5 ms·

If you Google phrases similar to the ones cited in the article, you'll certainly find the racist stuff, but most of the top results will be context and rebuttal

by lukev 6y ago

If you Google phrases similar to the ones cited in the article, you'll certainly find the racist stuff, but most of the top results will be context and rebuttals. You will be in a position to learn the truth (whether you avail yourself of that or not.) If you're going to design a search engine that responds to factual queries with a single statement, it's reasonable to expect those statements to be true.

travisporter 6y ago
This really hits the nail on the head. Just as 140 chars and clickbait headlines can convey a lot of misinformation.
bzb6 6y ago
> If you Google phrases similar to the ones cited in the article, you'll certainly find the racist stuff, but most of the top results will be context and rebuttals Because Google manipulates the results.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Every aspect of a search algorithm and page ranking or however you do it is a manipulation of results. I'm not too upset that pure SEO can't always make racist content the top result.
  - bzb6 6y ago
    I’m not saying that, I’m saying Google manipulates those exact queries on purpose. We are not talking algorithms here, but manual manipulation. If Alexa doesn’t manipulate queries, then it’s normal they are getting those results from it.
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      Got it, yes I agree. Amazon may not have learned yet. This is the sort of... I don't know what to call it. Protocol? Social responsibility? That should be open sourced or collaboratively worked on the way other standards and protocols are done (even if some of those are products of regulatory capture)
Barrin92 6y ago
maybe another aspect, the personalised voice assistant and 'Alexa' character aspect of it I think makes it different from a machine produced list of text. At least my intuition is that getting information from these intentionally friendly sounding voice assistants might even be more convincing for people than getting a list of search results on a webpage. I wonder if there's any studies on this.

by lukev 6y ago

travisporter 6y ago

This really hits the nail on the head. Just as 140 chars and clickbait headlines can convey a lot of misinformation.

bzb6 6y ago

> If you Google phrases similar to the ones cited in the article, you'll certainly find the racist stuff, but most of the top results will be context and rebuttals Because Google manipulates the results.

ineedasername 6y ago
Every aspect of a search algorithm and page ranking or however you do it is a manipulation of results. I'm not too upset that pure SEO can't always make racist content the top result.
- bzb6 6y ago
  I’m not saying that, I’m saying Google manipulates those exact queries on purpose. We are not talking algorithms here, but manual manipulation. If Alexa doesn’t manipulate queries, then it’s normal they are getting those results from it.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Got it, yes I agree. Amazon may not have learned yet. This is the sort of... I don't know what to call it. Protocol? Social responsibility? That should be open sourced or collaboratively worked on the way other standards and protocols are done (even if some of those are products of regulatory capture)

Barrin92 6y ago

maybe another aspect, the personalised voice assistant and 'Alexa' character aspect of it I think makes it different from a machine produced list of text. At least my intuition is that getting information from these intentionally friendly sounding voice assistants might even be more convincing for people than getting a list of search results on a webpage. I wonder if there's any studies on this.