Google Rewrites Its Powerful Search Rankings to Bury Fake News

Re:Google Rewrites Its Powerful Search Rankings to Bury Fake... by stephencanon on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @11:51AM (#14194621)

"Google’s PAC gave 56 percent of its 2016 contributions to Republicans and 44 percent to Democrats." [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/opinion/silicon-valley-ta...] Whatever the political opinions of leadership, Alphabet as a company is happy to support whoever is in power.

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Re:Google Rewrites Its Powerful Search Rankings to Bury Fake... by vnchr on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @12:09PM (#14194857)

The separation of economic interests and social interests is relevant here. There can be economic alignment with both parties and social alignment with one party.

According to leaked email via WikiLeaks[1], Alphabet's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt had an interest in advising in the Democratic presidential campaign:

> I met with Eric Schmidt tonight. As David reported, he's ready to fund, advise recruit talent, etc.

There's obvious alignment between improving quality of news search results and Google's mission to organize the world's information. However, the timing of the initiative together with the current political climate suggest this is not an action made in isolation.

When do we begin to question this kind of action? When will it be too late to question it?

[1] https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/36828

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Re:Google Rewrites Its Powerful Search Rankings to Bury Fake... by stephencanon on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @04:21PM (#14197611)

I agree, but I draw a different conclusion: executives' social alignment is mostly about signaling; PAC spending tells the true story.

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Re:Google Rewrites Its Powerful Search Rankings to Bury Fake... by vnchr on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @07:36PM (#14199236)

That's worth considering. I took the PAC as pure pragmatism, but I'll think about the converse. Thanks for suggesting.

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