
The new Google News: AI meets human intelligence - devhxinc
https://blog.google/products/news/new-google-news-ai-meets-human-intelligence/
======
3steve
I don't want personalized news, I use Google News for the exact opposite
reason. I want to see semi-random headlines from a variety of source to
increase my exposure to stories I might not have seen otherwise.

~~~
thankthunk
> I don't want personalized news, I use Google News for the exact opposite
> reason.

That's what I used to use google news for too. Then a few years ago, google
"personalized" and "localize"d news to your area and it became pointless.
Google news was especially great for international events in the early 2010s
because you'd get international sources listed back then. So you could see the
difference in coverage between our media and china's media and europe's media
and middle east's media of the same event.

Now, google news is just mostly NYTimes and Washingtonpost stories. And
considering they espouse the same message on pretty much everything, I stopped
using google news.

I understand that google was heavily pressured by the news industry to push
traffic to major US news sites, but I wish they would have given us the option
to opt out of personalization and localization.

What's even more disappointing is that google search was updated to heavily
favor local news. So if I search for "North korea news" or "syria news", the
search result is ridiculously skewed to US news' perspective. They used to
list forums, messageboards, etc on search for international events, but they
scrubbed those from the search results.

Social media used to have alternate/external/foreign sources but after US
media pressure, they've also "personalized" and localized.

It's amazing how easily the news industry has pressured tech companies into
limiting what the public sees and hears.

I wish there was a news aggregate site which had a page per news event where
it listed international coverage of the event.

~~~
adrianmonk
> _Now, google news is just mostly NYTimes and Washingtonpost stories._

What? This is certainly not my experience.

I just went to news.google.com in my desktop browser, and I clicked on the
World section. On the Iran sanctions/deal story, there are several sources
grouped together in one card. The top source is indeed Washington post but the
same card also contains coverage from Mehr News Agency (which it highlights as
"From Iran"), Reuters, The Hill, RollingStone.com, NYT (highlighted as
"Opinion"), NEWS.com.au, and Associated Press.

If I click on "View full coverage", I get more sources, of course.

~~~
thankthunk
> What? This is certainly not my experience.

Your comment describes the experience to the tee.

> The top source is indeed Washington post but the same card also contains
> coverage from Mehr News Agency (which it highlights as "From Iran"),

Where are you from? In the NY area, all I see is US related. A couple of
washingtonpost, a couple of nytimes, rolling stone, cnn, etc. Even in the
expanded "view full coverage", I don't see mehr news.

> Reuters, The Hill, RollingStone.com, NYT (highlighted as "Opinion"),
> NEWS.com.au, and Associated Press.

So, no diversity? They all are essential one news agency masquerading as
different news. Yes, even the australian source.

How about this, I wish I had better access to different echo chambers.

Reuters, The Hill, RollingStone.com, NYT (highlighted as "Opinion"),
NEWS.com.au, and Associated Press along with the nytimes and washingtonpost
are part of the same echo chamber. They all push the same message. I want to
see what the other nations/regions are saying. I want different
opinions/perspectives/news.

~~~
MR4D
You might want to try this:

[https://news.google.co.uk/](https://news.google.co.uk/)

Not perfect, but at least it brings more viewpoints.

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kevincox
The thing that gets me about Google news is that the personalization is
incredibly coarse. I can see a "17 apps that take great selfies" article and
the only way to express disinterest is by removing Android from my interest
list. I might dislike an article because the publisher is low quality or I'm
not interesting in one aspect of the content but it just picks one "reson" to
justify showing the article.

~~~
combatentropy
From the article:

    
    
      > We’ve also built easy-to-use and easy-to-access controls
      > so you can decide if you want to see more or less of a topic or publisher.

~~~
ehsankia
You didn't really answer the problem? The person above was complaining that
"17 apps to take a better selfie" is under the "Android" topic. Your only
other choice is to block the entire publisher, which may be good if all that
publisher posts is similar bad articles, but it's hard for you to know.

A far better way would be to get upvote/downvote per article, and then have
the AI figure what your interests are, rather than base it purely on clicks,
which tends to favor clickbait.

~~~
combatentropy
He gave two ways he would like to more finely control content:

1\. subtopics (your example) where he was interested in Android but not selfie
apps

2\. by publisher: "I might dislike an article because the publisher is low
quality"

I was replying with a solution to problem #2 only.

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forapurpose
> And if you want to support your favorite news sources, we’ve made it simple
> to subscribe with your Google account. This means no more forms, credit card
> numbers, or new passwords. And soon, thanks to the new Subscribe with Google
> platform (launched as a part of the Google News Initiative), you’ll get
> access to your paid content everywhere—on all platforms and devices, on
> Google News, Google Search, and on publishers’ own websites.

The upside is that it's a desperately needed solution to funding journalism.
Hopefully people can pay per article, making quality journalism better funded
and far more available (many people who can afford one article can't afford a
year subscription, I assume).

But the cost is far too high: Google knows everything you read, and becomes
the gatekeeper for journalism. Yikes. For those not worried, imagine the day
when Google ownership/management shifts from the current well-intentioned
people to someone else. That day will come.

~~~
crazygringo
All I want is an option to pay $10/mo for news to _all_ sources, and let each
publisher receive the proportion of that that my clicks determine.

~~~
gowld
That's less than the price of any single news source. Why would they offer
that price to you?

~~~
16bytes
Because the vast majority of news consumers online are ad-supported non-paying
customers.

I'm not going to pay $20/mo each to WaPo, NYTimes and WSJ. But I would pay
$20/mo for "entry" level subscriptions to all of them, which I'm pretty sure
is more than the Ad revenue that I would otherwise bring in.

$10/mo may not be the best price point, but IMHO having cheaper pay-as-go
options would drive in a lot of unrealized revenue.

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notheguyouthink
Yea... this is the last thing I want. Another massive company _(ala Facebook)_
controlling the feed of information into my brain.

I thought we were trying to get _away_ from that?

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LifeLiverTransp
German here: Recommend the magazine review of the perlentaucher- which is a
manual weekly worldwide magazine best-of. Unfortunatly for international
readers its in german.

[https://www.perlentaucher.de/magazinrundschau/2018-05-08.htm...](https://www.perlentaucher.de/magazinrundschau/2018-05-08.html)

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ABeeSea
I hope this fixes the current issues with google news on ios. The app crashes
constantly and freezes my phone completely for a good 20-30 seconds until it
restarts. This has persisted across multiple iPhone 8’s. Not a fan of the UI
of apple news either.

~~~
bitmapbrother
FWIW I've never experienced those issues using Google News on iOS.

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fareesh
Disappointing to see that it relies on Snopes for "fact checking". Also
disappointing to see that what constitutes "quality journalism" is decided by
a giant technology company. This is a big step backwards.

~~~
croon
Have any examples of things they've gotten wrong?

~~~
nickysielicki
I wrote an angry email to a Politifact intern after seeing this article:
[http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/apr/03/...](http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/apr/03/fellowship-
minds/no-march-our-lives-demonstration-was-not-prepared-/)

They rated this article as "pants on fire" for reporting on something that
came directly from the mouth of a public official. The politifact intern
actually reached out to the official in question and he personally confirmed
that he gave the outlet bad information, and yet it retains the rating that
insinuates intentional lying and misleading. I think it's infuriating that
Google is getting away with giving these institutions an elevated voice. They
do not hold an ounce of the journalistic integrity that they claim to and they
make little effort to be nonpartisan.

edit: The issue isn't with any particular institution, it's the general
problem of any authority claiming to be an objective purveyor of truth and
Google giving anyone like that an elevated voice. Even if it's not corrupt
now, it's corruptible, and it serves no purpose. People need to come to
decisions on their own.

(edit: for the record, I feel it is necessary to say that I do not regularly
read this blog, I came across the fellowshipoftheminds.com post as a result of
seeing the politifact article on reddit, I do not endorse the site in
question)

~~~
danso
I don't understand your objection. The Politifact assessment of "pants on
fire" is _not_ for the public official, it's for the conspiracy websites that
are peddling the public official's mistake to intentionally mislead people.
Read the end of the article ("Our ruling"):

> _A website pushing conspiracy theories claimed that the March For Our Lives
> permit was actually prepared months in advance._

> _We contacted the police officer referred to in the story who confirmed that
> the story is inaccurate and the permit was actually issued 11 days prior to
> the march._

> _We rate this story Pants on Fire._

The police officer said they made an honest mistake. The websites that are
spreading the mistake have ostensibly ignored the correction. How is that not
intentional?

~~~
nickysielicki
Well for starters, they haven't ignored the correction.
[https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2018/04/05/parklathe-
curiou...](https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2018/04/05/parklathe-curious-ever-
changing-dates-of-march-for-our-lives-permit-application/)

It's a valid question: large events like this march require considerable
coordination among public services and permits are necessary to make sure that
police and EMS and public transport can react, and navigating the bureaucratic
machine for getting a permit is, by official D.C. guidelines, estimated to
take at least 6 months. This march took place only a bit more than a month
after the Parkland shooting. If people are to believe that this large march
was organically organized in just a month, it must be the case that some
public officials pulled strings and made exceptions for them, and that is a
story in its own right. Or, on the other hand, it must be the case that this
march was planned in advance of the shooting, and was thus not organized
organically by student groups, but was perhaps something that was intended to
happen anyway, but was repurposed in light of the shooting in Florida, which
would change a purportedly grassroots event into something with much less
meaning and arguably paints the true organizers as opportunists.

Well, this someone sent an email in search of that question, and got a
response, and this website reported on it: they heard that a permit
application was received prior to the shooting. I don't see how it's their
responsibility to continually check back with the officer that was consulted
in order to be sure that he really meant what he said. But, as mentioned, the
article contains mention of the fact that the officer has since rescinded his
date, and another article is linked that pieces together the timeline.

I don't see how it's fair to label them as liars. They haven't lied. They
reported on a response from a public official. They've even edited the article
to make mention of the rescinding of the comment. What more should they do,
remove the article outright?

(edit: for the record, I feel it is necessary to say that I do not regularly
read this blog, I came across the fellowshipoftheminds.com post as a result of
seeing the politifact article on reddit, I do not endorse the site in
question)

~~~
danso
> _and navigating the bureaucratic machine for getting a permit is, by
> official D.C. guidelines, estimated to take at least 6 months_

The March for Science, which originated largely from a Reddit thread, happened
in 4 months:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_for_Science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_for_Science)

The Women's March was organized in 2.5 months:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Women%27s_March](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Women%27s_March)

edit: In the "update" post, the blogger of the allegation basically ignores
the explanations for the confusion and goes with the conspiracy. At that
point, I think it's reasonable for Politifact to say the blogger is acting in
bad faith:

> _Given the different dates he’s given for when Metro PD received the permit
> application and when Metro PD issued the permit, we have no reason to
> believe Officer Scott Earhardt. In all probability, his first email of March
> 28 to Dammegard’s contact is most likely the truthful one — that D.C.
> Metropolitan Police Department received an application for a permit for
> March For Our Lives “several months” before the March. That in turn implies
> that, contrary to how the March had been presented to the American people,
> the Parkland school shooting is not the inspiration for March For Our Lives
> and may even have been planned and contrived._

[https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2018/04/05/parklathe-
curiou...](https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2018/04/05/parklathe-curious-ever-
changing-dates-of-march-for-our-lives-permit-application/)

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MikeGale
Great for those who want their appreciation of the world micromanaged by an
advertising agency. Way to go homo sapiens(?).

