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The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

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Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#31

Post by personjerry »

md224 wrote: post #16
ska wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are we letting money influence the salience of information? Because it's the only practical and effective way anyone has every come up with of building such a system? This isn't a comment on the ethical nature - just that I don't believe there was any point where you could choose between commercial drivers to the growth of the "information system", and any other approach that would have resulted in similar growth…

Ah, the "Omelas" bargain. Fair enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Om... It sucks that the idea of funding Google via taxes is anathema to so many because people fear government influence. So basically we're stuck between government influence and monetary influence. I wish there was a third way that we could crowdfund a platform without making it beholden to any specific set of donors.

Like Kickstarter with a low "max donation" amount?

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#32

Post by ashurbanipal »

Hold on, so we call it "Mind Control" when Google shifts our preferences toward one of two pre-selected choices? What do we call the state of the world that leaves us with only 2 pre-selected choices who happen to agree on 90%+ of all policies?

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#33

Post by J_Darnley »

ashurbanipal wrote: post #32

Hold on, so we call it "Mind Control" when Google shifts our preferences toward one of two pre-selected choices? What do we call the state of the world that leaves us with only 2 pre-selected choices who happen to agree on 90%+ of all policies?

Inevitable. Do you really think the power brokers let you have a real choice?

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#34

Post by hellbanner »

md224 wrote: post #9

I have made this case before, but I will make it again. The Internet is the largest information system in the world, and Google is the primary portal into that information system. Google's "organic" results are accompanied by AdWords results, which are based on a mixture of bid price and relevance. These ads are marked with a small "Ad" label that many people miss, and even those who know they're ads can't really "un…

Personally I've found Google to be frustratingly difficult to search in recent years. I can't find articles & essays that I remember fondly because the namespace is so polluted with Great SEO.

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#35

Post by hellbanner »

So on this note, I just want to point out that everytime the horrors of the new technologies is talked about, something else isn't talked about.

I've seen a number of newer HN account flooding the site with articles... presumably for eyeballs + ad revenue but hey, maybe they just want another link to lose attention..

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#36

Post by AnimalMuppet »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #23
ntumlin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's so bad, and more importantly I don't see the solution. Google does what it does to make money, and ads are how it does that. If there's a more ethical solution it'll only be implemented if it's also more profitable. All that is fine with me; Google doesn't have any obligations to me or you or anyone besides their shareholders.

"I don't see any problem with the way the world's most powerful system for freeing the mind has been co-opted by for-profit enterprise. I am ignorant of any possible alternatives. Capitalist businesses sell goods and services in exchange for money. I accept that no effort will be made to find more ethical alternatives unless it can produce even more money. We as a society have no control or influence over what indivi…

This essay by Paul Graham seems relevant: http://paulgraham.com/good.html

He states that some things that are charities in intent may need to be businesses.

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#37

Post by aresant »

md224 wrote: post #9

I have made this case before, but I will make it again. The Internet is the largest information system in the world, and Google is the primary portal into that information system. Google's "organic" results are accompanied by AdWords results, which are based on a mixture of bid price and relevance. These ads are marked with a small "Ad" label that many people miss, and even those who know they're ads can't really "un…

I wrote this a few weeks ago on HN but your argument is missing consideration for Google's "Page Quality Score" (PQS) algorithm - which is designed to provide at least some layer of quality / $$$-bias-arbitration.(1)

In short they believe that the most reliable way to drive search relevancy / quality EVEN in paid categories is to make sure the guy on the other end of the table is willing to pay for that user's attention.

QPS is designed to penalize the advertiser if they don't hit "relevancy" metrics which makes it more expensive for that advertiser to reach you - as a percentage it can make clicks literally 600% more expensive (worst case).

The relevancy metrics they'll use include page speed (good for user), time user spends on site (relevancy), actions taken - tracked by Google Analytics (relevancy), and content quality / uniqueness (relevancy).

If you've got a guy willing to pay with high relevancy it's a compelling reason to show nothing but ads.

Now is that REALLY good for the user across the board? No way.

But there's at least a superficial effort to arbitrage the $$$ bias.

(1) Google's PQS documentation https://storage.googleapis.com/support-kms-prod/8E4C3B33697E...

(2) http://searchengineland.com/minimum-quality-score-can-save-m...

(3) Google's PQS update broken down https://www.convirza.com/resources/the-impact-of-googles-rec...

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#38

Post by nostrademons »

md224 wrote: post #16
ska wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are we letting money influence the salience of information? Because it's the only practical and effective way anyone has every come up with of building such a system? This isn't a comment on the ethical nature - just that I don't believe there was any point where you could choose between commercial drivers to the growth of the "information system", and any other approach that would have resulted in similar growth…

Ah, the "Omelas" bargain. Fair enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Om... It sucks that the idea of funding Google via taxes is anathema to so many because people fear government influence. So basically we're stuck between government influence and monetary influence. I wish there was a third way that we could crowdfund a platform without making it beholden to any specific set of donors.

"It sucks that the idea of funding Google via taxes is anathema to so many because people fear government influence"

That wouldn't fix the problem. Ultimately, somebody has to decide & implement what goes into the ranking algorithm that determines the search results that people see. That person has significant power, and will be both decried by intellectuals who feel like they're on the losing edge of the power dynamic, and courted by donors/lobbyists/etc. who wish to gain some of that power. If it were funded by taxation, you would see the same distrust that the FBI and NSA face today (both of which are funded by taxation). If it were crowdfunding, it'd be exactly the same problem that Google faces today - Google's AdWords auction essentially is crowdfunding, and if you give Google money, you get to influence the ads shown on some subset of queries. (Try it - you can get started in 10 minutes for a few bucks.)

What would fix the problem is if people didn't blindly trust Google, and instead researched in-depth on a number of competing search engines. The article alludes to this - Google's power comes from monopoly, and competition is the way to negate that power. But this only fixes the specific case of Google - if you broke up Google into many competing search engines, then Facebook would simply become the 800 lb. gorilla of how people get their information. Break up Facebook, and it becomes Reddit. Last century, it was ABC/NBC/CBS, and before then, Pulitzer and Hearst (who were a lot more unethical than Google was...Hearst started a war so he could sell more papers).

You can't avoid power, you can only understand it, and perhaps manipulate it so it serves yourself better.

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#39

Post by pessimizer »

pcmaffey wrote: post #20
md224 wrote: post #9

I have made this case before, but I will make it again. The Internet is the largest information system in the world, and Google is the primary portal into that information system. Google's "organic" results are accompanied by AdWords results, which are based on a mixture of bid price and relevance. These ads are marked with a small "Ad" label that many people miss, and even those who know they're ads can't really "un…

The library is a catalog of books produced by publishers for the sake of making money. Your example doesn't hold weight, as there is no "purity of information". Even your own insights are filtered through the perspective of your personal influence, your wants, your desires, your history, etc. Google is no different. The organic search results are largely from commercial, or at a minimum, self-interested sources. That…

The library doesn't make money through directing you to particular books or sell publishers your reading habits.

Re: The New Mind Control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence

#40

Post by waterlesscloud »

manachar wrote: post #5

This read like anti-Google FUD. The basic argument is search engine rank determines trustworthiness of a source. This influences people's opinions on politics, what they buy, what they think, etc. This is absolutely true, and the core of their research (it seems). But then it goes into FUD territory when talking about Google backing Hillary. Hillary and Trump have received the lion's share of attention in media, soci…

"Hillary and Trump have received the lion's share of attention in media, social media, and such. Google searches SHOULD show them prominently."

I'm not sure I agree with this.

An alternative is easy to conceive, that all candidates that meet some external criteria (such as being on a ballot) are randomized to be favored equally in results.

I'm not convinced that it's inherently better to favor candidates with a lot of media coverage over just equally favoring them all. Sure, that's how it works now, but that doesn't mean it should be that way. There is a choice to make.

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