We've talked about Facebook.Are people going to boycott that other major purveyor of fake news, too?

[pnwmom]

GOOGLE.

We sort through fake news every time we go on Google. Just as much as we see on FB. And even more of us use Google.



https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/25/google-launches-major-offensive-against-fake-news

Google announced its first attempt to combat the circulation of “fake news” on its search engine with new tools allowing users to report misleading or offensive content, and a pledge to improve results generated by its algorithm.

The technology company said it would allow people to complain about misleading, inaccurate or hateful content in its autocomplete function, which pops up to suggest searches based on the first few characters typed.

It also said it would refine its search engine to “surface more authoritative pages and demote low-quality content” – and acknowledged for the first time that it had taken the measures to combat the threat of fake news.

Regarding the changes to its search algorithm, Gomes added: “We’ve adjusted our signals to help surface more authoritative pages and demote low-quality content ... so that issues similar to the Holocaust denial results that we saw back in December are less likely to appear.” The news of the prominence of Holocaust denial in Google searches was first revealed by the Observer.

Google also promised to open up over how it would make such decisions in the future, although there remained criticism over its lack of transparency.

“As is often the case when Google announces changes, this couldn’t be more vague,” suggested Joost de Valk, a search engine expert at the consultancy firm Yoast.

SNIP

[BigmanPigman]

1. They never did that on my Google page until about 4 months ago.

Who makes these changes and how can they be blocked? Or can't they? It's crap that was never there before? What gives?

[pnwmom]

6. Propaganda pushers have figured out how to game the system with key words. nt

[GusBob]

2. Did you read about the screaming match on AF1 that was posted here Friday?

Was that a true story?

[pnwmom]

4. No, I don't know what you're talking about.

[GusBob]

9. Some untruthful twitter post that dozens of DUers fell for

Or wanted to believe. Melania screaming on AF1 or something such.

A couple of DUers questioned the veracity of the story, but others made a point of kicking it even if it was untrue just to be cute

It was kinda embarrassing and proves your point in a way

[Squinch]

3. I use DuckDuckGo.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

10. same here

[Squinch]

11. I find it works great. I never feel a need to go to google. How about you?

[Hermit-The-Prog]

12. no google for me

Google results got to be 'where to buy' instead of informational. Whoever came up with their positive feedback loop should be sent to the mail room. If you once searched for an item to buy, it would produce fewer and fewer other results. There's more to the web than commerce.

I keep a https://duckduckgo.com tab open all the time.

[msongs]

5. twitter is a major spreader of rumours, lies n fake news as well. nt

[pnwmom]

7. That's true. But the claim here has been that fewer people use Twitter so it doesn't matter as much.

That's not true about Google.

[Igel]

8. Ah. I thought you were going to say Instagram.

Which was linked. Facebook brand, but the IRA targeted Facebook pages and Instagram.

Nobody likes to point out that Instagram was a focus of the attempted influence. It's popular and we can't blame older people for it. It's trendy, still.

Watch out for banning "offensive" content. Unless we have a "we're right" definition of "offensive," we'll find that stuff we support is banned as offensive. It's the downside to limiting speech. Unless you're the censor, you inevitably are either completely innocuous or you're censored.