4 ms·

Blatantly false? The problem is not stuff which is blatantly false. The problem is that if you make a large number of false statements, some of them will not be

by ouid 7y ago

Blatantly false? The problem is not stuff which is blatantly false. The problem is that if you make a large number of false statements, some of them will not be so obviously false. Also, a large part of the danger of misinformation is not that people will believe false things, but that people will lose faith in journalism as a medium.

roenxi 7y ago
If something isn't blatantly false how exactly is Google supposed to moderate it? They don't hire enough employees to even manually review all of the complaints related to their income stream, let alone for voluntary initiatives to police truth. Besides, the category 'things which are false but that gullible people might be persuaded by' is basically what the political process deals with. Along with 'things that are true but naive people don't believe'. Clamp down on that and you might as well just get rid of elections as there isn't a lot to poll people on.
- ouid 7y ago
  I think that Google very plausibly has statistical tools already built that will help quite a bit in this arena. Combatting fake news is essentially the same problem as combatting SEO.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    You suggesting that Google has statistical tools that can reveal fundamental political truths. That is not true. If it is true, maybe Google could do some good by releasing this information to the rest of us so we can also solve all these pesky partisan issues plaguing the political landscape. It is possible to draw a vague philosophical parallel between SEO and lying, but in practice they aren't going to be similar. I don't know what similarities you see so I can't argue with them, but dealing with SEO doesn't involve figuring out whether the SEO is done truthfully or not. I'd imagine much SEO is done in the service of truth (sell you X for $Y style arrangements) that just happens to turn up in unwanted places.
  - sincerely 7y ago
    Google has convincingly lost the battle with SEO, so forgive me for not being encouraged by that.

by ouid 7y ago

roenxi 7y ago

If something isn't blatantly false how exactly is Google supposed to moderate it? They don't hire enough employees to even manually review all of the complaints related to their income stream, let alone for voluntary initiatives to police truth. Besides, the category 'things which are false but that gullible people might be persuaded by' is basically what the political process deals with. Along with 'things that are true but naive people don't believe'. Clamp down on that and you might as well just get rid of elections as there isn't a lot to poll people on.

ouid 7y ago
I think that Google very plausibly has statistical tools already built that will help quite a bit in this arena. Combatting fake news is essentially the same problem as combatting SEO.
- roenxi 7y ago
  You suggesting that Google has statistical tools that can reveal fundamental political truths. That is not true. If it is true, maybe Google could do some good by releasing this information to the rest of us so we can also solve all these pesky partisan issues plaguing the political landscape. It is possible to draw a vague philosophical parallel between SEO and lying, but in practice they aren't going to be similar. I don't know what similarities you see so I can't argue with them, but dealing with SEO doesn't involve figuring out whether the SEO is done truthfully or not. I'd imagine much SEO is done in the service of truth (sell you X for $Y style arrangements) that just happens to turn up in unwanted places.
- sincerely 7y ago
  Google has convincingly lost the battle with SEO, so forgive me for not being encouraged by that.