4 ms·

If nothing else, this post is kind of conflating 2 different things: (a) do search rankings display a bias, and (b) is a "revolving door" and close relationship

by gipp 2y ago

If nothing else, this post is kind of conflating 2 different things: (a) do search rankings display a bias, and (b) is a "revolving door" and close relationships leading tech companies to deliberately induce such bias. I think it's important to distinguish them, because I think (a) is obviously true, and (b) is probably mostly false. Managing bias is a wildly difficult thing to do, especially with something as complex and correlated with everything as politics. There is no such thing as an "unbiased" ranking, just like there's no such thing as "unbiased" journalism.

ColinHayhurst 2y ago
> There is no such thing as an "unbiased" ranking, just like there's no such thing as "unbiased" journalism. Correct. But you can use techniques, to reduce bias. And not use others, notably tracking, so eliminating what can be bias or perhaps better put influence. Besides that the bias of publishers and platforms matters less the more diversity we have. We have many news publishers for example, but in search the dominance of Google means we have little diversity.
hnben 2y ago
> to deliberately induce such bias I don't think big companies do such "deliberately" (in the sense that a human made the explicit decision to do it). But when there is a certain behavior that performs better in practice, then such behavior will proliferate. I say, that when the effect is known, and the company chooses not to reduce it, they are acting deliberately. The purpose of a system is what it does. I agree, that the relation between the effect and the specific behavior may not be obvious, as you pointed out ("Managing bias is a wildly difficult..."). But it seems that google does not even acknowledge, that this effect exists [1]. Beside the intention, I think the more interesting questions would be: Do the induce such a bias (deliberately or not)? Do the induce any bias at all? [1] https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/google-2016-election-121766/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/google-2016-...

by gipp 2y ago

ColinHayhurst 2y ago

> There is no such thing as an "unbiased" ranking, just like there's no such thing as "unbiased" journalism. Correct. But you can use techniques, to reduce bias. And not use others, notably tracking, so eliminating what can be bias or perhaps better put influence. Besides that the bias of publishers and platforms matters less the more diversity we have. We have many news publishers for example, but in search the dominance of Google means we have little diversity.

hnben 2y ago

> to deliberately induce such bias I don't think big companies do such "deliberately" (in the sense that a human made the explicit decision to do it). But when there is a certain behavior that performs better in practice, then such behavior will proliferate. I say, that when the effect is known, and the company chooses not to reduce it, they are acting deliberately. The purpose of a system is what it does. I agree, that the relation between the effect and the specific behavior may not be obvious, as you pointed out ("Managing bias is a wildly difficult..."). But it seems that google does not even acknowledge, that this effect exists [1]. Beside the intention, I think the more interesting questions would be: Do the induce such a bias (deliberately or not)? Do the induce any bias at all? [1] https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/google-2016-election-121766/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/google-2016-...