
As Google Fights Fake News, Voices on the Margins Raise Alarm - mcone
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/technology/google-search-bias-claims.html
======
Animats
Google isn't doing very well on "socialist". One of the "Top Stories" is
WorldNet Daily: _" Chilling! Left on brink of socialist victory in U.S. 'We
have to have the courage to say something is wrong. This is insanity'
Published: 6 days ago"_ That's not even fake news. That's like news from an
alternate universe in which Bernie Sanders won.

~~~
pjc50
I get www.worldsocialism.org at position 4 underneath wikipedia and the
dictionary sites. The ""news"" boxes have Bloomberg and the Daily Express,
both of which are a bit detached from reality, talking about Corbyn.

I think this tells us (a) results differ from person to person - we knew that,
but it means we can't see what's being shown to others and how bad it might
be; and (b) "socialist" is mostly used as a swear word these days.

~~~
Animats
I'm running Firefox in private mode with Ghostery enabled, so all Google is
getting is my IP address. Try it that way.

------
trendia
By no means do I agree with much of what is on the World Socialist Web Site
(WSWS). However, from a purely algorithmic standpoint, their website has
content that should rank very highly:

1) Much of their content is original (i.e. not copy-pasted from other sites)

2) A majority of the page is composed of text, rather than images or ads

3) Where there are ads, they are minimal and largely hidden from view.

4) Their website is well organized, with clear and descriptive links.

5) Their website is updated frequently and new content is posted regularly.

So, assuming that WSWS is linked by other sites on the same topic, it seems
that it should rank highly in Google search queries. Maybe there is something
else that would reduce their ranking, but it doesn't seem obvious to me at
first glance.

~~~
jankotek
> _from a purely algorithmic standpoint_

You could use the same argument on any extremist site.

Algorithm can parse content. It probably has list of bullshit related
keywords. Just the title:

> _Marxist analysis, international working class struggles & the fight for
> socialism_

~~~
thriftwy
Extremist is the tag that Putin bolts on every opinion he doesn't like, so now
I may assume you are a putinist.

~~~
jankotek
Website that constantly talks about 'struggle' and 'revolution' is not
extremist at all.

~~~
thriftwy
"Extremist" is a weasel word for when a person didn't really do anything yet,
but you are already trying to censor them.

~~~
jankotek
Marxists and socialists did not do anything yet. Now you are just trolling.

~~~
thriftwy
These particular ones didn't, and you certainly can't prevent a person (or a
group of people) from thinking improper thoughts as long as they want to.

But you would like to, won't you? You would like to get into people's heads?
You consider people your peons and you want to pull switches in their heads
because you know better what they should think?

In short, you are a putinist.

------
perlpimp
Imo these filter blocks are problematic. Maybe google can flag the content
with a visual cue instead of participating in censorship. I remember in high
school we had a class 'critical thinking', wonder if it is still is taught and
whether it is so in other places of education. People should filter content or
at least be helped to instead of hering people away from 'harmful' topic.
Behind fake news idea there is an elephant in the room - feeble minds, perhaps
this is the real problem.

this goes without saying google should promote higher quality content
regardless and spammy content should be rated as such.

~~~
dalbasal
Feeble minds is a defeatist characterisation, and unhelpful.

People have the cognitive attributes that they do. We think in narratives. Our
political thinking mode is entirely dominated by identity, whether
ideological, ethnic or whatever. We prefer confirmation. etc. etc. We just
aren’t scientific thinking machines. That’s why scientific methods are
designed as they are. They strictly avoid the way people normally come to
conclusions, even (especially) intellectual heavyweights that have dedicated
their lives to rationality. Take away the scientific checks (e.g., the
_double_ blindness of experiments), and even the most robust minds are feeble
in this sense.

The actual mechanisms of culture are too complex to understand, but components
of culture and group behaviour can be understood well enough to steer things
into certain directions.

The underlying problem (IMO) is that FB, Google and others are the only ones
in position to play a role they do not want to play. In the past we had
“trusted” publications, who had editors and such. We had softer institutions
like “journalism,” the culture and methods associated with the profession.
These had power, cultural force. None of these were anywhere near perfect (or
even decent), but they did have some ability to distinguish between “popular”
and “good”.

They don’t as much anymore. Google & FB do. They don’t want the job. We don’t
really want them to have the job. Something new needs to emerge, and I don’t
think that something is a more robust human brain.

------
factsaresacred
> "Google said it had added more detailed examples of problematic pages into
> the guidelines"

'Problematic'. There's that word, again. The news need not even be 'fake'
anymore. Simply 'problematic' will do.

Here's Mark Zuckerberg not long ago:

> While the amount of _problematic_ content we've found so far remains
> relatively small, any attempted interference is a serious issue.

Problematic to whom, one wonders? The loser? Those who feel most aggrieved?
This is little more than an attempt to sanitize information so that all that
remains is the pre-approved 'least problematic' truth (fact-checked, of
course).

Hillary Clinton, with much irony and little self-awareness, summed up the
intent behind this move in her latest book:

> “Attempting to define reality is a core feature of authoritarianism....This
> is what the Soviets did when they erased political dissidents from
> historical photos. This is what happens in George Orwell’s classic novel
> Nineteen Eighty-Four, when a torturer holds up four fingers and delivers
> electric shocks until his prisoner sees five fingers as ordered. “The goal
> is to make you question logic and reason and to sow mistrust towards exactly
> _the people we need to rely on: our leaders, the press, experts who seek to
> guide public policy based on evidence, ourselves_ ”.

So the message is clear: Trust us, you dolts. We know best.

~~~
spdustin
Problematic to whom?

Readers who seek a factual account of an event.

Why is this so subjective, and why are people so riled up in these threads?
News should be objectively true. If it isn't, it should be clearly flagged as
opinion, or struck entirely as fiction, i.e. _fake_.

~~~
probably_wrong
There's a line of thinking that claims that 'true' objectivity is impossible,
because even choosing what to speak about (or not) involves a degree of
subjectivity.

This idea was taken to the extreme with outlets like Fox News, and I think we
are witnessing a counter-move in the opposite direction as a result. Once the
pendulum swings enough in that direction, and 'legitimate' news start being
censored, the GP comment will probably feel a lot more relevant.

~~~
spdustin
Fox News, when they report objectively factual accounts of world events, isn't
"fake news". Breathlessly repeating irrelevant stories against the current
political grain on Fox News? Still not fake news. Biased, sure. Selectively
edited. But not fake. Reporting a rumor or an outright fiction in the form of
an objectively factual account of a world event? That's fake.

There is zero reason for the issue to be political. Either it's falsified on
purpose and with an intent to deceive the consumer (a'la "Fake Gucci Purse")
or it's not.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Fox news displays plenty of "fake" (by any definition) news.

They said the city of Birmingham in the UK was a place "where non-Muslims just
simply don't go".

Here's a sampling of 50 pretty obvious lies:

[http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2015/feb/26/50-...](http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2015/feb/26/50-fox-
news-lies-6-seconds-daily-show/)

An aside, I've literally read a story about a guy who writes "fake news" just
for cash, and one of the headlines he made up for clicks, is the exact same as
something that was actually said on Fox news:

"Says Colorado food stamp recipients can use ATMs to get cash to buy
marijuana."

Here's an NPR story about the fake news creator, when he mentions this:

[http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503...](http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503146770/npr-
finds-the-head-of-a-covert-fake-news-operation-in-the-suburbs)

Ironically the last bit of Fox News I actually watched was a "fact-check"
segment.

In it, the first lady's claim that slaves had built the white house was "fact-
checked". By which they meant they didn't actually contradict the fact
(because it was true) but minimized it as much as possible, including throwing
in the unsupported lie that the slaves were "well treated".

We actually have documentary evidence written by the first lady that was in
the white house at the time, that the slaves she saw building the white house
were in fact poorly treated.

But even if they were, why would you bring this up? Well-treated slaves are
still slaves.

~~~
observation
Personally I think NPR is one of the worst offenders.

It's not what they say, it's what they leave out. Those soothing dulcet tones
are half way to hypnosis.

I give you little credit for recognize Fox News propaganda because it's entry
level manipulation. Most people who visit Huffpo know what it is.
Organizations like the New York Times, NPR, The Economist and National Review
have refined it to an art form.

I take the latter group more seriously because large numbers of people buy
into their lines but Fox and Huffpo are what WWF is to armed conflict.

The New York Times is a Communist organization. That is not hyperbole, it is
the truth. It's not well hidden if you go and look. They have always supported
Communism. Likewise The Economist has always supported Fascist and other
authoritarian dictatorships. Inside every friendly, well mannered, articulate
moderate is an extremist trying to claw out.

Us Westerners support all manner of extraordinary adventures because for
ourselves at the center of world power this is a game that doesn't involve
high stakes. The voters are complicit of course, we have prospered greatly
over the centuries and like our comfortable lives that don't involve thorny
questions.

I don't feel bad about this, it's the same as every other civilization in
history. Perhaps we ought to restrain ourselves more from _saving the world_
if only to halt our plumbing the depths of grandiose neurosis. I think I've
offended everybody now so I'll shut up.

~~~
alexryan
Quillette: Smearing Free Thought In Silicon Valley
[http://quillette.com/2017/09/25/smearing-free-thought-
silico...](http://quillette.com/2017/09/25/smearing-free-thought-silicon-
valley/)

------
Digit-Al
I seems to me that Google are 'damned if they do, and damned if they don't'.

They get loads of stick for linking to fake news, but if they try to do
something about it they get loads of stick for 'trying to control what we
see'.

The biggest culprit in the spreading of fake news is ourselves. The number of
times I see friends spreading stories on Facebook that smell false on first
viewing, and can be shown to be false with a 20 second Google search is
amazing.

Nobody can be arsed to spend a tiny bit of time fact checking and when you
call them out on it they just shrug and give the feeble 'just in case' excuse.

------
ThomPete
Fake news isnt done to convince you about a poltical opinion its mostly done
to get you to click the link or share it and through that make money on
advertising. Judging it on some truth parameter is absurd instead it should be
judged on its advertising strategy IMO.

~~~
bad_user
Also, people should appreciate that fighting fake news hurts Google's bottom
line in the short run.

I guess in the long run they are better off with legitimate traffic, since
scamy websites and shitty ads are the reason for why many people now install
ad blockers. But it's actually rare to see a company thinking ahead of the
next quarter.

------
Jerry2
I think we're close to 1984 world and thought control... but coming from tech
giants like Facebook and Google.

~~~
wallace_f
Ever once in a while I link someone or mentioned what is in articles such as
these, below, and I rarely find people believe it until they read it in name-
brand media. Maybe I am wrong but from 9/11 to the Snowden leaks to now it
feels like we are on some accelerated path towards 1984 where conspiracy
theories are becoming reality.

For example: the US gov actively influences movies and TV scripts for
propaganda purposes: [https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/exclusive-
documents-...](https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/exclusive-documents-
expose-direct-us-military-intelligence-influence-on-1-800-movies-and-tv-
shows-36433107c307)

Another: US Gov created an incredibly false narrative about Iraq to set the
stage for the War on Terror. [https://theintercept.com/2016/12/15/if-donald-
trump-is-so-up...](https://theintercept.com/2016/12/15/if-donald-trump-is-so-
upset-about-iraq-wmd-lies-why-is-he-hiring-john-bolton/)

DoD spent millions researching how to manipulate Twitter users:
[https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/08/darpa-
social-n...](https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/08/darpa-social-
networks-research-twitter-influence-studies)

We need more decentralized power in media, not less.

~~~
vkou
None of these adventures are anything new. The US government had been
responsible for blatant propaganda in film and print, lied about causes of
wars, and spied on, sabotaged, suppressed, and manipulated domestic political
movements for decades. This has been happening since the Red Scare gave the
ruling classes something to lose sleep over.

~~~
wallace_f
I have never seen a poll on something like "do you think the US government is
actively manipulating media?" Or, "what do you think the odds are this TV show
was scripted by the US government to shape your opinion on an issue?"

The thing is I think many see this as the realm of conspiracy theory; and
maybe public opinion of establishment media would change if they thought
differently

------
the6threplicant
Remember when the right wing groups were up in arms about the censoring of
non-liberal news by the news moderators and FB had to reorganise the whole
team.

Now we know the so-called liberal bias was that they were censoring all the
(mostly) right wing fake news stories coming from the Russian backed troll
teams.

~~~
sumfag
>Russian backed troll teams Is there any hard evidence whatsoever that this is
the case, and may you point me to it? I'm fully aware that Russians never
"hacked the election" as many news outlets will have us believe (low
confidence from the intelligence community, the previous president, and
others) but I would believe that claim with hard evidence.

~~~
52-6F-62
Your comment is going way off the general subject of the conversation, but I
thought I'd oblige.

If it's your confidence in the IC, and the previous admin, judging by your
comments you might not be opposed to written testaments from the current
administration's DHS Cyber Division:
[https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/06/21/written-testimony-ia-
cyb...](https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/06/21/written-testimony-ia-cyber-
division-acting-director-dr-samuel-liles-and-nppd-acting)

\---

Further context:

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/22/electronic-voting-state-
ha...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/22/electronic-voting-state-hacking-
russian-government-cyber-actors/)

( And in case you resent the "liberal" media:
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-informs-21-states-they-
were...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-informs-21-states-they-were-
targeted-by-attempted-russian-hacking-1506119620) )

------
gldalmaso
IMO, I think that there's a more troubling problem brewing behind the scenes.

I believe Google increasingly doesn't understand their own outputs. This is
also true of products other than search like youtube related content and ads.

They have put so many eggs in the AI basket they're not really sure if the
eggs are being made into omelet or boiled or pidan.

It's a kind of Algorithmic Dissociative Disorder.

------
pgnas
I recall Eric Schmidts remark in a meeting with Charlie Rose back in 2005:

"When you use Google, do you get more than one answer? Of course you do, well,
that is a bug. We should be able to give you the right answer. We should know
what you meant."

What is "right" or "wrong" (or problematic) today will more than likely later
be proved the opposite.

This is censorship. It doesn't matter what the meaning of problematic is.

We are headed into a digital dark age.

------
islon
_Google has often said that it cannot reveal too much or people would use that
information to try to game the rankings_

Isn't this the same "security by obscurity" argument?

~~~
factsaresacred
No. Security by obscurity is relying on opaqueness instead of using an
alternative and better defense.

For Google to protect it's ranking algorithms, non-disclosure and the legal
right to proprietary knowledge is the best defense. It's not obscure, it's
private.

