8 ms·

I think your logic is perfect. As long as you agree to treat Google as a publisher and not as a platform like it is currently being treated now. Section 230 [1

by tucaz 7y ago

I think your logic is perfect. As long as you agree to treat Google as a publisher and not as a platform like it is currently being treated now. Section 230 [1], which in theory was supposed to protect free speech, is actually doing the opposite and giving Google and other major media companies the power to censor free speech and decide what you can see or not. I'm sure the gas station would be held liable if RC Cola made their customers sick and they kept selling it. Google is not liable for anything they publish/display, but still have the power to choose what they publish/display. You can't have your cake and eat it too. [1] - https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230 https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230

liara_k 7y ago
> Google is not liable for anything they publish/display, but still have the power to choose what they publish/display. Choosing how to respond to a query string is the very nature of what a search engine does. It's utterly impossible to have one without the other. The more charitable interpretation of your argument is that there should be more "neutrality" in the algorithm, but that's also difficult... Should they be neutral to whether or not people are trying to manipulate algorithms with dishonest SEO? Should they be neutral to what other users like? Neutral to who else links to the page? Who decides which neutrality prevails where they conflict? Who decides if a certain kind of neutrality is more important than user preferences or market demands? This is a rabbit hole of mutually exclusive goals and inevitable trade-offs that requires complex judgment. Government regulation in this area would be extremely difficult and troublesome, not just for economic reasons but also for first amendment ones. Free market competition in this area is going to be limited due to economies of scale, so that isn't perfect either. And if you think that imposing traditional publisher liability for search engines is likely to make search engines censor _less_, you might want to think a few steps further down the strategic consequences.
- tucaz 7y ago
  Maybe we should start with easy problems. I'm not proposing that we have a "fair" algorithm. I think two simple actions would suffice: 1) Google (and other platforms) should stop removing content from people they do not agree with in their platforms. 2) They also should publicize why one result was chosen over the other. That would give users the necessary information to decide if Google is biased or not. Everyone would make decisions based on publicly available information. That alone would make things way more transparent and level the playing field a bit. Unless Google doesn't want that. If that's the case, them they are a publisher and not a platform.
  - deelowe 7y ago
    > Google (and other platforms) should stop removing content from people they do not agree with in their platforms. Citation needed. > They also should publicize why one result was chosen over the other. Seems like this would make it much easier for the SEO spam sites to manipulate.
    - wuliwong 7y ago
      Here is a list from wikipedia on twitter suspensions, not sure how up-to-date it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_suspensions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_suspensions I believe it's factual to say that significantly more "conservative-related" accounts are banned than liberal ones? Is that because "they don't agree with" the conservatives more than the liberals? I dunno.
      - deelowe 7y ago
        What does Twitter have to do with Google?
  - tucaz 7y ago
    @deelowe, sure. - https://boingboing.net/2019/05/02/facebook-just-deplatformed-a-b.html https://boingboing.net/2019/05/02/facebook-just-deplatformed... - https://mashable.com/article/deplatforming-alex-jones-2018/ https://mashable.com/article/deplatforming-alex-jones-2018/ I can probably find a lot more, but I guess this is enough to make the point, right? > Unless Google doesn't want that. If that's the case, them they are a publisher and not a platform. Would you rather fight spammers and keep free-speech alive or give it up over to Google and other platforms? I know where I stand.
    - jasode 7y ago
      >deplatforming Alex Jones Just as a datapoint, I just googled "Alex Jones"[0] about 5 minutes after your comment and his Infowars website is prominently shown on page 1 as the 3rd result[1]. I don't have a Facebook account but it doesn't look like Google Search in particular has deplatformed Alex Jones. (To the downvoters, this thread's topic is the Columbia Journalism Review story and it's about referrals from Google Search and not Youtube. The comment by liara_k is also specifically about the Google search engine and that's what tucaz was replying to. If my screenshot of Google search engine results does not contribute to the discussion, please explain why.) [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=alex+jones https://www.google.com/search?q=alex+jones [1] https://imgur.com/a/KDVBHcJ https://imgur.com/a/KDVBHcJ
- amelius 7y ago
  The only way to resolve this is to make the search algorithm public, so that we actually know how the results should be interpreted.
  - VikingCoder 7y ago
    Are you in general violently opposed to Intellectual Property, or only in this case?
    - amelius 7y ago
      Only in this case. Search rules our entire economy and deserves a special status.
sametmax 7y ago
Google is supposed to be nothing. They are here to make money, and they will follow whatever rules that let them do that as long as we let them. They are not a public service.
- ilaksh 7y ago
  That's true. The problem is the monopoly position they have and the massive adoption has put them in a public role. Everyone needs to get from point A to point B and roads are a key way that we accomplish that. In a similar vein, everyone needs to search for information and search engines are a key way that we accomplish that. With Google, it's almost like one company owns 90% of the roads. On multiple continents. It is sort of like a utility company, except way beyond that. I personally think that platforms with this scope should be built on public, open, decentralized protocols and networks. Something like YaCy might be the right direction. Then maybe we could have companies built on top of that platform to add value. But the core functioning of the platform would be auditable.
kristianc 7y ago
Even if you give that Google is a platform, as Tyler Cowen artfully put it this week: > You might be worried that, because of deplatforming, the remaining sites and writers and YouTube posters have to “walk the line” more than ideally would be the case. That to me is a genuine concern, but still let’s be comparative. Did you ever try to crack the New York publishing scene in the 1990s, or submit an Op-Ed to the New York Times before the internet was “a thing”? Now that was deplatforming, and most of it was due to the size of the slush pile rather than to evil intentions, though undoubtedly there was bias in both settings. What do you think was happening before? https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/05/roissy-has-been-deplatformed.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/05/ro...
- dahfizz 7y ago
  This is a very weak argument. The internet has created a new environment for speech to occur, and this new environment needs to be treated fairly. Just because things were worse before does not justify the misuse of the tools we currently have to continue letting things be "worse". Before humans figured out agriculture, people regularly starved. Would you walk up to someone starving to death today, shrug at them, and say "we used to starve all the time"? Your position is inheritly anti-progress.
  - kristianc 7y ago
    This is the list of the world's top 50 news sites. https://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/News https://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/News Hardly any conservative sites make the cut - Fox News is 10th, but the Drudge Report is 23rd and the NY Post is 26th. Meanwhile, CNN is third, trailing only Google News and Reddit. NYTimes is 4th, WaPo 11th, Bloomberg 17th and USAToday. Meanwhile, 222,000+ sites link to the NYT. Fox News has just 52,000. Google’s algorithm lets the Internet vote on which news sources it trusts the most. As it turns out, very few right wing sites make the cut. Perhaps not the biggest surprise, as right now, according to Breitbart, the biggest story in the entire world right now isn't Zuck, isn't Trade Wars with China, it isn't even Julian Assange, it's that Jussie Smollett's 'Empire' just got cancelled.
bilbo0s 7y ago
You're thinking about Section 230 wrong. Censorship is a government only thing. But even if we accept your definition of censorship, in google's case, there is no censorship taking place. Because google always lets every user know about every hit it found for their search at the very top of the first page of results. So if google knows about 1,690,000,000 instances of, say, "chocolate cake", it tells you that up front. Crucially, given enough time, google will always present to every user all 1,690,000,000 instances of which it is aware. You are not required to present all of the information on your platform at once in order to be considered a platform. Indeed, it is generally accepted that platforms, by their very nature, are not able to do so.
- tucaz 7y ago
  I don't want to argue semantics, but even if we do, I would state that you are wrong. [1] Censorship can come from anyone and anywhere. Especially when a private company like Google has more power that many governments in the world. Google could even be considered an un-elected government depending on how you look at it. What they are doing by de-platforming people is censorship. They offer no clue as to how their algorithm works or why some people get up on the list while others don't. While they could theoretically show all 1,690,000,000 results, we know for a fact that just the first or second page at tops is what matters. So, in all practicality, the other results do not exist. If the other results do not exist, then they are a publisher and should be treated as such since they pick the winners and losers. If there's nothing wrong with what they are doing, what's the problem of calling then a publisher? Why not embrace it and take full responsibility? [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
  - mullingitover 7y ago
    You seem to be suggesting that by curating the content on their platform, Google is losing (or should be losing) their section 230 protections. This is simply wrong. If I have a blog, and I ban someone from commenting, I don't lose my 230 protections. Even though I've 'de-platformed' someone from my blog. Google is no different than a blog, just scaled up.
elpool2 7y ago
Are you saying that all websites protected by section 230 should be required to be neutral, and not be allowed to filter out content they don't like? Or just Google because they have so much power?
komali2 7y ago
What free speech does Google explicitly censor?

by tucaz 7y ago

liara_k 7y ago

> Google is not liable for anything they publish/display, but still have the power to choose what they publish/display. Choosing how to respond to a query string is the very nature of what a search engine does. It's utterly impossible to have one without the other. The more charitable interpretation of your argument is that there should be more "neutrality" in the algorithm, but that's also difficult... Should they be neutral to whether or not people are trying to manipulate algorithms with dishonest SEO? Should they be neutral to what other users like? Neutral to who else links to the page? Who decides which neutrality prevails where they conflict? Who decides if a certain kind of neutrality is more important than user preferences or market demands? This is a rabbit hole of mutually exclusive goals and inevitable trade-offs that requires complex judgment. Government regulation in this area would be extremely difficult and troublesome, not just for economic reasons but also for first amendment ones. Free market competition in this area is going to be limited due to economies of scale, so that isn't perfect either. And if you think that imposing traditional publisher liability for search engines is likely to make search engines censor _less_, you might want to think a few steps further down the strategic consequences.

tucaz 7y ago
Maybe we should start with easy problems. I'm not proposing that we have a "fair" algorithm. I think two simple actions would suffice: 1) Google (and other platforms) should stop removing content from people they do not agree with in their platforms. 2) They also should publicize why one result was chosen over the other. That would give users the necessary information to decide if Google is biased or not. Everyone would make decisions based on publicly available information. That alone would make things way more transparent and level the playing field a bit. Unless Google doesn't want that. If that's the case, them they are a publisher and not a platform.
- deelowe 7y ago
  > Google (and other platforms) should stop removing content from people they do not agree with in their platforms. Citation needed. > They also should publicize why one result was chosen over the other. Seems like this would make it much easier for the SEO spam sites to manipulate.
  - wuliwong 7y ago
    Here is a list from wikipedia on twitter suspensions, not sure how up-to-date it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_suspensions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_suspensions I believe it's factual to say that significantly more "conservative-related" accounts are banned than liberal ones? Is that because "they don't agree with" the conservatives more than the liberals? I dunno.
    - deelowe 7y ago
      What does Twitter have to do with Google?
- tucaz 7y ago
  @deelowe, sure. - https://boingboing.net/2019/05/02/facebook-just-deplatformed-a-b.html https://boingboing.net/2019/05/02/facebook-just-deplatformed... - https://mashable.com/article/deplatforming-alex-jones-2018/ https://mashable.com/article/deplatforming-alex-jones-2018/ I can probably find a lot more, but I guess this is enough to make the point, right? > Unless Google doesn't want that. If that's the case, them they are a publisher and not a platform. Would you rather fight spammers and keep free-speech alive or give it up over to Google and other platforms? I know where I stand.
  - jasode 7y ago
    >deplatforming Alex Jones Just as a datapoint, I just googled "Alex Jones"[0] about 5 minutes after your comment and his Infowars website is prominently shown on page 1 as the 3rd result[1]. I don't have a Facebook account but it doesn't look like Google Search in particular has deplatformed Alex Jones. (To the downvoters, this thread's topic is the Columbia Journalism Review story and it's about referrals from Google Search and not Youtube. The comment by liara_k is also specifically about the Google search engine and that's what tucaz was replying to. If my screenshot of Google search engine results does not contribute to the discussion, please explain why.) [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=alex+jones https://www.google.com/search?q=alex+jones [1] https://imgur.com/a/KDVBHcJ https://imgur.com/a/KDVBHcJ
amelius 7y ago
The only way to resolve this is to make the search algorithm public, so that we actually know how the results should be interpreted.
- VikingCoder 7y ago
  Are you in general violently opposed to Intellectual Property, or only in this case?
  - amelius 7y ago
    Only in this case. Search rules our entire economy and deserves a special status.

sametmax 7y ago

Google is supposed to be nothing. They are here to make money, and they will follow whatever rules that let them do that as long as we let them. They are not a public service.

ilaksh 7y ago
That's true. The problem is the monopoly position they have and the massive adoption has put them in a public role. Everyone needs to get from point A to point B and roads are a key way that we accomplish that. In a similar vein, everyone needs to search for information and search engines are a key way that we accomplish that. With Google, it's almost like one company owns 90% of the roads. On multiple continents. It is sort of like a utility company, except way beyond that. I personally think that platforms with this scope should be built on public, open, decentralized protocols and networks. Something like YaCy might be the right direction. Then maybe we could have companies built on top of that platform to add value. But the core functioning of the platform would be auditable.

kristianc 7y ago

Even if you give that Google is a platform, as Tyler Cowen artfully put it this week: > You might be worried that, because of deplatforming, the remaining sites and writers and YouTube posters have to “walk the line” more than ideally would be the case. That to me is a genuine concern, but still let’s be comparative. Did you ever try to crack the New York publishing scene in the 1990s, or submit an Op-Ed to the New York Times before the internet was “a thing”? Now that was deplatforming, and most of it was due to the size of the slush pile rather than to evil intentions, though undoubtedly there was bias in both settings. What do you think was happening before? https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/05/roissy-has-been-deplatformed.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/05/ro...

dahfizz 7y ago
This is a very weak argument. The internet has created a new environment for speech to occur, and this new environment needs to be treated fairly. Just because things were worse before does not justify the misuse of the tools we currently have to continue letting things be "worse". Before humans figured out agriculture, people regularly starved. Would you walk up to someone starving to death today, shrug at them, and say "we used to starve all the time"? Your position is inheritly anti-progress.
- kristianc 7y ago
  This is the list of the world's top 50 news sites. https://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/News https://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/News Hardly any conservative sites make the cut - Fox News is 10th, but the Drudge Report is 23rd and the NY Post is 26th. Meanwhile, CNN is third, trailing only Google News and Reddit. NYTimes is 4th, WaPo 11th, Bloomberg 17th and USAToday. Meanwhile, 222,000+ sites link to the NYT. Fox News has just 52,000. Google’s algorithm lets the Internet vote on which news sources it trusts the most. As it turns out, very few right wing sites make the cut. Perhaps not the biggest surprise, as right now, according to Breitbart, the biggest story in the entire world right now isn't Zuck, isn't Trade Wars with China, it isn't even Julian Assange, it's that Jussie Smollett's 'Empire' just got cancelled.

bilbo0s 7y ago

You're thinking about Section 230 wrong. Censorship is a government only thing. But even if we accept your definition of censorship, in google's case, there is no censorship taking place. Because google always lets every user know about every hit it found for their search at the very top of the first page of results. So if google knows about 1,690,000,000 instances of, say, "chocolate cake", it tells you that up front. Crucially, given enough time, google will always present to every user all 1,690,000,000 instances of which it is aware. You are not required to present all of the information on your platform at once in order to be considered a platform. Indeed, it is generally accepted that platforms, by their very nature, are not able to do so.

tucaz 7y ago
I don't want to argue semantics, but even if we do, I would state that you are wrong. [1] Censorship can come from anyone and anywhere. Especially when a private company like Google has more power that many governments in the world. Google could even be considered an un-elected government depending on how you look at it. What they are doing by de-platforming people is censorship. They offer no clue as to how their algorithm works or why some people get up on the list while others don't. While they could theoretically show all 1,690,000,000 results, we know for a fact that just the first or second page at tops is what matters. So, in all practicality, the other results do not exist. If the other results do not exist, then they are a publisher and should be treated as such since they pick the winners and losers. If there's nothing wrong with what they are doing, what's the problem of calling then a publisher? Why not embrace it and take full responsibility? [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
- mullingitover 7y ago
  You seem to be suggesting that by curating the content on their platform, Google is losing (or should be losing) their section 230 protections. This is simply wrong. If I have a blog, and I ban someone from commenting, I don't lose my 230 protections. Even though I've 'de-platformed' someone from my blog. Google is no different than a blog, just scaled up.

elpool2 7y ago

Are you saying that all websites protected by section 230 should be required to be neutral, and not be allowed to filter out content they don't like? Or just Google because they have so much power?

komali2 7y ago

What free speech does Google explicitly censor?