4 ms·

What do you mean "nope?" You're implying that PageRank makes MORAL judgements about the content, and you know it doesn't. It CAN'T. All it can know are metrics

What do you mean "nope?" You're implying that PageRank makes MORAL judgements about the content, and you know it doesn't. It CAN'T. All it can know are metrics like incoming links and traffic. You're using "value judgement" here in a completely wrong way. Your definition of "value" and Google's are very different. And, honestly, I'm flummoxed why this is so confusing.

afavour 3y ago
You're the one injecting morals into the debate. At no point am I making a moral argument. I'm saying that PageRank is just one of many value judgements Google makes. Google is not impartial. Not all incoming links are equal, Google makes a value judgement about which domains are more valuable than others. Google also makes value judgements about what is and isn't spam, which includes results that try to game the system by appearing to be something they are not. This is the latter. These are anti-abortion activists attempting to look like abortion centers, something they are not. If it helps you remove the moral angle here: let's say I place an ad against the search term "cars for sale" with an ad saying "great value cars available to buy here!" and when you click you end up on a page that sells bikes. Is that a good search result? No, it is not. Is that likely to satisfy a user searching for a car? No, it is not. By the rules Google themselves outline they would remove my ad: > We don’t allow ads or destinations that deceive users by excluding relevant product information or providing misleading information about products, services, or businesses. https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6020955?hl=en https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6020955?hl=en You're so focused on trying to push a contrarian view that you're losing sight of the fact that Google is a business, and it serves their business interests to give users relevant results.
- TheRealDunkirk 3y ago
  Honest to God, I don't think I've ever been so confused by a conversation on the internet in 30 years.
  - afavour 3y ago
    I don't know how I could any clearer than "Google has an interest in providing relevant results to users". If you're still not getting it then you might need to look inwards.
    - TheRealDunkirk 3y ago
      And I have absolutely no idea how Google is supposed to do that in this context without making a human decision, based on morals, and then you accuse me of injecting morality into the discussion. How can you not see how confusing this is? I'm looking inside, and I just see that you're talking out of both sides of your mouth.
      - afavour 3y ago
        I do not understand why you keep going back to morals here. Google's ad policy is very, very clear: > We don’t allow ads or destinations that deceive users by excluding relevant product information or providing misleading information about products, services, or businesses. These anti-abortion activist ads provide misleading information about the products and/or services they provide. No moral judgement required: they are misleading ads.
        TheRealDunkirk 3y ago
        And I can't understand how you keep trying to say that this doesn't involve morals. FTFA, only 38% of these "centers" do not provide any sort of abortion services at all. Fine. Throw them out. But what about the other 60%? They apparently do perform abortions. Do they just get a pass at that point? What if they do so only in the cases of "the life of the mother," and try to talk people out of it in every other circumstance? Do they still qualify to win auctions on those keywords? The article itself makes it very clear that this whole decision tree is problematic and requires human pruning. Once you start down this road of vetting whether a clinic is offering abortions or not, there's going to be a bunch of grey-area cases that need to be decided, and those decisions are implicitly moral in the general case. The nature of the search question itself is moral to start out with. Should "abortions near me" return results including "crisis centers" -- if it's really a "health care" or "pro-choice" question -- or is that search really code for "where can I get a DNC for the least money and hassle?" There are morals involved in every part of this topic.

afavour 3y ago

You're the one injecting morals into the debate. At no point am I making a moral argument. I'm saying that PageRank is just one of many value judgements Google makes. Google is not impartial. Not all incoming links are equal, Google makes a value judgement about which domains are more valuable than others. Google also makes value judgements about what is and isn't spam, which includes results that try to game the system by appearing to be something they are not. This is the latter. These are anti-abortion activists attempting to look like abortion centers, something they are not. If it helps you remove the moral angle here: let's say I place an ad against the search term "cars for sale" with an ad saying "great value cars available to buy here!" and when you click you end up on a page that sells bikes. Is that a good search result? No, it is not. Is that likely to satisfy a user searching for a car? No, it is not. By the rules Google themselves outline they would remove my ad: > We don’t allow ads or destinations that deceive users by excluding relevant product information or providing misleading information about products, services, or businesses. https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6020955?hl=en https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6020955?hl=en You're so focused on trying to push a contrarian view that you're losing sight of the fact that Google is a business, and it serves their business interests to give users relevant results.

TheRealDunkirk 3y ago
Honest to God, I don't think I've ever been so confused by a conversation on the internet in 30 years.
- afavour 3y ago
  I don't know how I could any clearer than "Google has an interest in providing relevant results to users". If you're still not getting it then you might need to look inwards.
  - TheRealDunkirk 3y ago
    And I have absolutely no idea how Google is supposed to do that in this context without making a human decision, based on morals, and then you accuse me of injecting morality into the discussion. How can you not see how confusing this is? I'm looking inside, and I just see that you're talking out of both sides of your mouth.
    - afavour 3y ago
      I do not understand why you keep going back to morals here. Google's ad policy is very, very clear: > We don’t allow ads or destinations that deceive users by excluding relevant product information or providing misleading information about products, services, or businesses. These anti-abortion activist ads provide misleading information about the products and/or services they provide. No moral judgement required: they are misleading ads.
      - TheRealDunkirk 3y ago
        And I can't understand how you keep trying to say that this doesn't involve morals. FTFA, only 38% of these "centers" do not provide any sort of abortion services at all. Fine. Throw them out. But what about the other 60%? They apparently do perform abortions. Do they just get a pass at that point? What if they do so only in the cases of "the life of the mother," and try to talk people out of it in every other circumstance? Do they still qualify to win auctions on those keywords? The article itself makes it very clear that this whole decision tree is problematic and requires human pruning. Once you start down this road of vetting whether a clinic is offering abortions or not, there's going to be a bunch of grey-area cases that need to be decided, and those decisions are implicitly moral in the general case. The nature of the search question itself is moral to start out with. Should "abortions near me" return results including "crisis centers" -- if it's really a "health care" or "pro-choice" question -- or is that search really code for "where can I get a DNC for the least money and hassle?" There are morals involved in every part of this topic.