This needs to be more widely recognized. Google autocomplete results, fake news on Facebook, etc. are they way they are because a significant number of people lack critical thinking skills or seek affirmation of their current beliefs. People want to read those things -- if they didn't click on them, they would not end up being so visible.
This means that tweaking Google's algorithm, or filtering fake news from Facebook, will backfire and appear to be censorship. It will drive the people who are interested in reading fake news to work harder to find it, and it will erode their trust in mainstream media. In other words, such a solution would worsen the problem it intends to solve.
This isn't really a technical problem. It's a consequence of human nature, and I'm pessimistic about the viability of the technological solutions that have been proposed so far.
This also reinforces my view that most people don't have good critical thinking skills. I've taught college students who would believe pretty much anything they read online. Nobody ever taught them that they should verify what they read before they believe it. I really wish school curricula would include better education in this area. But some of my Facebook friends who "like" the fake news stories are teachers, so I'm pessimistic about this as well.
Good. Make it hard to find. Make people have to dig into the vile corners of the internet to find it.
Google isn't a public utility that is obligated to serve these hate groups. Stormfront doesn't have to be blocked from having their packets routed. Google just doesn't have to take any part in helping them surface their beliefs.
If somebody is looking for hate speech, they should find hate speech. I understand that search engines should avoid promoting hate speech when it is not needed, but like the parent comment showed that is currently the case for Google.
My favourite recent example of this was some bullshit article being shared on Facebook, making the claim that "this December has 5 Saturdays, 5 Sundays and 5 Mondays, something that only happens every 823 years" and going on to make some numeralogical claims on this basis.
OK, so the "every 823 years" bit false, but I can see that you might need more than the average amount of mathematical intuition to see that right away - but the claim that this December has 5 Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays is easily disproved by glancing at a calendar! Yet this was repeatedly re-shared by people who didn't even do this tiny amount of fact-checking that they were easily equipped to do (the device that they were reading Facebook with certainly had a calendar function!).
The US and EU Governments expect us to believe things that are obviously untrue. The biggest current example, I think is the Syrian proxy war. Obvious reality is that the US caused the war, and the EU and US and Saudi Arabia are supporting it, and specifically supporting the rebel side that is committing ethnic and religious cleansing. And Obama is supporting it, and so is the EU. Meanwhile Russia based tv channels put out videos of rebels with suicide vests, and American equipment ... what conclusion are we supposed to draw ? The message of both US and EU and even Saudi Arabia's government is that they simply want to protect the local population. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the middle east know that if there is one thing the rebels will not do, it's protect the local population. I call bullshit.
The economy is another. I find the state of the US economy as reported by the US government, especially where it comes to employment, to be very hard to believe. It just does not seem to match what is obvious when visiting relatives. But employment is one thing. Inflation is very much not what it is claimed to be (and Obamacare is a big factor in that - which seems convenient), but it's not just that. Rent, fuel, public transport, ... all of it just doesn't match what my eyes see, inflation-wise. I see about 6% inflation in a big middle-American city in my expenses. And some numbers themselves are equally in "how can that possibly be true ?" territory. Goods transferred, energy usage, building activity, all of these numbers are supposed to represent core parts of the economy. They're all significantly down, in some cases very significantly, and yet ... the economy grows pretty much exactly at the rate the government predicted it would ... A bit less, but not much. The EU ... same thing. France's economy is growing at 0.5% per year ? I call bullshit. 5% per year drop ... now that might be true. But anyone higher than a 2% per year drop just isn't a realistic figure for France. Marseille definitely has it worse than that, and even Paris is stagnant or slightly better than stagnant at best. Nobody is happy.
Hell, even the numbers out of China on the economy are highly suspect. Exports are way down, obviously, by the measurement of what is being shipped out of China. Given that this has had zero effect on production, which has in fact gone up, one of two things has happened : either the internal market transformation has already happened (hah !), or they ... are ... bullshit. Judging by what I hear from Chinese people who have visited relatives but live in Australia it is very much the bullshit situation.
The state of the refugee problem in the EU is another one. You have the public news flow about nothing being wrong, about the EU just peacefully absorbing some refugees, no problem. And then you have the reality leaks through moments, which are in fact being repressed by the press, and sadly here I know that for a fact. Cars, hundreds every weekend, are being torched in every large French city. Entire neighborhoods are no-go zones. There are "demonstrations" on a monthly basis in pretty much every large city in Holland, Belgium, France and Germany. I've seen 5 of them. 5 ! I am not really there that often. The amount of looting during those demonstrations is absurd (ie. walking through the shopping street on the day after has them looking like a warzone). The security measures shops are taking in response are also very, very visible. And yet in the newspapers ... nothing. You have to look on fora to find these events. On occasion glimpses of reality break through, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_S8eKMDlJk, or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb3rNkkCAJY, or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbKS7tt6g-4 (note how Syrian they look by the way. Reality is there is no Syrian refugee problem. There is a Middle African refugee problem, but "somehow" this has escaped the attention of newspapers). Another detail to escape the attention of everyone : at least 75% are very dark to black males aged 15-25 (likely not from Northern Africa as they use scarves and thick jackets even in 20-25 degree temperatures). There are almost no families among the refugees. Almost none at all. Given the composition of the refugee flow, they won't peacefully settle and join socity. They can't, if they wanted to, build families, as that requires a roughly 50-50 gender split. They certainly don't appear to want to)
Thirdly, this whole Russia spying thing. The thing under investigation are wikileaks releases, or at least, that's a big part of it. So it comes down simply to ... do I believe Julien Assange, or do I believe Hillary Clinton ? Well sorry to put it like this, but there's no contest here. Julien Assange has built up a far higher level of trust, and for instance proven that Hillary is a warmonger, in direct contradiction to what she's saying publicly. So sorry to point this out, but again I'll be believing Assange here.
Really? In Holland? I'm from Holland, and I live near Amsterdam which I think qualifies for "pretty much every large city". Where exactly in Amsterdam are these demonstrations with looting you're talking about? How do you even define "demonstration"? Also, have you considered the news isn't newsworthy on a national or international level, but is on a local level? News from Amsterdam can be found on at5.nl, tho personally I hardly ever read that. Rotterdam has their own local newspapers and news website as well. Etc.
> There is a Middle African refugee problem, but "somehow" this has escaped the attention of newspapers).
This is plain bullshit. The African refugee problem (whom were mainly arriving in Italy) was well documented in Dutch media. It is just that such is not being reported much anymore because the other refugee problem is newer and supposedly much larger.
> Julien Assange
Julian Assange
As for the refugee problem, I was last in Paris, and let me tell you, it's an African and pretty much all male refugee problem there. I've seen the same people in Brussels, though in better circumstances.
I find it odd that so many people who believe the government should not do such things are fine with corporations doing it.
There's an ideological divide in our society. People who deny climate change support GMO foods and nuclear power. People who oppose GMO foods and nuclear power believe we should do more about climate change.
Accepting that Google should do more to suppress "bad" results on global warming also means that it should do more to suppress "bad" results on anti-vaccinations, anti-GMO foods and other areas where the majority scientific opinion is clear.
And then, of course, there's religion. What stance should Google take on that?
No-one's going to be happy with that situation. There is no course of action that Google can follow that will make everyone happy here.
So my answer is yes to all the topics you mentioned, if the opposition can prove vaccination is worse than not, then don't flag as spam, but until then, please bump them down the search results page some.
The government has to prosecute religious cons already. Suppose you say, "Come to my church. Start praying and donating, the lord will take care of your cancer" Lies like these are misleading and dangerous. People can die from them. You can be prosecuted for making them. So, we ought not allow them to be promoted to our citizenry. If a religion wants to make that statement, make them prove their claim with a study that meets the standard.
really? there isn't a religion on the planet that can prove this. There's no evidence for everlasting damnation, how can there be proof that accepting Jesus as your personal saviour prevents you from being damned?
Again, no-one's going to be happy with any of this. And I don't mean "happy" as in "overjoyed", I mean "happy" as in "not going to sue Google".
The instant that Google actually start modifying their results for subjective truth they become liable for a gajillion lawsuits.
So the answer to the question, "am i at risk of everlasting damnation?" would be at the top of the page: No we haven't seen any evidence to support everlasting damnation. Don't censor anything, just push it out of view to the degree it's damaging. Cancer claims made by religions go on page 2. You should have to work to get bad information, not the other way around.
Let them sue to have their story at the top, their argument is not going to hold up. You've used evidence (or lack thereof) to come to your conclusion. And what have they got, an appeal to emotion?
The truth is out their for people to see. Was I robbing the liquor store? No, work has me on camera at the time the robbery took place. Slam dunk. Will god cure my cancer? Not that we know of, but here is some medications you ought to take or you're likely to die. And here is our study showing that. And you've used these study standards before to great benefit when you've flown, used your cellphone and ate your food.
It clearly and obviously is not all of these things.
A body of scientists have just recently complained about commercial organisations releasing papers in order to sow doubt. How would Google handle that?
It's judgement calls and subjective decisions all the way down. Any of which can be challenged. I understand why they don't want to do this.
Your truth is not and has never been the same as someone else's truth. The very idea of objective truth is debatable in some of these areas (e.g. "has any nation tried true communism?")
Google is not and should not be the judge of everyone's truths
Hopefully we can both agree that we are having this conversation. :) If so, we believe that truth is real and shared between individuals. Other common facts are sports, world events and books - at times we all look through the same lens. Science is like this too. Science happily ask for you to see for yourself.
Now look at another truth, cigarettes cause cancer. The tobacco industry denied these findings. But now we censor them and their advertising based on this truth. If we didn't censor the tobacco industry, we'd get cancer more often and die.
When we have a clear argument and damages, at least bump them down the page.
If you allow the disinformation campaign to continue, you corrupt the integrity of the system. This can manifest itself in a very ugly and damaging ways, cancer or worse.
Trying to work out what are lies/truth gets super super murky when it comes to religion.
Not to mention people actually want to search for what people believe, I want to know what holocaust deniers think, I want to know what climate deniers think, that shouldn't be filtered from me.
But, it exposes a bigger problem about the problem of consuming information, how we, as humans, determine what to believe when exposed to everyones beliefs. Especially for people who are young and can latch onto ideas very quickly.
Who would have the authority to do this, and why should they be trusted? How could we get rid of them when they start hiding true things they don't want people to know about? What would their job title be? Minister of Truth? (I suppose you'd need to get permission from Orwell's estate to use that title, which is probably a sign that you should think twice about what you're doing.)
People who believe different things think that people with opposing beliefs are lies or delusion or lack enlightenment. I think it's better that everything is laid bare to the world so it's not hidden. But it requires a certain set of skills when consuming information.
I think Wikipedia is more like what you are wanting. It's curated, it attempts to convey accurate information without emotional language, etc. Of course, that's super difficult and it has it's own problem in trying to do that.
This seems to make a big assumption about what defines "people who are genuinely curious". I think your queries of "holocaust statistics", "holocaust wikipedia", etc would instead describe someone who genuinely knows how to critically think and search for information, as opposed to someone who is simply "curious". You or I would search for info in that way, but a curious person could be anyone (e.g. a child or a teenager who has just been told by a peer that the holocaust was a hoax). Their first instinct might not be to search for specific sources or statistics, but rather to type "did the holocaust happen".
It's all about statistics. That particular query somehow invites a larger number of Holocaust deniers than other similar queries. It's unfortunate that someone who are just curious might end up learning bogus history, and most people would agree that Google could do better here, but that doesn't necessarily mean that anyone's actively gaming the system.
Also, something that I think is relevant: searching "yes the holocaust happened" turns up an assortment of news articles talking about "hey, look who finally acknowledged that the holocaust happened!" There's no one out there furiously insisting that the holocaust happened, because most people (I hope) take that for granted - it's the people devoted to spinning wild conspiracy theories that run websites and blogs devoted to pushing their theory. No one's devoted to proving what everyone already agrees with.
I think the scary thing about this query, though, is that for better or worse people DO search Google for factual answers. Sure, someone searching "Did the holocaust happen?" is likely to already be doubting the Holocaust actually occurred, but given that I think it's a very bad thing that the top answer from Google confirms their false beliefs. It turns from "Some crazy bullshit white supremacist website told me the Holocaust didn't happen" to "Google told me the Holocaust didn't happen."
PS.
It was hard time for Jews. My grandmother was Jew and her husband was in Soviet Army, so she was valuable target, however she was hided by neighbors, so she escaped. Some of her relatives was not so lucky (I know no details, except that one of them ended dead in Poland), but none of them were executed in Babi Yar.
This is a horrifying way of deciding users "like" something and if they are actually doing that it would very rapidly lead to the rise of click bait in all search terms.
Apple once noted that sorting iOS apps by number and speed of installs was a big problem because it encouraged apps that looked and sounded too good to be true but often were horrible to use, so a while back they switched to a model of "how long do users leave this app installed on their devices" or something like similar (it might have been an "engagement" model, which has the much less bad but still existent well-known flaw of "it encourages people to make their app a little slower and require a few more steps to slightly increase the metrics of how long people use it").
There's also an interesting trend wherein Wikipedia editors tend to drift to the political center: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/25/somet...
I think that the search result is fine because obviously if someone queried that entire phrase, it means that they are looking for a counter-argument to the mainstream consensus (which I think is fine - People should be allowed to explore alternative theories... Even if there is a chance that the information is false).
I think that the main problem is that Google is going one step further and suggesting this query when you start typing "Did the" - And by doing so, Google is giving the topic more exposure (and more credibility) than it deserves.
Yet they are getting conspiracy theories rather than counter-arguments and critical assessments. This seems like a consequence of relying too much on user feedback in assigning authority to a page. That emphasis lends itself to gaming in a similar way to the link farms that Google attempts to undermine: users engage with pages that confirm their preconceptions rather than with a genuine authority.
For what it's worth, DuckDuckGo's more "naïve" results have that StormFront page as the eleventh result[1].
It also includes 'negative searching' which is my term for when I look for things or click on links out of a morbid fascination or sense of pity. Sometims I use 'open in incognito mode' but often I forget.
This in particular applies to odd GooglePlus and Facebook links that I do my best to counter (via links to Wikipedia or Snopes or whatever I see most effective)
Yes, there are optimizations Google has since made that would probably benefit people to know about to make them understand the manner in which information is being delivered to them, and it's not at all unreasonable for people to be unaware of these already. But part of me is skeptical that this will have any non-trivial effect on how people consume information on the Internet. i.e., it's not an ignorance problem, it's a "fundamental common sense" problem.
Maybe you are actually looking for did the holocaust happen or some such because the skinhead in your class said the holocaust didn't really happen. And then Google shows you the first search result that asserts the holocaust didn't happen, not the first search result that tells you about holocaust denialism.
So sure some people are looking for stormfront but maybe some people are also just looking, and unlucky enough to use google for their search.
Instead, they will more likely type "holocaust statistics", "holocaust wikipedia", "what is holocaust", or simply "holocaust". Each of these queries brings up a "clean" result page.
On the other hand, it is those people who already think/suspect Holocaust isn't real that disproportionately type in "did the holocaust happen", they find the stormfront website, and they click on it because it matches their preconception. Google learns that users typing this particular query likes this result, and acts accordingly.
To Google's algorithm, this is exactly like learning that people typing "introduction to algorithms" love to go to the Amazon page selling the venerable CLRS. Nothing inherently nefarious.
In other words, I think it's not StormFront that's "gaming" the system. The system is made of people, some of whom really really like StormFront, and Google's results (for better or worse) just reflect that reality.