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Anti-science advocates are freaking out about Google truth rankings (salon.com)
2 points by swalsh on March 10, 2015 | hide | past | favorite | 1 comment


"Facts the web unanimously agrees on are considered a reasonable proxy for truth"

Mob rule has never been a proxy for 'truth'. I'm not an anti-science advocate, but I think this is a bad idea. Almost every day, I see pictures on Facebook re-posted as truth by hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of people, when a quick submit to Google images shows me it's complete BS.

Even the mainstream news pushes false and politicized stories as fact. Enough people see this as fact and will continue to believe so. Who decides what is the actual truth?

It's strange how open and free Google (and the tech community) claims to be, but will jump at the chance to block and silence dissenting opinions. It's actually not strange, it's scary.

"meaning anti-vaxx propaganda will not appear in the top results for a “measles” search, for instance"

I'm curious to see what kind of information will be seen as "propaganda", because this right here tells me this will be mostly politically based. Scientists also disagree on facts all the time. Which ones will be raised as "truth" and how can we stop corruption?

In other areas, how do we determine who is am "expert"?




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