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> US election (2016) was tipped by algorithmic intervention far beyond anything that had come before, using his company’s personalization platform. It was actu

by im3w1l 3y ago

> US election (2016) was tipped by algorithmic intervention far beyond anything that had come before, using his company’s personalization platform. It was actually the complete opposite. In 2016 these recommendation systems were fairly unbiased. If Trump content was upvoted it was recommended. Then after his election tech companies had a never-again moment and started banning and demoting right-wing content even though it was popular, thus tipping the 2020 election. See e.g. https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-google-leaderships-dismayed-reaction-to-trump-election/ https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl... Edit: I guess this is getting downvoted over the breitbart link, but I have through personal sources received confirmation that the video is legitimate.

netsharc 3y ago
Your edit in TL;DR: "source: trust me, bro.". It's not implausible that the mostly liberal tech workers decide to not boost "right wing" content, but I'm not going to go down rabbit holes to find out, especially Breitbart rabbit holes where some random HNer said at the door "what you find in this rabbit hole will be true!".
- im3w1l 3y ago
  Thanks for explaining what your issue is. I'll try to build a better case with that in mind. What the video shows is that top Google leadership was clearly upset over the win. The video is the primary source, but there are also secondary sources that implicitly confirm its authenticity. E.g. https://edition.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2018/09/13/google-video-trump-election-2016-breitbart-orig-js.cnn https://edition.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2018/09/13/google-vi... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/12/breitbart-video-google-trump https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/12/breitbart... That shows that they were emotionally upset, but by itself doesn't give evidence of any concrete action. However it helps to put the other things in context. For concrete things, firstly, there was algorithmic demotion. This is a 2017 article that explains their Google's effort to reduce upsetting-offensive content https://searchengineland.com/google-flag-upsetting-offensive-content-271119 https://searchengineland.com/google-flag-upsetting-offensive... > Facebook will change algorithm to demote “borderline content” that almost violates policies (...) The change could massively reduce the reach of incendiary political groups, fake news peddlers https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/15/facebook-borderline-content/?guccounter=1 https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/15/facebook-borderline-conten... There were also some outright bannings. Two famous cases: > In 2016, Twitter permanently banned Yiannopoulos for his participation in a targeted racist harassment campaign against comedian Leslie Jones. In 2017, Yiannopoulos resigned from Breitbart amidst outrage over comments he made seemingly defending pedophilia. That also resulted in the termination of his book deal with Simon & Schuster. Universities canceled multiple speaking engagements, including his 'Free Speech Week,' amidst protest to his ideas on, well, everything. And as recently as last week, Politicon pulled him from the speaking lineup — which was to be his return to the speaking spotlight. https://mashable.com/article/milo-yiannopoulos-deplatforming-alex-jones https://mashable.com/article/milo-yiannopoulos-deplatforming... > YouTube, Apple and Facebook have removed main outlets for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his Infowars website, citing repeated violations of policies against hate speech and glorifying violence. Infowars responded by accusing the companies of censorship. https://www.npr.org/2018/08/06/636030043/youtube-apple-and-facebook-ban-infowars-which-decries-mega-purge https://www.npr.org/2018/08/06/636030043/youtube-apple-and-f... Now you may perhaps say that this was all justified. But that doesn't matter, as all I'm trying to do is show that it happened.

by im3w1l 3y ago

netsharc 3y ago

Your edit in TL;DR: "source: trust me, bro.". It's not implausible that the mostly liberal tech workers decide to not boost "right wing" content, but I'm not going to go down rabbit holes to find out, especially Breitbart rabbit holes where some random HNer said at the door "what you find in this rabbit hole will be true!".

im3w1l 3y ago
Thanks for explaining what your issue is. I'll try to build a better case with that in mind. What the video shows is that top Google leadership was clearly upset over the win. The video is the primary source, but there are also secondary sources that implicitly confirm its authenticity. E.g. https://edition.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2018/09/13/google-video-trump-election-2016-breitbart-orig-js.cnn https://edition.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2018/09/13/google-vi... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/12/breitbart-video-google-trump https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/12/breitbart... That shows that they were emotionally upset, but by itself doesn't give evidence of any concrete action. However it helps to put the other things in context. For concrete things, firstly, there was algorithmic demotion. This is a 2017 article that explains their Google's effort to reduce upsetting-offensive content https://searchengineland.com/google-flag-upsetting-offensive-content-271119 https://searchengineland.com/google-flag-upsetting-offensive... > Facebook will change algorithm to demote “borderline content” that almost violates policies (...) The change could massively reduce the reach of incendiary political groups, fake news peddlers https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/15/facebook-borderline-content/?guccounter=1 https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/15/facebook-borderline-conten... There were also some outright bannings. Two famous cases: > In 2016, Twitter permanently banned Yiannopoulos for his participation in a targeted racist harassment campaign against comedian Leslie Jones. In 2017, Yiannopoulos resigned from Breitbart amidst outrage over comments he made seemingly defending pedophilia. That also resulted in the termination of his book deal with Simon & Schuster. Universities canceled multiple speaking engagements, including his 'Free Speech Week,' amidst protest to his ideas on, well, everything. And as recently as last week, Politicon pulled him from the speaking lineup — which was to be his return to the speaking spotlight. https://mashable.com/article/milo-yiannopoulos-deplatforming-alex-jones https://mashable.com/article/milo-yiannopoulos-deplatforming... > YouTube, Apple and Facebook have removed main outlets for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his Infowars website, citing repeated violations of policies against hate speech and glorifying violence. Infowars responded by accusing the companies of censorship. https://www.npr.org/2018/08/06/636030043/youtube-apple-and-facebook-ban-infowars-which-decries-mega-purge https://www.npr.org/2018/08/06/636030043/youtube-apple-and-f... Now you may perhaps say that this was all justified. But that doesn't matter, as all I'm trying to do is show that it happened.