-- The issue doesn't seem unsolvable at all. Google can investigate the network of slander websites and reputation management consultants the same way these news reporters did. Use some AI to find per quality site devoted to this stuff. Google already devotes a lot of resources to similar things. Google doesn't have to be certain a site is garbage to delisted it, just get enough red flags.
-- But oppositely, if you had 30 dispersed search sites, it seems likely this stuff would become utterly intractable, an endless game of whack-o-mole. And so it seems like your literally is primarily using kind of garbage reasoning just to take a shot at Google. Not that I like Google or whatever but it's an illustration of a common HN prejudice.
Basically how everyone looks at news / journalism on tv and the net then?
Looking at the 'news feed' on yahoo is not much different than the old enquirer fake news tabloids of the grocery stores in times past.. yet people sometimes cling to "this is the way it is.. I saw it on the web" - even though I think deep down they know they only get half the story / not half the truth.. with any organization online.
So it's entertainment to shame the 'others' and some people take it pretty hard when the 'others' shame their allies.. yep, not hard to imagine at this point sadly.
I long for a browser extension that follows my choice of editors to remove all huffposts and many individual authors / 'journalists' / editors from portals / socials / etc - even then the truth will not be complete and much of what is not true will still entertain/influence/stir up anger, etc.
once we get more deepfakes across the net I think people will finally start to see it for what it is - all one big enquirer trying to get eyeballs and clicks and as just as trustworthy.
Although - some people have started to say things like 'if it wasn't true fbook would remove it - or put a notice on it - and they haven't so it' probably true' - similar with google I guess - ugh.
If google / fb continues to censor, fix and filter - it could have a similar opposite effect. Ok we need a button on google to show unfiltered.
More unfinished thoughts it seems.
Will it? Google prides itself on solving hard problems.
What if it only costs $10Bn a year to solve it?
But this is an arms race with uncountable adversaries who profit from finding new ways to spread. Some will always succeed.
In short I am not sure you are correct that there will be uncountable adversaries trying to do this.
take this thought further (this is going to suck and most will hate this and I won't blame anyone who does because I've also not completely finished this idea in my own head) ... what if everyone got slandered somewhere online. Or in other words I can't change the way people treat me but I can influence my response to how I react. If everyone is slandered then nobody is slandered because the narrative becomes the Web is shit so you can't anyway trust what people write online.
A lot of the problems would go away if we'd come to the conclusion that what happens online really is just a fake world with people sharing unfinished thoughts (that constantly evolve) rather than everything we publish is like a public statement (because it sometimes even has our real name acting almost like a signature on a contract).