...
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
Google doesn’t care. They offer their products, generally, for free. They don’t owe you any customer service at all. Edit: > > If a journalists says something incorrect about me, I can complain to him or his newspaper/magazine, and this will be taken seriously; indeed most journalists give me an opportunity to fact-check anything they say about me before it is published. If Experian says something wrong about me in its credit report, I can report this and they will take this seriously. In fact almost all organisations which give out information about me allow me to complain and point out problems. Except Google, who clearly doesnt care. That's what I was commenting on.
- zapzupnz 8y ago
  This comment does not correspond with the content of the article. The blog writer is discussing the way that Google's algorithms are faulty, presenting false information quite high in search results. This has little to nothing to do with customer service; this is about the ethics and responsibility of algorithms that present information to vast numbers of people.
  - anonytrary 8y ago
    He was probably responding to the clickbait title, which uses the phrase "telling lies" as opposed to the more apt phrase "spreading misinformation".
  - JustSomeNobody 8y ago
    > If a journalists says something incorrect about me, I can complain to him or his newspaper/magazine, and this will be taken seriously; indeed most journalists give me an opportunity to fact-check anything they say about me before it is published. If Experian says something wrong about me in its credit report, I can report this and they will take this seriously. In fact almost all organisations which give out information about me allow me to complain and point out problems. Except Google, who clearly doesnt care. That's what I was commenting on. This quote came from the article.
    - 8y ago
pliny 8y ago
Wikipedia (de) lists Ehud as an Israeli(-American) computer scientist and this may be the source of the problem.
- doublekill 8y ago
  I've read discussions between Wikipedia editors and people the article was about, and they were told to not edit the article, or produce a "no original research" authoritative source. On facts about their own life. So either a kind soul should edit it for them, or TechCrunch should pick up on this story. And then hope they don't call you something outrageous like: the grandfather of X. Or: some people call her a Y. Because that will be in the article lead as a cold-hard machine readable logical fact for the ages.
  - JorgeGT 8y ago
    Or do like Philip Roth and have the New Yorker publish your Wikipedia rebuttals: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/an-open-letter-to-wikipedia https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/an-open-letter-t...
    - jnbiche 8y ago
      An option sadly unavailable to most of us.
- Zanni 8y ago
  Came here to say this. In the absence of an English-language Wikipedia page, Google probably treats the German page as definitive (though why they lop off the hyphenate American, I can't imagine).
- blattimwind 8y ago
  The Wikipedia (de) article has pendings edits changing it to "britisch-amerikanischer". Google (de) already shows this, but didn't put the nationlity in the subtitle in the first place ("Ehud Reiter, Informatiker").
- 8y ago
sonnyblarney 8y ago
This will become an ever more important issue and I feel the only way forward is via legislation. Google might care, but not enough to fundamentally do something about it. FB and G are profitable because they have 'very low touch'. They don't have legions of tellers, fact checkers, CSR reps and people to handle the myriad of details other business have to deal with. These issues are not only 'high touch' - they are hard. G is not going to start hiring thousands of people to do such things, it's just not in their DNA. Maybe some issue will be the straw on the camels back.
jaimex2 8y ago
The guy was born in Israel... Seems like a rant about nothing to me. Just edit your wikipedia page and be done with it.
- throwaway2048 8y ago
  Not allowed under wikipedia rules.
  - robjan 8y ago
    It is if it's factually correct
- numbsafari 8y ago
  He doesn't have a wikipedia page as far as I can tell. It's also not his job to correct Google's source information, if that is even where they get their information from in this case (which doesn't seem to be the case).
- reaperducer 8y ago
  The guy was born in Israel... Seems like a rant about nothing to me Being born is Israel does not automatically make a person a citizen. This is true of the vast majority of countries. Google has such a SV-focused mindset that it simply can't comprehend that the United States is one of only a few countries that give automatic citizenship based on geography of birth.
  - vatueil 8y ago
    > the United States is one of only a few countries that give automatic citizenship based on geography of birth It would be more accurate to say that most countries in the New World practice jus soli, while most countries in the Old World do not. Regardless, it appears the issue in this case is due to the fact that other sources also refer to Mr. Reiter as Israeli rather than anyone's mindset.
- alistairSH 8y ago
  It's not nothing. Based on Google's logic, I'm Emirati. I'm most assuredly not. I was born in Dubai to Scottish parents, and spent the first 18 years of my life as a British expat living in various countries. At the age of 19, I took US citizenship. So, like the blogger, you could call me American, or British, or Scottish, or some combination - Scottish-American, etc. But, calling my an Emirati would be completely wrong. I never had Emirati citizenship, I have no affinity to the Emirates, and I haven't been back to the Emirates since leaving prior to my 2nd birthday.
paul7986 8y ago
Easy solution don’t use Google use DuckDuckGo.com or another search engine.
- zapzupnz 8y ago
  This comment doesn't correspond with the content of the blog post. It relates to Google's algorithms; one's personal choice of search engine does not change the fact that the results Google shows are ultimately seen by more eyes than anything else.
  - jakeogh 8y ago
    Sure it does. General awareness of google's increasing tendency to engineer language will result in people not trusting it... possibly to the point where this person wouldnt bother to write about it.
    - zapzupnz 8y ago
      I still can't see the link to individuals using DDG as an immediate or relevant solution to the problem discussed by the author. The comment, to my eyes, came off as flippant.
jnbiche 8y ago
Seeing as how the author was indeed born in Israel, I figured at first that it was unreasonable to complain, since like or or not he was probably an Israeli citizen. However, looking into Israeli citizenship law, I learned that Israel does not have birthright citizenship. So he was not automatically a citizen despite being born there. Had his parents been Israelis (and that doesn't appear to be the case), he would be Israeli. It's true that he's likely eligible to claim Israeli citizenship through the law of return. But being eligible for Israeli citizenship isn't the same as having it. So I do understand the annoyance. It's not just a technicality--he actually doesn't have Israeli citizenship. Google's algorithm appears to assume all countries practice birthright citizenship like the US (when many, probably most, do not).
- p1necone 8y ago
  Is there a set of circumstances that could result in someone being born in Israel without gaining citizenship, while also not getting citizenship in the country their parents were from?
  - cwzwarich 8y ago
    This sort of thing is technically possible for children of Indian citizens born in countries without birth citizenship, see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_nationality_law#Citizenship_by_descent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_nationality_law#Citizen.... Given that millions of Indians live in Persian gulf countries with these sorts of citizenship laws, I wonder if it has ever happened.
    - taejo 8y ago
      Statelessness absolutely does happen. On 13 November 2018, Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said there are about 12 million stateless people in the world.
  - mey 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statelessness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statelessness
jccalhoun 8y ago
I hate it when people call being wrong "lying." This is a semantic argument. He was born there so it could be argued that Israeli is technically accurate. I hate it when people call being wrong "lying."
- pie_hacker 8y ago
  I do not understand why you hate this. Making a false statement is lying, at least in my playbook. That the argument is semantic is irrelevant. It may be the case that Google is only wrong because of a technicality, but they are wrong nevertheless. (Unless you believe that Google is right and the author is actually Israeli, but that is a different discussion.)
  - Kalium 8y ago
    In vernacular usage, the act of lying requires intent. Is it perhaps possible that Parent is trying to communicate a difference between intentional false statements, commonly called lies, and unintentional false statements, commonly called being wrong? If someone is incorrect about the time when you ask, it's possible they are deliberately misleading you. It's also possible they are not, and their clock is also incorrect. Would you consider both cases to be lying?
- gnud 8y ago
  According to the author, he was asked by Google to give feedback on the info they had about him. He did, and they ignored it. What will it take before you consider them to be lying?
  - paulcole 8y ago
    How does Google know he’s not lying?
    - ehsankia 8y ago
      And that he is he.
WhitneyLand 8y ago
For anyone else curious. I'm not sure, but a cursory search suggests it's perfectly fine to publicly lie about a private citizen with no recourse, as long as you avoid financial or related damages? "In order to determine the damages from a slander or libel suit, there must be quantifiable damages. Defamation of character damages a person’s or company’s reputation, and it must be proven that the damage to reputation correlated with a loss of money, property, relationship or was subject to harassment that led to any of the above losses." https://thelawdictionary.org/article/when-to-sue-for-defamation-slander-and-libel https://thelawdictionary.org/article/when-to-sue-for-defamat...
- greenyoda 8y ago
  It may be "perfectly fine" in terms of legal repercussions, but there are also ethical considerations. If someone knowingly makes false statements about someone else, they would rightfully be regarded as unethical and untrustworthy.
  - WhitneyLand 8y ago
    You're very sweet. How about telling them something like... Pardon me, Mr. Google and Mr. <consider who you're dealing with in these scenarios>, how are you sir? Would you kindly consider not publishing false statements about me? Of course you may not be compelled to do so. However as a gentleman I'm sure you would ageee the ethical and trust implications are philosophically untenable. Therefore I assume you are intrinsically highly motivated to immediately take corrective action. Thank you! Regarding the first sentence, please take it at face value. If that's your point of view I'd be glad to count you as a friend if you'd have me - ping anytime. However, I'd probably not guess well how long Ehud will have to remain an Israeli computer scientist.
    - robbrown451 8y ago
      Or, how about blogging about it, and having internet discussions about it that cause Google to realize that this is negatively impacting their image to the public, and that that in itself can be costly enough to them to change their approach, even if not compelled to do so by a court? Which is exactly what happened here. (whether they change their course is yet to be seen)
robbrown451 8y ago
I think it is far less an issue of faulty AI and more an issue of Google ignoring requests to change information about someone when that person notifies them that it is incorrect. It's one thing to show things in search results, a very different thing to have a little box saying "We Google have deduced that this is true." They should take more responsibility. In my opinion they should be required to do something about it. It is very similar to how you can tell google your privacy is invaded by something on Google Maps and they will fix it (with blurring, in that case).
- mqus 8y ago
  Actually, there already is a (EU) law for it, it is called GDPR[1] and within it, you have a right to let businesses correct personal information about you. [1]https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:02016R0679-20160504&from=EN https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... See Article 5, Paragraph 1d and 2 and Article 16
  - caf 8y ago
    ...and as a UK citizen, the author should have no problem making such a request.
O1111OOO 8y ago
Sent (very unkind) feedback to Google via the infobox that appears for Ehud Reiter[0]. It's about time Google developes a mechanism for handling cases like these and so many others (like all the cases where people lose access to their accounts completely). We shouldn't need legislation or lawsuits. [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=Ehud%20Reiter https://www.google.com/search?q=Ehud%20Reiter
Lazare 8y ago
Coincidentally, I just ran across someone else trying (and failing) to get Google to update a similar incorrect line in their knowledge graph. In this case, the person is fairly well known on YouTube, and their profession line should almost certainly read "Canadian YouTuber" (as the profession line for all of her peers does), but instead it reads "Actress", which is pretty odd and inaccurate. (You could make an argument that someone who posts content on YouTube is technically an actor/actress, but that's a very uncommon usage, and as with OP, misleads much more that it conveys useful information. And again, Google, who owns YouTube, clearly prefers to label prominent YouTubers as <nationality> YouTuber.) In her case she apparently got a response saying "our systems don't allow us to fix this type of error", she escalated, then she got a response saying "good news, it's fixed!", but it's not fixed. If Google is just summarising info from other sources (and in many cases, they just repeat what Wikipedia has), that's fine, but in cases (as here) where they're acting as an independent source of truth, they really need some process for fixing mistakes...

130 points by Pattio 8y ago

Interestingly, Google gets it right about Terry Gilliam. He was famous also for being the only non-British Monty Python, but he became a citizen and gave up his American passport. He's listed as "British screenwriter". I guess you could argue that he's that, sure, but a director first, so it doesn't get this one exactly right, either, but for different reasons. Anyway, although British is technically right, I'm probably not the only one that will forever consider him American. BTW, the Wikipedia snippet underneath says "Terrence Vance Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor, comedian and former member of the Monty Python comedy troupe." Makes you wonder...

sohkamyung 8y ago

For reference, author Greg Egan also had troubles with getting Google to stop putting up incorrect information on him, including photos of other people named Greg Egan on his profile [1] [1] http://www.gregegan.net/ESSAYS/GOOGLE/Google.html http://www.gregegan.net/ESSAYS/GOOGLE/Google.html

VikingCoder 8y ago

If you want Google to be authoritative, you're going to have a bad time. It's literally not designed to be a source of truth. It's designed to tell you what it finds on the Internet.

LeoPanthera 8y ago
> It's designed to tell you what it finds on the Internet. It used to be. Per-user algorithmically customized search results now means that it shows you what you want to find on the internet - which is not the same thing.
x0x0 8y ago
There's nothing in the upper right box on this search https://www.google.com/search?q=ehud+reiter&oq=ehud+reiter https://www.google.com/search?q=ehud+reiter&oq=ehud+reiter to indicate the person box isn't authoritative, or isn't intended to be authoritative...
saagarjha 8y ago
> It's literally not designed to be a source of truth. Google seems to be pushing very hard lately to be considered the source of truth, picking information out of context and putting it in their infobox with no explanation as to where they grabbed it from.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
fixermark 8y ago
Knowledge graph makes this more challenging since it doesn't always do a good job of surfacing the source of the information. In this specific case, for example, the box that pops up indicating Ehud is an Israeli computer scientist says nothing about why the system believes that to be true.
SquishyPanda23 8y ago
Its mission is technically to "to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful." I would argue that organizing and making incorrect information universally acceptable meets some of the criteria, but it fails to be "useful."
- VikingCoder 8y ago
  "Vaccines cause autism." "Vaccines don't cause autism." Both of those convey information. Both are expressed frequently. Only one is backed by research. And only one of those is true. At best, Google might be able to tell you which is backed by research. But that's no guarantee that it's the true answer. The study of epistemology is fascinating.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
" It's literally not designed to be a source of truth." The info top-right is presented as factual not as 'search results'.
Barrin92 8y ago
Given that Google is one of the, if not the single most important window to all internet content I don't think that is an acceptable status quo or a sufficient explanation. Surely if we use search engines most of us try to obtain relevant and factual information about the world, instead of trying to get some tautological answer out of the engine. The comparison here to journalism is apt. Technically, journalists could simply declare everything to be the mere invention of the journalist's mind, but we don't think that's acceptable for a lot of good reasons.
- VikingCoder 8y ago
  Actually, the comparison to Librarians is more apt. If you want to find a book declaring that vaccines cause autism, you can find that book. Google tries really hard to have the Card Catalog system be as good as possible, but "solving" that problem is basically impossible.
  - Barrin92 8y ago
    I don't think that comparison is going to go over well for Google though, because we actually do curate contents in libraries and personally assist you in finding the right source for whatever information you seek. That is what a librarian does, one of the oldest and in many cultures respected professions you can choose. In contrast to Google, which might give you wild conspiracy theories about vaccines on page 1, with no help or indication whatsoever that something funky is going on, a library actually personally assists you. If Google was a library then that library would have no employees. The books would initially all lie around randomly, and whenever you want a book, you simply shout into the library, and some guy randomly throws 20 books at you. If you take one of the books the next time, the chance will be higher that someone else gets that book as well. Let me just say that I don't think that it would be a great library experience, especially if you try to fit the entire worlds information into a single one.

FVIIIvWF 8y ago

I thought the colon should be a comma instead. It misled me to thinking Google was unhappy about people telling lies about them.

jnbiche 8y ago
Actually, the author's use of the colon is correct, and your interpretation doesn't accord with the usual rules of grammar for colon usage. What I assume you're thinking of is the journalistic use of a colon as shorthand for attribution, normally used in headlines. In that case, the colon and person/organization fall at the end of the sentence. So you'll see things like, "We'll never pass upcoming bill: Rep Smith". But that's not what the author of the blog post wrote. Instead, he placed "Google" at the beginning of the sentence, writing "Google: Please Stop...". As such, he used the colon in accordance with one of its most common usages--as a means of address in correspondence, similar to common letter opening "Dear Mr. Smith: Please find enclosed...".
- greenyoda 8y ago
  Also, the pronoun "me" is generally used to refer to a person, not a corporation. So there doesn't seem to be any ambiguity about the meaning of the title.
- mattmcknight 8y ago
  The colon is also used at the beginning of the phrase in the sense of identifying the speaker in plays. When used in a letter it is commonly preceded by a salutation, as in your "Dear Mr Smith:" example.
- jolmg 8y ago
  Actually, putting the attribution at the beginning is how transcripts are usually done. You can see it in articles that are mainly the transcript of an interview[1], or even in court transcripts[2]. > similar to common letter opening "Dear Mr. Smith: Please find enclosed...". It's been some time since I've written a letter, but I remember that the typical format uses a comma and not a colon. For example: Dear Mr. Smith, Please find enclosed... This[3] could be an example. [1] - https://techcrunch.com/2006/09/02/an-interview-with-vc-paul-graham-of-ycombinator/ https://techcrunch.com/2006/09/02/an-interview-with-vc-paul-... [2] - https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2018/17-532_32q3.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcr... [3] - https://www.fotolip.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/How-to-Write-a-Resignation-Letter-15.png https://www.fotolip.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/How-to-Wr...

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

Google doesn’t care. They offer their products, generally, for free. They don’t owe you any customer service at all. Edit: > > If a journalists says something incorrect about me, I can complain to him or his newspaper/magazine, and this will be taken seriously; indeed most journalists give me an opportunity to fact-check anything they say about me before it is published. If Experian says something wrong about me in its credit report, I can report this and they will take this seriously. In fact almost all organisations which give out information about me allow me to complain and point out problems. Except Google, who clearly doesnt care. That's what I was commenting on.

zapzupnz 8y ago
This comment does not correspond with the content of the article. The blog writer is discussing the way that Google's algorithms are faulty, presenting false information quite high in search results. This has little to nothing to do with customer service; this is about the ethics and responsibility of algorithms that present information to vast numbers of people.
- anonytrary 8y ago
  He was probably responding to the clickbait title, which uses the phrase "telling lies" as opposed to the more apt phrase "spreading misinformation".
- JustSomeNobody 8y ago
  > If a journalists says something incorrect about me, I can complain to him or his newspaper/magazine, and this will be taken seriously; indeed most journalists give me an opportunity to fact-check anything they say about me before it is published. If Experian says something wrong about me in its credit report, I can report this and they will take this seriously. In fact almost all organisations which give out information about me allow me to complain and point out problems. Except Google, who clearly doesnt care. That's what I was commenting on. This quote came from the article.
  - 8y ago

pliny 8y ago

Wikipedia (de) lists Ehud as an Israeli(-American) computer scientist and this may be the source of the problem.

doublekill 8y ago
I've read discussions between Wikipedia editors and people the article was about, and they were told to not edit the article, or produce a "no original research" authoritative source. On facts about their own life. So either a kind soul should edit it for them, or TechCrunch should pick up on this story. And then hope they don't call you something outrageous like: the grandfather of X. Or: some people call her a Y. Because that will be in the article lead as a cold-hard machine readable logical fact for the ages.
- JorgeGT 8y ago
  Or do like Philip Roth and have the New Yorker publish your Wikipedia rebuttals: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/an-open-letter-to-wikipedia https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/an-open-letter-t...
  - jnbiche 8y ago
    An option sadly unavailable to most of us.
Zanni 8y ago
Came here to say this. In the absence of an English-language Wikipedia page, Google probably treats the German page as definitive (though why they lop off the hyphenate American, I can't imagine).
blattimwind 8y ago
The Wikipedia (de) article has pendings edits changing it to "britisch-amerikanischer". Google (de) already shows this, but didn't put the nationlity in the subtitle in the first place ("Ehud Reiter, Informatiker").
8y ago

sonnyblarney 8y ago

This will become an ever more important issue and I feel the only way forward is via legislation. Google might care, but not enough to fundamentally do something about it. FB and G are profitable because they have 'very low touch'. They don't have legions of tellers, fact checkers, CSR reps and people to handle the myriad of details other business have to deal with. These issues are not only 'high touch' - they are hard. G is not going to start hiring thousands of people to do such things, it's just not in their DNA. Maybe some issue will be the straw on the camels back.

jaimex2 8y ago

The guy was born in Israel... Seems like a rant about nothing to me. Just edit your wikipedia page and be done with it.

throwaway2048 8y ago
Not allowed under wikipedia rules.
- robjan 8y ago
  It is if it's factually correct
numbsafari 8y ago
He doesn't have a wikipedia page as far as I can tell. It's also not his job to correct Google's source information, if that is even where they get their information from in this case (which doesn't seem to be the case).
reaperducer 8y ago
The guy was born in Israel... Seems like a rant about nothing to me Being born is Israel does not automatically make a person a citizen. This is true of the vast majority of countries. Google has such a SV-focused mindset that it simply can't comprehend that the United States is one of only a few countries that give automatic citizenship based on geography of birth.
- vatueil 8y ago
  > the United States is one of only a few countries that give automatic citizenship based on geography of birth It would be more accurate to say that most countries in the New World practice jus soli, while most countries in the Old World do not. Regardless, it appears the issue in this case is due to the fact that other sources also refer to Mr. Reiter as Israeli rather than anyone's mindset.
alistairSH 8y ago
It's not nothing. Based on Google's logic, I'm Emirati. I'm most assuredly not. I was born in Dubai to Scottish parents, and spent the first 18 years of my life as a British expat living in various countries. At the age of 19, I took US citizenship. So, like the blogger, you could call me American, or British, or Scottish, or some combination - Scottish-American, etc. But, calling my an Emirati would be completely wrong. I never had Emirati citizenship, I have no affinity to the Emirates, and I haven't been back to the Emirates since leaving prior to my 2nd birthday.

paul7986 8y ago

Easy solution don’t use Google use DuckDuckGo.com or another search engine.

zapzupnz 8y ago
This comment doesn't correspond with the content of the blog post. It relates to Google's algorithms; one's personal choice of search engine does not change the fact that the results Google shows are ultimately seen by more eyes than anything else.
- jakeogh 8y ago
  Sure it does. General awareness of google's increasing tendency to engineer language will result in people not trusting it... possibly to the point where this person wouldnt bother to write about it.
  - zapzupnz 8y ago
    I still can't see the link to individuals using DDG as an immediate or relevant solution to the problem discussed by the author. The comment, to my eyes, came off as flippant.

jnbiche 8y ago

Seeing as how the author was indeed born in Israel, I figured at first that it was unreasonable to complain, since like or or not he was probably an Israeli citizen. However, looking into Israeli citizenship law, I learned that Israel does not have birthright citizenship. So he was not automatically a citizen despite being born there. Had his parents been Israelis (and that doesn't appear to be the case), he would be Israeli. It's true that he's likely eligible to claim Israeli citizenship through the law of return. But being eligible for Israeli citizenship isn't the same as having it. So I do understand the annoyance. It's not just a technicality--he actually doesn't have Israeli citizenship. Google's algorithm appears to assume all countries practice birthright citizenship like the US (when many, probably most, do not).

p1necone 8y ago
Is there a set of circumstances that could result in someone being born in Israel without gaining citizenship, while also not getting citizenship in the country their parents were from?
- cwzwarich 8y ago
  This sort of thing is technically possible for children of Indian citizens born in countries without birth citizenship, see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_nationality_law#Citizenship_by_descent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_nationality_law#Citizen.... Given that millions of Indians live in Persian gulf countries with these sorts of citizenship laws, I wonder if it has ever happened.
  - taejo 8y ago
    Statelessness absolutely does happen. On 13 November 2018, Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said there are about 12 million stateless people in the world.
- mey 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statelessness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statelessness

jccalhoun 8y ago

I hate it when people call being wrong "lying." This is a semantic argument. He was born there so it could be argued that Israeli is technically accurate. I hate it when people call being wrong "lying."

pie_hacker 8y ago
I do not understand why you hate this. Making a false statement is lying, at least in my playbook. That the argument is semantic is irrelevant. It may be the case that Google is only wrong because of a technicality, but they are wrong nevertheless. (Unless you believe that Google is right and the author is actually Israeli, but that is a different discussion.)
- Kalium 8y ago
  In vernacular usage, the act of lying requires intent. Is it perhaps possible that Parent is trying to communicate a difference between intentional false statements, commonly called lies, and unintentional false statements, commonly called being wrong? If someone is incorrect about the time when you ask, it's possible they are deliberately misleading you. It's also possible they are not, and their clock is also incorrect. Would you consider both cases to be lying?
gnud 8y ago
According to the author, he was asked by Google to give feedback on the info they had about him. He did, and they ignored it. What will it take before you consider them to be lying?
- paulcole 8y ago
  How does Google know he’s not lying?
  - ehsankia 8y ago
    And that he is he.

WhitneyLand 8y ago

For anyone else curious. I'm not sure, but a cursory search suggests it's perfectly fine to publicly lie about a private citizen with no recourse, as long as you avoid financial or related damages? "In order to determine the damages from a slander or libel suit, there must be quantifiable damages. Defamation of character damages a person’s or company’s reputation, and it must be proven that the damage to reputation correlated with a loss of money, property, relationship or was subject to harassment that led to any of the above losses." https://thelawdictionary.org/article/when-to-sue-for-defamation-slander-and-libel https://thelawdictionary.org/article/when-to-sue-for-defamat...

greenyoda 8y ago
It may be "perfectly fine" in terms of legal repercussions, but there are also ethical considerations. If someone knowingly makes false statements about someone else, they would rightfully be regarded as unethical and untrustworthy.
- WhitneyLand 8y ago
  You're very sweet. How about telling them something like... Pardon me, Mr. Google and Mr. <consider who you're dealing with in these scenarios>, how are you sir? Would you kindly consider not publishing false statements about me? Of course you may not be compelled to do so. However as a gentleman I'm sure you would ageee the ethical and trust implications are philosophically untenable. Therefore I assume you are intrinsically highly motivated to immediately take corrective action. Thank you! Regarding the first sentence, please take it at face value. If that's your point of view I'd be glad to count you as a friend if you'd have me - ping anytime. However, I'd probably not guess well how long Ehud will have to remain an Israeli computer scientist.
  - robbrown451 8y ago
    Or, how about blogging about it, and having internet discussions about it that cause Google to realize that this is negatively impacting their image to the public, and that that in itself can be costly enough to them to change their approach, even if not compelled to do so by a court? Which is exactly what happened here. (whether they change their course is yet to be seen)

robbrown451 8y ago

I think it is far less an issue of faulty AI and more an issue of Google ignoring requests to change information about someone when that person notifies them that it is incorrect. It's one thing to show things in search results, a very different thing to have a little box saying "We Google have deduced that this is true." They should take more responsibility. In my opinion they should be required to do something about it. It is very similar to how you can tell google your privacy is invaded by something on Google Maps and they will fix it (with blurring, in that case).

mqus 8y ago
Actually, there already is a (EU) law for it, it is called GDPR[1] and within it, you have a right to let businesses correct personal information about you. [1]https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:02016R0679-20160504&from=EN https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... See Article 5, Paragraph 1d and 2 and Article 16
- caf 8y ago
  ...and as a UK citizen, the author should have no problem making such a request.

O1111OOO 8y ago

Sent (very unkind) feedback to Google via the infobox that appears for Ehud Reiter[0]. It's about time Google developes a mechanism for handling cases like these and so many others (like all the cases where people lose access to their accounts completely). We shouldn't need legislation or lawsuits. [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=Ehud%20Reiter https://www.google.com/search?q=Ehud%20Reiter

Lazare 8y ago

Coincidentally, I just ran across someone else trying (and failing) to get Google to update a similar incorrect line in their knowledge graph. In this case, the person is fairly well known on YouTube, and their profession line should almost certainly read "Canadian YouTuber" (as the profession line for all of her peers does), but instead it reads "Actress", which is pretty odd and inaccurate. (You could make an argument that someone who posts content on YouTube is technically an actor/actress, but that's a very uncommon usage, and as with OP, misleads much more that it conveys useful information. And again, Google, who owns YouTube, clearly prefers to label prominent YouTubers as <nationality> YouTuber.) In her case she apparently got a response saying "our systems don't allow us to fix this type of error", she escalated, then she got a response saying "good news, it's fixed!", but it's not fixed. If Google is just summarising info from other sources (and in many cases, they just repeat what Wikipedia has), that's fine, but in cases (as here) where they're acting as an independent source of truth, they really need some process for fixing mistakes...