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For those who can't see the article: >The practice of creating blacklists for certain types of sites or searches has fueled cries of political bias from some G
by creaghpatr 7y ago
For those who can't see the article:
>The practice of creating blacklists for certain types of sites or searches has fueled cries of political bias from some Google engineers and right-wing publications that said they have viewed portions of the blacklists. Some of the websites Google appears to have targeted in Google News were conservative sites and blogs, according to documents reviewed by the Journal. In one partial blacklist reviewed by the Journal, some conservative and right-wing websites, including The Gateway Pundit and The United West, were included on a list of hundreds of websites that wouldn’t appear in news or featured products, although they could appear in organic search results.
Gateway is trash and I'm not sure what United West is but they can't say they aren't blacklisting political sites at this point. Pretty big challenge for them ahead of the bipartisan AG investigations and 2020 elections.
- ceejayoz 7y agoIt makes sense for Google to blacklist news/featured results. I don't want "Occupy Democrats" showing up in the news feed any more than I want Gateway Pundit there. Blacklists in the search results themselves would be problematic.
- onepointsixC 7y agoDoes Occupy Democrats show up?
- ceejayoz 7y agoNo, nor should it. It's as much "news" as Gateway Pundit is, which is to say "not at all".
- onepointsixC 7y agoThank you I didn't know that.
- happytoexplain 7y agoYour assertion is a bit literal. Yes, they can't say they aren't blacklisting political sites. But they can say they aren't blacklisting sites for being political.
- creaghpatr 7y agoSure, if people buy that. But nobody is that naive.
- reroute1 7y agoThey are classifying results as featured or news. That is a judgement call. Those other sites still return in organic search results. You are mad because they didn't judge your political leanings to be news? It feels ridiculous to expect Google to not make judgements like this and they cannot please everyone. Sure some people won't like it, but in general their news results are solid and don't have an agenda.
- creaghpatr 7y agoIt's fine if you believe their blacklisting improves the results, I agree there. But here's where they are going to have a problem with the AGs: >Google has said in congressional testimony it doesn’t use blacklists. Asked in a 2018 hearing whether Google had ever blacklisted a “company, group, individual or outlet…for political reasons,” Karan Bhatia, Google’s vice president of public policy, responded: “No, ma’am, we don’t use blacklists/whitelists to influence our search results,” according to the transcript. How do you feel about Google lying to you?
- ceejayoz 7y agoThey're specifically scoping things to search results. The supposedly blacklisted sites like Gateway Pundit are still in Google's search results. They're just not deemed news outlets included in the News tab. Same reason my small business doesn't show up in the Finance tab. I'm not blacklisted, I'm just not eligible for inclusion.