4 ms·

Google Search Is Quietly Damaging Democracy

13 points by jedwhite 4y ago

moritzwarhier 4y ago
This was a good and succinct read. I noticed this phenomenon a lot when googling for non-political phrases. It's really all over Google search. Phrasing a search in a way that implies some information or judgement tends to confirm the presupposition, even it has been proven to be wrong. This would be expected to some degree even with plain keyword matching. But AI and knowledge graph enhancement seem to amplify the problem.
- jklm 4y ago
  I’m no fan of Google in some ways, but is this a problem specific to search or Google search? I don’t see how you can avoid this unless you proactively filter out wrong information…which leads to a question of who decides what’s right. e.g. Should masks be rightfully mandated in classrooms? As engineers, I feel like we bias for clear cut conclusions but the world is rarely black and white.
  - moritzwarhier 4y ago
    Yes, I think it's specific to Google but only to a degree. Google provides the most richely "enhanced" search experience, also but not only when using natural language queries. I think you are right about the "Who decides what's right/correct" part. But I thought the article's argument was kind of similar: There are no clear-cut solutions, so search engines shouldn't pretend to be able to provide them. Google often gives factually wrong or subjective "answers" to queries that use a natural-language question format, and presents them as fact. Google's own AI-generated "Q&A" snippets and "Knowledge Graph" answers are presented as somewhat equivalent to the fact snippets that Google pulls from Wikipedia. It is this kind of highlighted "knowledge answers" to arbitrary queries that the article talks about, I think.
Grim-444 4y ago
This type of article is itself the death of democracy for me. I've been trying to put it into words in a way that won't get me utterly downvoted by the same ideologues that consume such content, and I'm not really sure how. Maybe one way to phrase it would be, if you wanted to make the article even more biased, how could you possibly do it? It's written entirely from one point of political view, by someone who has no interest in impartial journalism, and they just spend the entire article pointing out negative things about their political opponents. Of course they conveniently forget to ever mention a single negative thing done by their side, or to list similar ways Google search benefited them unfairly. I couldn't make it more biased if I tried. The fact that in modern times "democracy" has been made to equal whatever the blue end of the spectrum believes to be true, and if any different belief gets a voice or a vote it's the "end of democracy", "damaging democracy", etc., and needs to be censored and removed from society, is itself the death of democracy.
alexklarjr 4y ago
Can it be stupid people damaging democracy? Nah, smart people do it too.

13 points by jedwhite 4y ago

This was a good and succinct read. I noticed this phenomenon a lot when googling for non-political phrases. It's really all over Google search. Phrasing a search in a way that implies some information or judgement tends to confirm the presupposition, even it has been proven to be wrong. This would be expected to some degree even with plain keyword matching. But AI and knowledge graph enhancement seem to amplify the problem.

jklm 4y ago
I’m no fan of Google in some ways, but is this a problem specific to search or Google search? I don’t see how you can avoid this unless you proactively filter out wrong information…which leads to a question of who decides what’s right. e.g. Should masks be rightfully mandated in classrooms? As engineers, I feel like we bias for clear cut conclusions but the world is rarely black and white.
- moritzwarhier 4y ago
  Yes, I think it's specific to Google but only to a degree. Google provides the most richely "enhanced" search experience, also but not only when using natural language queries. I think you are right about the "Who decides what's right/correct" part. But I thought the article's argument was kind of similar: There are no clear-cut solutions, so search engines shouldn't pretend to be able to provide them. Google often gives factually wrong or subjective "answers" to queries that use a natural-language question format, and presents them as fact. Google's own AI-generated "Q&A" snippets and "Knowledge Graph" answers are presented as somewhat equivalent to the fact snippets that Google pulls from Wikipedia. It is this kind of highlighted "knowledge answers" to arbitrary queries that the article talks about, I think.

Grim-444 4y ago

This type of article is itself the death of democracy for me. I've been trying to put it into words in a way that won't get me utterly downvoted by the same ideologues that consume such content, and I'm not really sure how. Maybe one way to phrase it would be, if you wanted to make the article even more biased, how could you possibly do it? It's written entirely from one point of political view, by someone who has no interest in impartial journalism, and they just spend the entire article pointing out negative things about their political opponents. Of course they conveniently forget to ever mention a single negative thing done by their side, or to list similar ways Google search benefited them unfairly. I couldn't make it more biased if I tried. The fact that in modern times "democracy" has been made to equal whatever the blue end of the spectrum believes to be true, and if any different belief gets a voice or a vote it's the "end of democracy", "damaging democracy", etc., and needs to be censored and removed from society, is itself the death of democracy.

alexklarjr 4y ago

Can it be stupid people damaging democracy? Nah, smart people do it too.