4 ms·

The Autocrat's Algorithm: Is Google News helping to spread propaganda?

18 points by andreshb 16y ago

ajays 16y ago
One man's "propaganda" is another man's "truth". The author writes, "While few American readers object to getting their news from the BBC, partially funded by the British Foreign Office, many find the Qatari-funded satellite network Al Jazeera hopelessly biased." This is funny, and I'm surprised the author did not mention it, because Al Jazeera is actually mostly former members of BBC's Middle-East service. Just because it's the Qatari government bankrolling them doesn't make them any more biased than when the British government was bankrolling them. If the claim is they're biased now, then it is safe to conclude that they were biased earlier.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  The fact that the people are the same doesn't mean the reporting is the same. Al Jazeera seems to have very different reporting standards than the BBC. It's hardly outside the realm of possibility that the former-BBC types wanted to engage in biased reporting at the BBC, but were not permitted to.
  - ajays 16y ago
    It is equally likely that they were being forced to be biased in BBC, but chose not and left? You do realize that many of the Al Jazeera people are Brits?
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      I'm only responding to the point that since the people are the same, the bias levels should also be the same. As for specific bias at Al Jazeera, the main thing that jumped out at me when I watched it is simple racism. Arab minority being oppressed by non-Arab majority is a major human rights crisis. Anyone who fights back is a martyr. When a non-Arab underclass is oppressed by Arabs (or Farsis, they seem to be brothers in arms), meh. If they fight back, they are criminals. My biggest WTF moment was reading an article about Kurds asserting their right to return to Kirkuk and take their land back from settlers. Somehow, the article managed to compare the Kurds to Israelis (rather than to Palestinians). I'll try to dig it up. That's the sort of thing that I think most western editors would frown upon, except maybe at the Stormfront Newsletter.
      - ajays 16y ago
        You do realize that American media is quite biased too? I'm not even talking about Fox News; even the so-called "mainstream" media is quite biased. Case in point: whenever it's a cute Caucasian woman who's missing, every news networks covers it; but when it's a woman of color, then you barely hear a peep. I mean, we're still talking about Natalie Holloway. There's even a term for it now: "Missing white woman syndrome". Meanwhile, waterboarding is called "torture" for 40 years, and then suddenly it becomes an "enhanced interrogation technique" when we start doing it. The point is: Al Jazeera appears "biased" to people because they're not biased in the way we want them to be. You claim that Al Jazeera is biased against non-Arabs. How do you then explain the fact that Al Jazeera was just kicked out of Morocco for being biased towards Western Sahara? Please keep in mind that Al Jazeera is a network. Just like any other network, there are people there who are biased in various directions. You can't just cherry-pick reports and paint the whole network with "bias".
        yummyfajitas 16y ago
        You do realize that American media is quite biased too? See here http://searchyc.com/yummyfajitas+media http://searchyc.com/yummyfajitas+media for assorted posts by me which include swipes at the media for bias (usually while making unrelated points). Look, I'm only trying to point out that "same reporters" != "same bias level/direction". I'll leave it to others to debate the relative merits of Al Jazeera vs MSNBC. It's irrelevant to me, I don't watch any of them.
        ajays 16y ago
        Somehow, "I don't watch any of them" seems to contradict your earlier statement: "As for specific bias at Al Jazeera, the main thing that jumped out at me when I watched it is simple racism." I have watched Al Jazeera very occasionally. As well as Link TV. While I may find some specific parts odious, there are other programs there that are shaking up the system in the Middle East. Al Jazeera is hated as much in Washington as it is in Riyadh. This, to me, is a good thing: if they're pissing people on both sides off, then they must be doing something right.
anigbrowl 16y ago
It's been overrun by SEO and seems to be getting worse every day. I was horrified when using someone else's computer recently to find that the selection quality of Google news was substantially better when I was not logged in.
vtail 16y ago
Putting emotions aside, decent news ranking algorithm should: - put high weight on the original content - put higher weight on the local reporting - put higher weight on popular news sources (e.g. high quotation index, high page rank etc.) - put lower weight on second- and third-hand reporting Under such conditions, it's extremely hard (if not impossible) to ignore propaganda, which _by design_ generates lots of original and local content, unless you execercise some political judgement, such as punishing news sources for being funded by hostile governments - which is what Google News is trying to avoid, according to them. It seems to me that Google News is just reflecting (sad) reality where more money/resources can generate more coverage. Any ideas how technology could change that?
- dkarl 16y ago
  punishing news sources for being funded by hostile governments It doesn't matter whether the government is "hostile" or not. Every country, the U.S. included, is friendly with some pretty repressive regimes. Or, to look at it from an international perspective, are you saying Iranians should trust Syrian state media more than the BBC because Syria is friendlier to Iran than Great Britain is?
barrkel 16y ago
US news sources are almost relentless in their biased US-centric agenda. Being favourably biased towards your country "right or wrong" is a natural side-effect of nationalism and patriotism framing the state as a larger family. A veritable conspiracy theory of propaganda isn't necessary to explain the groupthink and intellectual capture of (media) elites all over the world.
petercooper 16y ago
This article makes a bizarrely implicit suggestion that US media is not biased and is not encouraged to take certain standpoints. I enjoy both British and US media and while I can't issue a judgment on who is more objective, the difference in the biases and portrayal of international events even between these two aligned nations is startling. I cannot be as quick as this author to slam Russian or Chinese sources as obviously biased.
julius_geezer 16y ago
""We can't allow ourselves to be out-communicated by our enemies." I don't regard RT as a friend, but "enemies"? It is also worth mentioning that the notionally respectable media has a very mixed record over the years. Look up Walter Duranty for one example, Robert McCormick for another.

18 points by andreshb 16y ago

ajays 16y ago

One man's "propaganda" is another man's "truth". The author writes, "While few American readers object to getting their news from the BBC, partially funded by the British Foreign Office, many find the Qatari-funded satellite network Al Jazeera hopelessly biased." This is funny, and I'm surprised the author did not mention it, because Al Jazeera is actually mostly former members of BBC's Middle-East service. Just because it's the Qatari government bankrolling them doesn't make them any more biased than when the British government was bankrolling them. If the claim is they're biased now, then it is safe to conclude that they were biased earlier.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
The fact that the people are the same doesn't mean the reporting is the same. Al Jazeera seems to have very different reporting standards than the BBC. It's hardly outside the realm of possibility that the former-BBC types wanted to engage in biased reporting at the BBC, but were not permitted to.
- ajays 16y ago
  It is equally likely that they were being forced to be biased in BBC, but chose not and left? You do realize that many of the Al Jazeera people are Brits?
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    I'm only responding to the point that since the people are the same, the bias levels should also be the same. As for specific bias at Al Jazeera, the main thing that jumped out at me when I watched it is simple racism. Arab minority being oppressed by non-Arab majority is a major human rights crisis. Anyone who fights back is a martyr. When a non-Arab underclass is oppressed by Arabs (or Farsis, they seem to be brothers in arms), meh. If they fight back, they are criminals. My biggest WTF moment was reading an article about Kurds asserting their right to return to Kirkuk and take their land back from settlers. Somehow, the article managed to compare the Kurds to Israelis (rather than to Palestinians). I'll try to dig it up. That's the sort of thing that I think most western editors would frown upon, except maybe at the Stormfront Newsletter.
    - ajays 16y ago
      You do realize that American media is quite biased too? I'm not even talking about Fox News; even the so-called "mainstream" media is quite biased. Case in point: whenever it's a cute Caucasian woman who's missing, every news networks covers it; but when it's a woman of color, then you barely hear a peep. I mean, we're still talking about Natalie Holloway. There's even a term for it now: "Missing white woman syndrome". Meanwhile, waterboarding is called "torture" for 40 years, and then suddenly it becomes an "enhanced interrogation technique" when we start doing it. The point is: Al Jazeera appears "biased" to people because they're not biased in the way we want them to be. You claim that Al Jazeera is biased against non-Arabs. How do you then explain the fact that Al Jazeera was just kicked out of Morocco for being biased towards Western Sahara? Please keep in mind that Al Jazeera is a network. Just like any other network, there are people there who are biased in various directions. You can't just cherry-pick reports and paint the whole network with "bias".
      - yummyfajitas 16y ago
        You do realize that American media is quite biased too? See here http://searchyc.com/yummyfajitas+media http://searchyc.com/yummyfajitas+media for assorted posts by me which include swipes at the media for bias (usually while making unrelated points). Look, I'm only trying to point out that "same reporters" != "same bias level/direction". I'll leave it to others to debate the relative merits of Al Jazeera vs MSNBC. It's irrelevant to me, I don't watch any of them.
        ajays 16y ago
        Somehow, "I don't watch any of them" seems to contradict your earlier statement: "As for specific bias at Al Jazeera, the main thing that jumped out at me when I watched it is simple racism." I have watched Al Jazeera very occasionally. As well as Link TV. While I may find some specific parts odious, there are other programs there that are shaking up the system in the Middle East. Al Jazeera is hated as much in Washington as it is in Riyadh. This, to me, is a good thing: if they're pissing people on both sides off, then they must be doing something right.

anigbrowl 16y ago

It's been overrun by SEO and seems to be getting worse every day. I was horrified when using someone else's computer recently to find that the selection quality of Google news was substantially better when I was not logged in.

vtail 16y ago

Putting emotions aside, decent news ranking algorithm should: - put high weight on the original content - put higher weight on the local reporting - put higher weight on popular news sources (e.g. high quotation index, high page rank etc.) - put lower weight on second- and third-hand reporting Under such conditions, it's extremely hard (if not impossible) to ignore propaganda, which _by design_ generates lots of original and local content, unless you execercise some political judgement, such as punishing news sources for being funded by hostile governments - which is what Google News is trying to avoid, according to them. It seems to me that Google News is just reflecting (sad) reality where more money/resources can generate more coverage. Any ideas how technology could change that?

dkarl 16y ago
punishing news sources for being funded by hostile governments It doesn't matter whether the government is "hostile" or not. Every country, the U.S. included, is friendly with some pretty repressive regimes. Or, to look at it from an international perspective, are you saying Iranians should trust Syrian state media more than the BBC because Syria is friendlier to Iran than Great Britain is?

barrkel 16y ago

US news sources are almost relentless in their biased US-centric agenda. Being favourably biased towards your country "right or wrong" is a natural side-effect of nationalism and patriotism framing the state as a larger family. A veritable conspiracy theory of propaganda isn't necessary to explain the groupthink and intellectual capture of (media) elites all over the world.

petercooper 16y ago

This article makes a bizarrely implicit suggestion that US media is not biased and is not encouraged to take certain standpoints. I enjoy both British and US media and while I can't issue a judgment on who is more objective, the difference in the biases and portrayal of international events even between these two aligned nations is startling. I cannot be as quick as this author to slam Russian or Chinese sources as obviously biased.

julius_geezer 16y ago

""We can't allow ourselves to be out-communicated by our enemies." I don't regard RT as a friend, but "enemies"? It is also worth mentioning that the notionally respectable media has a very mixed record over the years. Look up Walter Duranty for one example, Robert McCormick for another.