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Looking at the definition of equivocate, I see "use ambiguous language so as to conceal the truth or avoid committing oneself". I don't see that I have done tha

Looking at the definition of equivocate, I see "use ambiguous language so as to conceal the truth or avoid committing oneself". I don't see that I have done that. Perhaps "broadened" would be better. I have in fact broadened the definition of "search results" to capture the common usage and expectation of a user that punches a query string into google, taps "search", and is brought to a page of results.

glenstein 5y ago
I would say equivocate.
- brimble 5y ago
  Calling google's inline ads "not part of the search results" is the equivocation that's going on here. They absolutely sell top positions in results.
  - glenstein 5y ago
    Not even the person who posted the original tweet believes that.
    - brimble 5y ago
      Did the link change? Half the posts in this thread seem like they're about a whole different thing. [EDIT] All I have to go on is the current link with a tweet with an image with highlighted text about how Google doesn't sell result positioning (they 100% do) and a small bit of text from the person who posted it. That person does not appear to post any more in the ensuing thread. Others do, one pathetically defending Google as not selling result placement (they obviously do) and others pointing out how that's BS, and some people posting screenshots of current and old Google results demonstrating this. What am I supposed to take away from that?
      - glenstein 5y ago
        I'm very sorry that you think intellectual honesty is "pathetic." Adrian Krebs, who wrote the tweet, is not claiming ads and search results are the same thing, contrary to the insistence of many here who think they are speaking for him. Instead, he is treating ads and search as truly distinguishable things but makes a point about the placement of ads relative to search. But he misattributes a claim to Google, claiming their statement is, amont other things a critique ads placed above search results. Some people just don't want to hear this criticism, they just want to hear "Google bad." So they want to argue the point, misinterpreting the nuance as apologetics on behalf of Google. This is creating a lot of cognitive dissonance, so there's a lot of effort to equivocate, insisting that the wrong thing (ads above search) is the same as the right thing (ads are separate from search). So every next comment attempting to square this circle by introducing a new term of art to put the two different things under a common umbrella, totally inconsistent with the original statements, in an attempt to achieve the desired equivocation. For you the new term of art is "result positioning", a term which shows up nowhere in either Krebs or Google, and which helpfully throws away the nuance. At this point this has transformed from a convo about google into a study of the predictable steps of congitive dissonance that people go through. Personal attacks have come in right on schedule. Edit: since I can't reply anymore (and probably should just move on with my day): I'm just going to note I'm failing to detect anything in the reply below that substantively engages with anything I've said, although I am seeing a lot of performative incredulity.
        brimble 5y ago
        "Pathetic" is saying that my handing one guy money then some other guy down the block handing me crack was two totally unrelated events. I'm quite frankly astonished that you're being serious. Google sells top result placement. Calling it another thing is just lying. Taking their lies seriously is... incredible. I literally can't believe anyone would do that. [EDIT] Without a financial stake in it, anyway. Obviously people peddle blatant lies in exchange for money all the time. (I am not accusing you of that, that's just the one circumstance in which I find that entirely unsurprising, and I assume it's what's going on with the guy in the Twitter thread). [EDIT EDIT] Actually, looking back over this... your posts read more bizarre to me with each re-read. WTF is happening in this thread. [EDIT ONE MORE TIME, I JUST REALLY HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS GOING ON] To reiterate my understanding here: 1) The post is pointing out that Google says allowing people to pay to go to the top of search results is bad, so they don't do it. That's... just what it says, straight up. I have to assume (from the rest of the context of the post and following thread) this is being pointed out because it's funny and/or hypocritical, since (see below). 2) Google in fact places ads that are very obviously designed to trick people into thinking they're search results, above "natural" search results. To rephrase: you can buy ads that put your hard-to-distinguish-from-a-search-result link at the top of search results. The evidence that this is on purpose include that Google used to make it far more obvious explicitly because they didn't want to trick people, and stopped doing that, and just watching any non-geek use Google then asking them what they think just happened. 3) Some company saying something does not affect reality, whatsoever. 4) "I'm not touching you" (while waving hands as close as possible without touching) isn't even valid or convincing when kids use it as a defense, let alone adults. Everyone involved knows exactly what's going on, and that it's wrong. 5) Any equivocation happening here is in trying to draw a fine line between selling ads designed to trick people into thinking they're the top search results, and simply selling top search result placement. Same damn thing, to the point that I find it hard to take anyone serious who's trying to treat the distinction as in any way important. Where are we diverging, here?
- CTmystery 5y ago
  Well, you are wrong. I am in no way "conceal[ing] the truth or avoid committing oneself". I am fully committed to the position that you are incorrect, and I've used clear language to show you why.
  - glenstein 5y ago
    It refers to deliberate ambiguity. The Google statement is clearly different from the statement falsely attributed to them. And its by the addition of ambiguity (equivocating) that this false attribution is being defended.
  - brimble 5y ago
    Yes, you have it right: >>> Adrian Krebs @krebs_adrian Replying to @dannysullivan Thanks for clarifying this. I think the post leaves some room for interpretation. The intention was that ads should be more clearly differentiated from organic results, which is not the case today. >>> To repeat: "The intention was that ads should be more clearly differentiated from organic results" The concern of the entire thing aligns with the reading that most people (apparently?) took away to begin with, which is that their above-the-results ads are so similar to organic results that all of the same things are wrong with it as with directly selling placement within results. The confusion appears to stem entirely from Krebs having in his head that a top-of-organic-results-placement of a link is still, also, an ad, when he wrote the original post. Which is not unreasonable, but could, lacking other context (but there's a ton...) be read a different way. He corrects that in the above follow-up and confirms your interpretation. The original complaint is about exactly the thing that (again, apparently) most people took it to be.
    - glenstein 5y ago
      >The original complaint is about exactly the thing that (again, apparently) most people took it to be. You were so close to being right, only to completely lose it at the end. Krebs is making a broader point about ads not being distinguishable from search. Good! Fair, appropriate criticism. Krebs however, falsely claimed that Google's statement included declaration that they were opposed to placing ads above search results. Numerous HN commenters confused the two things. Faced with the correction, people on HN equivocated between the indisputably false characterization of Google's statement and a broader criticism of making ads similar to search results, as if a statement about the former amounts to a latter. It doesn't, it was this lack of interest in truthful characterization, rather than the innocence of Google that was at issue. Now, Krebs acknowledged the correction of his incorrect characterization, and restated his concern as a broader point that was no longer false. Hilariously, it is this abandonment and reformation of his point is now being treated as vindication by HN commenters who were defending the false version.

glenstein 5y ago

I would say equivocate.

brimble 5y ago
Calling google's inline ads "not part of the search results" is the equivocation that's going on here. They absolutely sell top positions in results.
- glenstein 5y ago
  Not even the person who posted the original tweet believes that.
  - brimble 5y ago
    Did the link change? Half the posts in this thread seem like they're about a whole different thing. [EDIT] All I have to go on is the current link with a tweet with an image with highlighted text about how Google doesn't sell result positioning (they 100% do) and a small bit of text from the person who posted it. That person does not appear to post any more in the ensuing thread. Others do, one pathetically defending Google as not selling result placement (they obviously do) and others pointing out how that's BS, and some people posting screenshots of current and old Google results demonstrating this. What am I supposed to take away from that?
    - glenstein 5y ago
      I'm very sorry that you think intellectual honesty is "pathetic." Adrian Krebs, who wrote the tweet, is not claiming ads and search results are the same thing, contrary to the insistence of many here who think they are speaking for him. Instead, he is treating ads and search as truly distinguishable things but makes a point about the placement of ads relative to search. But he misattributes a claim to Google, claiming their statement is, amont other things a critique ads placed above search results. Some people just don't want to hear this criticism, they just want to hear "Google bad." So they want to argue the point, misinterpreting the nuance as apologetics on behalf of Google. This is creating a lot of cognitive dissonance, so there's a lot of effort to equivocate, insisting that the wrong thing (ads above search) is the same as the right thing (ads are separate from search). So every next comment attempting to square this circle by introducing a new term of art to put the two different things under a common umbrella, totally inconsistent with the original statements, in an attempt to achieve the desired equivocation. For you the new term of art is "result positioning", a term which shows up nowhere in either Krebs or Google, and which helpfully throws away the nuance. At this point this has transformed from a convo about google into a study of the predictable steps of congitive dissonance that people go through. Personal attacks have come in right on schedule. Edit: since I can't reply anymore (and probably should just move on with my day): I'm just going to note I'm failing to detect anything in the reply below that substantively engages with anything I've said, although I am seeing a lot of performative incredulity.
      - brimble 5y ago
        "Pathetic" is saying that my handing one guy money then some other guy down the block handing me crack was two totally unrelated events. I'm quite frankly astonished that you're being serious. Google sells top result placement. Calling it another thing is just lying. Taking their lies seriously is... incredible. I literally can't believe anyone would do that. [EDIT] Without a financial stake in it, anyway. Obviously people peddle blatant lies in exchange for money all the time. (I am not accusing you of that, that's just the one circumstance in which I find that entirely unsurprising, and I assume it's what's going on with the guy in the Twitter thread). [EDIT EDIT] Actually, looking back over this... your posts read more bizarre to me with each re-read. WTF is happening in this thread. [EDIT ONE MORE TIME, I JUST REALLY HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS GOING ON] To reiterate my understanding here: 1) The post is pointing out that Google says allowing people to pay to go to the top of search results is bad, so they don't do it. That's... just what it says, straight up. I have to assume (from the rest of the context of the post and following thread) this is being pointed out because it's funny and/or hypocritical, since (see below). 2) Google in fact places ads that are very obviously designed to trick people into thinking they're search results, above "natural" search results. To rephrase: you can buy ads that put your hard-to-distinguish-from-a-search-result link at the top of search results. The evidence that this is on purpose include that Google used to make it far more obvious explicitly because they didn't want to trick people, and stopped doing that, and just watching any non-geek use Google then asking them what they think just happened. 3) Some company saying something does not affect reality, whatsoever. 4) "I'm not touching you" (while waving hands as close as possible without touching) isn't even valid or convincing when kids use it as a defense, let alone adults. Everyone involved knows exactly what's going on, and that it's wrong. 5) Any equivocation happening here is in trying to draw a fine line between selling ads designed to trick people into thinking they're the top search results, and simply selling top search result placement. Same damn thing, to the point that I find it hard to take anyone serious who's trying to treat the distinction as in any way important. Where are we diverging, here?
CTmystery 5y ago
Well, you are wrong. I am in no way "conceal[ing] the truth or avoid committing oneself". I am fully committed to the position that you are incorrect, and I've used clear language to show you why.
- glenstein 5y ago
  It refers to deliberate ambiguity. The Google statement is clearly different from the statement falsely attributed to them. And its by the addition of ambiguity (equivocating) that this false attribution is being defended.
- brimble 5y ago
  Yes, you have it right: >>> Adrian Krebs @krebs_adrian Replying to @dannysullivan Thanks for clarifying this. I think the post leaves some room for interpretation. The intention was that ads should be more clearly differentiated from organic results, which is not the case today. >>> To repeat: "The intention was that ads should be more clearly differentiated from organic results" The concern of the entire thing aligns with the reading that most people (apparently?) took away to begin with, which is that their above-the-results ads are so similar to organic results that all of the same things are wrong with it as with directly selling placement within results. The confusion appears to stem entirely from Krebs having in his head that a top-of-organic-results-placement of a link is still, also, an ad, when he wrote the original post. Which is not unreasonable, but could, lacking other context (but there's a ton...) be read a different way. He corrects that in the above follow-up and confirms your interpretation. The original complaint is about exactly the thing that (again, apparently) most people took it to be.
  - glenstein 5y ago
    >The original complaint is about exactly the thing that (again, apparently) most people took it to be. You were so close to being right, only to completely lose it at the end. Krebs is making a broader point about ads not being distinguishable from search. Good! Fair, appropriate criticism. Krebs however, falsely claimed that Google's statement included declaration that they were opposed to placing ads above search results. Numerous HN commenters confused the two things. Faced with the correction, people on HN equivocated between the indisputably false characterization of Google's statement and a broader criticism of making ads similar to search results, as if a statement about the former amounts to a latter. It doesn't, it was this lack of interest in truthful characterization, rather than the innocence of Google that was at issue. Now, Krebs acknowledged the correction of his incorrect characterization, and restated his concern as a broader point that was no longer false. Hilariously, it is this abandonment and reformation of his point is now being treated as vindication by HN commenters who were defending the false version.