
Conservatives Are Now Getting Angry About Google's Fact-Checking Module - Osiris
https://gizmodo.com/conservatives-are-now-getting-angry-about-googles-fact-1821934885
======
lykr0n
Good idea in theory, but needs to be applied equally. I've seen just as much
bullshit on Gizmodo (and sister sites) and BuzzFeed as I have on FoxNews, and
other like sites. It does seem a bit weird that they are only trialing it on
right leaning sources. Coupled with the stuff the Damore lawsuit is bringing
out, it makes me take a second look.

There also needs to be a distinction between reporting, and editorials. Every
side is guilty of mixing in editorials masquerading as reporting along side
reporting. It's extremely hard to tell the two apart. WashingtonPost; I need
to look in the URL to see which category the content falls under.

I think an effective method would having something along the lines of the
following for each site:

\- This is a reliable source

\- This is generally a reliable source

\- This is sometimes reliable source

\- This is not generally a reliable source

\- This is not a reliable source

\- This is satire

\- This is opinion

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supreme_sublime
> Paranoid conservatives have increasingly become certain Google is trying to
> silence them, citing its firing of engineers who allegedly created hostile
> work environments and a largely illusory panic about YouTube censorship.

>largely illusory panic

The link that is cited here is one talking about a Prager University video on
the "1 in 5 women are raped" claim. Prager U is suing Google for 1st amendment
violations. The article talks about how it isn't likely to get Google in much
legal trouble because they are a private company. However it doesn't make much
comment on if the "panic" is "illusory" or not. The examples given seem to
indicate Google is actively censoring certain people they don't like.

[The Linked Article] > The complaint filed in California federal court
includes charts of restricted videos compared to unrestricted videos on
"similar topics." For example, Prager's video titled "Are 1 in 5 women in
college raped?" is on lockdown, while a Real Time With Bill Maher video about
The Hunting Ground; an interview with former Vice President Joe Biden on how
to end the campus rape crisis; and Lady Gaga singing about rape all can be
seen by YouTube users.

> As to the meat of the thing good conservatives are supposed to get angry
> about: Is Google flagging more right-leaning sites for review than left-
> leaning ones? Probably. But, uh, that’s also probably because a massive
> segment of the conservative media, particularly newer digital ventures like
> the Caller, are completely fine with brazen distortion and aren’t interested
> in the same journalistic standards as most parts of the mainstream media.

Hilarious that the links in this segment are to MotherJones and NewRepublic.
Hardly unbiased sources, and none of the links are any kind of support for
what is being talked about in this paragraph. I notice that a lot in these
kinds of pieces, they think that putting links to other articles will somehow
make them seem more well supported. When you actually follow the links they
are nonsensical or throw you down a rabbit hole of checking event
characterization.

This whole article is weird, the author admits that Google isn't doing a good
job at their attempt at fact checking, but who cares? The people complaining
are people we don't like!

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benmmurphy
some of the daily caller complaints seem to be google trying to text match the
fact checking to an article and matching too liberally. i guess they are
trying to do this because the url in the fact check site pointing to the
original article sometimes becomes dead and maybe also because the same
incorrect claim gets copy and pasted into other articles.

but i'm surprised they didn't go for the simpler version of just matching by
the URL to start off with. i guess if you have cool text processing / AI tools
at hand then you have to use them.

also, its quite possible that conservative sites aren't getting an unbalanced
number of fact checks. the daily callers methodology was probably looking
through a bunch of emails and tweets pointing them to fact checks on their
property. they probably checked other sites by just putting random terms into
a search engine. they shouldn't be surprised one of these techniques is going
to generate more hits than the other :/

i'm also not sure how google could have provided this in a more fair way
(ignoring the bad text matching). like a lot of the fact checking sites
(snopes, polifact, etc) are considered biased by conservative sites. so there
doesn't seem to be a way to provide third party fact checking without being
attacked for bias.

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gnicholas
This was on the front page of HN and then vanished. Does anyone know how/why
they would happen without it showing as flagged?

~~~
grzm
As I understand it, there are primarily four things that cause a submission to
fall in ranking: flags can affect ranking before enough accumulate that
'[flagged]' appears; the "overheated discussion detector" which I believe
looks at rate of comments and votes can, when triggered, cause down weighting,
though given the paucity of both for this submission I suspect it's unlikely;
a mod can down-weight it if they feel it's not appropriate for the front page;
it's a natural result of its motion relative to the action on other stories.
The first three are active, which is likely what you're getting at. From the
outside, hard to say which are contributing in any given case.

~~~
gnicholas
Thanks. I wasn’t aware that a story could be down-weighted as a result of
being flagged, without it showing as “flagged”.

I’m in the process of building a tool that will detect which stories have been
torpedoed (for any reason) so that people don’t miss out on discussions that
are popular but deemed inappropriate for HN. It seems a lot of these stories
are political in nature.

~~~
grzm
I do understand and sympathize with the motivation, I'm not sure if that's in
keeping with what the mods are hoping to accomplish on HN. The guidelines are
quite clear on what's appropriate:

> _" Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless
> they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Ideological or
> political battle or talking points. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or
> cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-
> topic."_

While the question of what is politics or (even what is appropriate) for HN
can be thorny and not always clearly demarcated, actively working against what
the mods and the community as a whole are working towards might very well help
weaken the fragile strengths HN currently enjoys.

It's tough, because I think there are a lot of important topics that need
discussing; however, not every forum is well-suited for such discussions. What
makes HN valuable for a lot of members is, in part, that there is some
curation by mods and members going on. While you mention only showing content
so "people don't miss out on discussions", encouraging discussion on the
topics can all-too-easily spill over into other threads. I also think it's
questionable whether people are really missing out: many political threads
continue to be active even when falling off of the front page.

I'd love for people to be able to discuss everything reasonably, calmly, and
rationally, giving everyone the benefit of the doubt and engaging in good
faith. A lot of the social cues and reinforcements that encourage this off-
line aren't present on HN by its very nature. If this type of discussion is
truly what you want, there are plenty of places online where one can find it.
Members sometimes mention they value the opinions of those on HN in
particular, that they aren't necessarily present on other fora. One of the
reasons for that, in part, is that many on HN are here _because_ of the forum
it currently is. Changing that environment can all too easily change the fauna
that populate it.

Anyway, that's likely more than what you were expecting :) (and Pascal† would
likely have something to say about it, too). And you may very well disagree. I
encourage you to use HN search to find what 'dang and 'sctb have commented on
the subject. They have a lot of experience viewing what happens on HN, what
their goals are when "tending the garden", and how they go about doing that,
and both because it's interesting, and whether what you're looking to do works
with or against those goals.

† [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-
letter/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/)

~~~
gnicholas
I didn't mean the stories are purely political, only that they lie at the
edges of what some consider to be too political. I don't think I'm working
against the mods on this—mostly it's that some stories seem to disappear,
either with or without "flagged" appearing, and I know as a community member I
was surprised to see how this could happen (1) quickly and (2) to stories that
were previously very popular. I am hoping to build a tool that will enable
other people to see what they might be missing, in part so they can partake in
these discussions, and in part so they can be more aware of how the system
works.

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MichaelGG
I'm not a conservative (the very name implies that even if a conservative
wins, all they get is to keep from losing). But it's clear Google has massive
biases (at least in publicly visible representatives) and their fact checking
(which I've only seen once or twice) has gone to biased sites like Politifact.

~~~
beeftime
James Damore please log off

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everdev
Good intentions, poor execution.

Fact checking is probably best done by a third party of the user's choosing.
It's rare that a statement cannot be reasonbly argued from multiple angles. We
simply have to pick the sources we trust and picking them for us is probably
not the best solution.

I understand the desire to prevent fake stories, but probably much better to
tie credibility to individuals so there's more at stake for them personally.

~~~
calciphus
Would a fact checking engine that allows you to use incorrect information as
its source be better or worse than nothing at all?

~~~
everdev
In many instances there are many sides to a story. The point is, how do we
know Google is unbiased? I don't think it's possible to completely remove
bias. Even AI shows bias and if course humans do.

Point is, I'd like to see the fact checking that I trust the most not the fact
checking that someone else trusts the most.

Google might have the best one for me, but I don't feel like it'll be the best
for everyone.

