6 ms·

What does down-ranking disinformation sites globally have to do with complaining about Google customizing results based on its profile of you? EDIT: The rest o

by eli 5y ago

What does down-ranking disinformation sites globally have to do with complaining about Google customizing results based on its profile of you? EDIT: The rest of the quote is “On Google, you get results tailored to what they think you’re likely to click on, based on the data profile they’ve built on you over time.”

coffeefirst 5y ago
And in this specific case, it feels more like quality control of state-sponsored spam. You can still find these sites—they come up first if you look for them directly, they're just treated as the low quality information than they are.
- mattwilsonn888 5y ago
  And why should anyone believe that State sponsored spam doesn't come from all angles? If I'm going to receive propaganda, I at least would like consistent sampling of it. And who cares about any of that - you have admonished an information search provider to determine what information it serves you based on subjective, undisclosed criteria of which there is good reason to believe is ideologically motivated.
- avgcorrection 5y ago
  Some people consume information from outlets like Al Jazeera because they would like something which might be a little more distanced from the West than things like Anglo outlets.
  - coffeefirst 5y ago
    Right, but Al Jazeera is more like the BBC than it is like RT. I don't see anyone making a quality-based argument to downrank it, and I would disagree with them if they did.
    - mardifoufs 5y ago
      Aljazeera is literally the Qatari state media. That means they are the media outlet of a slave state controlled by an absolute monarchy . Tell anyone in the Arabic world that aljazeera is neutral or BBC like and you will get laughed at. Even RT is probably not on as short of an editorial leash than al jazeera. Your comment is actually an amazing example of why we should absolutely avoid media censorship (like the EU is doing right now); it seems like the people who are usually the most vocally pushing for it are also, not coincidentally, those who are also the most likely to be completely oblivious to propaganda even when it's right in front of them. Yet also think that they are impervious to it.
      - soundnote 5y ago
        Also worth noting that Al Jazeera's coverage in English and Arabic are obviously different.
      - empthought 5y ago
        The BBC is literally the UK state media.
        mardifoufs 5y ago
        You ignored the "slave state with an absolute monarchy" part I think. Not like they are even comparable, unless you are saying the BBC journalists could justifiably be fearing for their lives if they criticize the UK government? All state media aren't created equal, and aren't equally independant. Otherwise the BBC, aljazeera and RT would be all equal since they are all state media after all.
        soundnote 5y ago
        Not the government, and they won't lose their lives for it, but they do live in a country that records "non-crime hate incidents" and shows them to people requesting your criminal record.
        hereforphone 5y ago
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  Cool, you can have a checkbox for 'Protect me from being stupid' and click it on each of your searches. This allows you to be protected from "state-sponsored spam" without imposing your intellectual shortcomings on everyone else.
hombre_fatal 5y ago
Downranking "disinformation" could be seen as creating the sort of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble that Weinberg often denigrates. > As a result, users become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles. The choices made by these algorithms are not transparent. I don't think it's unfounded criticism. One problem is how arbitrary the categorization of "disinformation" can be. Once you go down the path, it can also create a scenario where you tacitly approve the things you don't decide to censor/downrank. While I can argue both sides, it simply doesn't come without trade-offs.
- eli 5y ago
  No, it can't. A filter bubble is specifically defined as users getting personalized results for the same query based on what an algorithm knows about them. It's right there in the first paragraph on wikipedia. A hyper-partisan search engine that only showed results that favor one viewpoint would be bad, but it wouldn't be a filter bubble.
  - hombre_fatal 5y ago
    When I read the wiki page, I don't personally think much swivels on whether a human or algorithm creates the filter since the reason it's an issue is the end result. Or rather, "it's okay since it's not an algorithm doing it" doesn't wave away the concerns very effectively.
    - chaosite 5y ago
      The argument you're responding to wasn't "it's okay since it's not an algorithm doing it". It was "it's not a filter bubble since it's not personalized".
  - pvaldes 5y ago
    This is not an us or them case, is a true or false case. And false and true don't share a value of 50/50%. Unless we want to use a browser as moron-classifier, false results had a value of 0 in a search. False facts are valuable in a search only as if tagged as debunked as false in the same page.

by eli 5y ago

coffeefirst 5y ago

And in this specific case, it feels more like quality control of state-sponsored spam. You can still find these sites—they come up first if you look for them directly, they're just treated as the low quality information than they are.

mattwilsonn888 5y ago
And why should anyone believe that State sponsored spam doesn't come from all angles? If I'm going to receive propaganda, I at least would like consistent sampling of it. And who cares about any of that - you have admonished an information search provider to determine what information it serves you based on subjective, undisclosed criteria of which there is good reason to believe is ideologically motivated.
avgcorrection 5y ago
Some people consume information from outlets like Al Jazeera because they would like something which might be a little more distanced from the West than things like Anglo outlets.
- coffeefirst 5y ago
  Right, but Al Jazeera is more like the BBC than it is like RT. I don't see anyone making a quality-based argument to downrank it, and I would disagree with them if they did.
  - mardifoufs 5y ago
    Aljazeera is literally the Qatari state media. That means they are the media outlet of a slave state controlled by an absolute monarchy . Tell anyone in the Arabic world that aljazeera is neutral or BBC like and you will get laughed at. Even RT is probably not on as short of an editorial leash than al jazeera. Your comment is actually an amazing example of why we should absolutely avoid media censorship (like the EU is doing right now); it seems like the people who are usually the most vocally pushing for it are also, not coincidentally, those who are also the most likely to be completely oblivious to propaganda even when it's right in front of them. Yet also think that they are impervious to it.
    - soundnote 5y ago
      Also worth noting that Al Jazeera's coverage in English and Arabic are obviously different.
    - empthought 5y ago
      The BBC is literally the UK state media.
      - mardifoufs 5y ago
        You ignored the "slave state with an absolute monarchy" part I think. Not like they are even comparable, unless you are saying the BBC journalists could justifiably be fearing for their lives if they criticize the UK government? All state media aren't created equal, and aren't equally independant. Otherwise the BBC, aljazeera and RT would be all equal since they are all state media after all.
        soundnote 5y ago
        Not the government, and they won't lose their lives for it, but they do live in a country that records "non-crime hate incidents" and shows them to people requesting your criminal record.
        hereforphone 5y ago
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
Cool, you can have a checkbox for 'Protect me from being stupid' and click it on each of your searches. This allows you to be protected from "state-sponsored spam" without imposing your intellectual shortcomings on everyone else.

hombre_fatal 5y ago

Downranking "disinformation" could be seen as creating the sort of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble that Weinberg often denigrates. > As a result, users become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles. The choices made by these algorithms are not transparent. I don't think it's unfounded criticism. One problem is how arbitrary the categorization of "disinformation" can be. Once you go down the path, it can also create a scenario where you tacitly approve the things you don't decide to censor/downrank. While I can argue both sides, it simply doesn't come without trade-offs.

eli 5y ago
No, it can't. A filter bubble is specifically defined as users getting personalized results for the same query based on what an algorithm knows about them. It's right there in the first paragraph on wikipedia. A hyper-partisan search engine that only showed results that favor one viewpoint would be bad, but it wouldn't be a filter bubble.
- hombre_fatal 5y ago
  When I read the wiki page, I don't personally think much swivels on whether a human or algorithm creates the filter since the reason it's an issue is the end result. Or rather, "it's okay since it's not an algorithm doing it" doesn't wave away the concerns very effectively.
  - chaosite 5y ago
    The argument you're responding to wasn't "it's okay since it's not an algorithm doing it". It was "it's not a filter bubble since it's not personalized".
- pvaldes 5y ago
  This is not an us or them case, is a true or false case. And false and true don't share a value of 50/50%. Unless we want to use a browser as moron-classifier, false results had a value of 0 in a search. False facts are valuable in a search only as if tagged as debunked as false in the same page.