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once they decided to get into the game of determining what is and what is not the truth is where they step over the line. if I search for something I want what

once they decided to get into the game of determining what is and what is not the truth is where they step over the line. if I search for something I want what is popular to come up, not was is approved. daily mail isn't gaming the system, people know it is a tabloid. the real issue is that many supposed respectable news agencies have been shown to have more than their fair share of misinformation.

hedora 7y ago
Eh; their site is the top hit on Google for “The Daily Mail” I suspect most people searching using Google’s news features want news, not tabloids. Slurping a bunch of searches for news into your tabloid site sounds like an obvious case of “gaming the system”. I didn’t know it was a tabloid until just now, because I’ve never heard of them. I’d have been upset with the news aggregators I use if they accidentally bubbled unreliable sources to the top of my feed. I really don’t understand the controversy.
jakelazaroff 7y ago
> once they decided to get into the game of determining what is and what is not the truth is where they step over the line. Why shouldn't they? If I search for information about the Earth, I don't want to see a bunch of flat Earth crap. If I search for information on vaccines, I don't want to have to sift through anti-vax results, no matter how popular they are. People use Google because they think the results are good. Google's bet is that one reason people for this is that they surface true information. Therefore, they penalize information they assess likely to be false. If users disagree with Google's assessment — i.e. it buries valuable information or surfaces worthless information — they'll use another search engine.
- camillomiller 7y ago
  They shouldn’t because they are a private company that reached public utility level, and public utilities should be neutral
  - calciphus 7y ago
    How do you think Google should order search results?
    - spookthesunset 7y ago
      You'll never get an answer to this question from people who question google's ordering. Google has to order the content somehow. I don't think people bitching about their changes realize it is always a trade off. Some people win and some people loose.
  - iron0013 7y ago
    They are in no way equivalent to a public utility. This and the obsessive focus on whether google/youtube/facebook are a "publisher or a platform" are the most laughably bad-faithed and incoherent talking points I've seen in a while.
    - root_axis 7y ago
      The publisher/platform thing is also a false dilemma that keeps getting repeated even though it has no basis in the reality of the law. U.S.C 230 explicitly states: > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. The same law also states: > any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected So this idea that these platforms are de-facto publishers because they decided to curate their platform is explicitly incorrect as stated by the law.
- welly 7y ago
  While I agree with you, the results you seek are still subjective results. As a flat earther (I'm not a flat earther), the emphasis I wuold be looking for would be on returning results proving the earth is flat when I search for information about the Earth. I'm not sure Google can win this one.
Bjartr 7y ago
> if I search for something I want what is popular to come up I am in a different camp. I want something useful to come up. Once upon a time popularity (in the pagerank sense) and usefulness were better correlated. Today the signal-to-noise ratio is worse and those trying to game the system are more sophisticated.
- im3w1l 7y ago
  The issue if you will, is that Google is moving from publishing a variety of perspectives to a single "true" one. And furthermore the perspective that is crowned the true one, is based on whatever is politically convenient for Google. If people loudly and angrily demand that Google show a lie as truth, then you will now be in position where Google will only show the lie without any questioning or contrary perspectives. As the lie becomes established, so policy will made based on it. And it will be very deficient policy. And it will lead to disaster. Afterwards, people will ask? How come no one saw this coming? How come no one raised any objections? Did you know that during the communist mass starvation, there was a lot of false propaganda about how well big the harvests were. People looking to ingratiate themselves with the elite lied about how well everything was going and flattered the elite with how great their their wisdom was. They were surrounded by yes men who created a filter bubble. The distorted vision of that was catastrophical. Tens of millions dead.
yongjik 7y ago
> if I search for something I want what is popular to come up, not was is approved. There is no objective, Platonic measure of "popularity", and Google always has to temper it with "correctness". When someone searches for "california governor", Google needs to show results for "Gavin Newsom" instead of "Arnold Schwarzenegger", even though the latter is immensely more popular by any reasonable metric. So yes, Google's engineers will keep tweaking the algorithm until it stops showing Arnold Schwarzenegger entirely. In search of correctness. Otherwise it will become unusable very quickly.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  But there is no single right answer! Even a given person may want one answer in one context and another one in a different context. Popularity is not the answer, but neither is currency. A problem I run into repeatedly with Google is that I enter search terms and when it gives me the wrong thing, sometimes the opposite of what I want, it strongly resists my refining it. For instance, if I search for "turning off feature X" and everybody else searches for "turning on feature X", Google will "correct" me implacably. You're not allowed to turn "X" off. Back in the old days when it wasn't as intelligent, you could add words that would divert it from the popular cluster of hits. This isn't just an annoyance, I believe it's shaping society by determining which ideas and information thrive and which wither.
6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
If you want what's popular in a very raw sense, you'll get bots linking to each other. Otherwise, you need some other sense of popular that takes bits and pieces of usefulness and trustworthiness and more.

hedora 7y ago

Eh; their site is the top hit on Google for “The Daily Mail” I suspect most people searching using Google’s news features want news, not tabloids. Slurping a bunch of searches for news into your tabloid site sounds like an obvious case of “gaming the system”. I didn’t know it was a tabloid until just now, because I’ve never heard of them. I’d have been upset with the news aggregators I use if they accidentally bubbled unreliable sources to the top of my feed. I really don’t understand the controversy.

jakelazaroff 7y ago

> once they decided to get into the game of determining what is and what is not the truth is where they step over the line. Why shouldn't they? If I search for information about the Earth, I don't want to see a bunch of flat Earth crap. If I search for information on vaccines, I don't want to have to sift through anti-vax results, no matter how popular they are. People use Google because they think the results are good. Google's bet is that one reason people for this is that they surface true information. Therefore, they penalize information they assess likely to be false. If users disagree with Google's assessment — i.e. it buries valuable information or surfaces worthless information — they'll use another search engine.

camillomiller 7y ago
They shouldn’t because they are a private company that reached public utility level, and public utilities should be neutral
- calciphus 7y ago
  How do you think Google should order search results?
  - spookthesunset 7y ago
    You'll never get an answer to this question from people who question google's ordering. Google has to order the content somehow. I don't think people bitching about their changes realize it is always a trade off. Some people win and some people loose.
- iron0013 7y ago
  They are in no way equivalent to a public utility. This and the obsessive focus on whether google/youtube/facebook are a "publisher or a platform" are the most laughably bad-faithed and incoherent talking points I've seen in a while.
  - root_axis 7y ago
    The publisher/platform thing is also a false dilemma that keeps getting repeated even though it has no basis in the reality of the law. U.S.C 230 explicitly states: > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. The same law also states: > any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected So this idea that these platforms are de-facto publishers because they decided to curate their platform is explicitly incorrect as stated by the law.
welly 7y ago
While I agree with you, the results you seek are still subjective results. As a flat earther (I'm not a flat earther), the emphasis I wuold be looking for would be on returning results proving the earth is flat when I search for information about the Earth. I'm not sure Google can win this one.

Bjartr 7y ago

> if I search for something I want what is popular to come up I am in a different camp. I want something useful to come up. Once upon a time popularity (in the pagerank sense) and usefulness were better correlated. Today the signal-to-noise ratio is worse and those trying to game the system are more sophisticated.

im3w1l 7y ago
The issue if you will, is that Google is moving from publishing a variety of perspectives to a single "true" one. And furthermore the perspective that is crowned the true one, is based on whatever is politically convenient for Google. If people loudly and angrily demand that Google show a lie as truth, then you will now be in position where Google will only show the lie without any questioning or contrary perspectives. As the lie becomes established, so policy will made based on it. And it will be very deficient policy. And it will lead to disaster. Afterwards, people will ask? How come no one saw this coming? How come no one raised any objections? Did you know that during the communist mass starvation, there was a lot of false propaganda about how well big the harvests were. People looking to ingratiate themselves with the elite lied about how well everything was going and flattered the elite with how great their their wisdom was. They were surrounded by yes men who created a filter bubble. The distorted vision of that was catastrophical. Tens of millions dead.

yongjik 7y ago

> if I search for something I want what is popular to come up, not was is approved. There is no objective, Platonic measure of "popularity", and Google always has to temper it with "correctness". When someone searches for "california governor", Google needs to show results for "Gavin Newsom" instead of "Arnold Schwarzenegger", even though the latter is immensely more popular by any reasonable metric. So yes, Google's engineers will keep tweaking the algorithm until it stops showing Arnold Schwarzenegger entirely. In search of correctness. Otherwise it will become unusable very quickly.

perl4ever 7y ago
But there is no single right answer! Even a given person may want one answer in one context and another one in a different context. Popularity is not the answer, but neither is currency. A problem I run into repeatedly with Google is that I enter search terms and when it gives me the wrong thing, sometimes the opposite of what I want, it strongly resists my refining it. For instance, if I search for "turning off feature X" and everybody else searches for "turning on feature X", Google will "correct" me implacably. You're not allowed to turn "X" off. Back in the old days when it wasn't as intelligent, you could add words that would divert it from the popular cluster of hits. This isn't just an annoyance, I believe it's shaping society by determining which ideas and information thrive and which wither.

6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago

If you want what's popular in a very raw sense, you'll get bots linking to each other. Otherwise, you need some other sense of popular that takes bits and pieces of usefulness and trustworthiness and more.