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As Google Fights Fake News, Voices on the Margins Raise Alarm

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Re: As Google Fights Fake News, Voices on the Margins Raise Alarm

#61

Post by ZeroGravitas »

nailer wrote: post #59
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm beginning to believe the basic left/right divide is founded on the inability to handle context. Though it's probably just a secondary effect of defending the indefensible, which makes context, like facts, inconvenient. The post was clearly attacking "fact-checking" as a partisan activity. Snopes and Politifact type sites are under attack by the right wing, because fake news is a right-wing problem. There's no poi…

As other posters have pointed out, 'problematic' is code for 'acceptable by left politics'. This is generally pretty well known. Narrowing things down to 'acceptable by left and fact checked' (adding fact checking to claim legitimacy) is very different from 'fact checked'.

I would guess "We have always been at war with Eastasia" wouldn't pass a fact-check, so we still appear to be divided on our interpretation of 1984.

Re: As Google Fights Fake News, Voices on the Margins Raise Alarm

#62

Post by nailer »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #61
nailer wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As other posters have pointed out, 'problematic' is code for 'acceptable by left politics'. This is generally pretty well known. Narrowing things down to 'acceptable by left and fact checked' (adding fact checking to claim legitimacy) is very different from 'fact checked'.

I would guess "We have always been at war with Eastasia" wouldn't pass a fact-check, so we still appear to be divided on our interpretation of 1984.

I agree, but add that 'down with big brother' would be considered problematic. Additionally fact checking, while a meritorious idea that should be more common, is deliberately used inconsistently as a political tool.

Re: As Google Fights Fake News, Voices on the Margins Raise Alarm

#63

Post by pgnas »

I recall Eric Schmidts remark in a meeting with Charlie Rose back in 2005:

"When you use Google, do you get more than one answer? Of course you do, well, that is a bug. We should be able to give you the right answer. We should know what you meant."

What is "right" or "wrong" (or problematic) today will more than likely later be proved the opposite.

This is censorship. It doesn't matter what the meaning of problematic is.

We are headed into a digital dark age.

Re: As Google Fights Fake News, Voices on the Margins Raise Alarm

#64

Post by SerLava »

skj wrote: post #4
trendia wrote: post #2

By no means do I agree with much of what is on the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS). However, from a purely algorithmic standpoint, their website has content that should rank very highly: 1) Much of their content is original (i.e. not copy-pasted from other sites) 2) A majority of the page is composed of text, rather than images or ads 3) Where there are ads, they are minimal and largely hidden from view. 4) Their web…

None of those things you mentioned are the core of page rank; they're just extra heuristics. None of that matters if they don't get linked by other sites with high page rank.

Page Rank is essentially deprecated and those other heuristics are more impactful than they were when people still talked about Page Rank a lot.

Re: As Google Fights Fake News, Voices on the Margins Raise Alarm

#65

Post by Animats »

pjc50 wrote: post #34
Animats wrote: post #3

Google isn't doing very well on "socialist". One of the "Top Stories" is WorldNet Daily: "Chilling! Left on brink of socialist victory in U.S. 'We have to have the courage to say something is wrong. This is insanity' Published: 6 days ago" That's not even fake news. That's like news from an alternate universe in which Bernie Sanders won.

I get www.worldsocialism.org at position 4 underneath wikipedia and the dictionary sites. The ""news"" boxes have Bloomberg and the Daily Express, both of which are a bit detached from reality, talking about Corbyn. I think this tells us (a) results differ from person to person - we knew that, but it means we can't see what's being shown to others and how bad it might be; and (b) "socialist" is mostly used as a swear…

I'm running Firefox in private mode with Ghostery enabled, so all Google is getting is my IP address. Try it that way.

Re: As Google Fights Fake News, Voices on the Margins Raise Alarm

#66

Post by 52-6F-62 »

tobylane wrote: post #26
Jerry2 wrote: post #8

I think we're close to 1984 world and thought control... but coming from tech giants like Facebook and Google.

1984 was about a government doing it to us and we are aware. Huxley's A Brave New World was about capitalism doing it to us and we're unaware. It's a heavily underused better fitting reference.

I think your comment is underrated, and hopefully doesn't go unnoticed. You aren't the first one to say it, either.

As a whole the experience people are trying to explain is far closer to A Brave New World. The US government isn't doing this. (though it's currently trying to with Trump's "Real News"[0] and constant dismissal of heritage journalism outlets)

This is the after effects of being sedated and corralled and along the path to the end-game of saturated materialism, if it's anything at all.

I'm not so convinced. I think both Orwell and Huxley were brilliant guys, but they had nowhere near the full picture. Present reality is far too complex to tie it up in a little bow and designate an overarching bad guy.

---

[0] https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/videos/1015958429599572...

Re: As Google Fights Fake News, Voices on the Margins Raise Alarm

#67

Post by 52-6F-62 »

sumfag wrote: post #39
the6threplicant wrote: post #37

Remember when the right wing groups were up in arms about the censoring of non-liberal news by the news moderators and FB had to reorganise the whole team. Now we know the so-called liberal bias was that they were censoring all the (mostly) right wing fake news stories coming from the Russian backed troll teams.

>Russian backed troll teams Is there any hard evidence whatsoever that this is the case, and may you point me to it? I'm fully aware that Russians never "hacked the election" as many news outlets will have us believe (low confidence from the intelligence community, the previous president, and others) but I would believe that claim with hard evidence.

Your comment is going way off the general subject of the conversation, but I thought I'd oblige.

If it's your confidence in the IC, and the previous admin, judging by your comments you might not be opposed to written testaments from the current administration's DHS Cyber Division: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/06/21/written-testimony-ia-cyb...

---

Further context:

https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/22/electronic-voting-state-ha...

( And in case you resent the "liberal" media: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-informs-21-states-they-were... )

Re: As Google Fights Fake News, Voices on the Margins Raise Alarm

#68

Post by eighthnate »

spdustin wrote: post #48
factsaresacred wrote: post #33

> "Google said it had added more detailed examples of problematic pages into the guidelines" 'Problematic'. There's that word, again. The news need not even be 'fake' anymore. Simply 'problematic' will do. Here's Mark Zuckerberg not long ago: > While the amount of problematic content we've found so far remains relatively small, any attempted interference is a serious issue. Problematic to whom, one wonders? The loser…

Problematic to whom? Readers who seek a factual account of an event. Why is this so subjective, and why are people so riled up in these threads? News should be objectively true. If it isn't, it should be clearly flagged as opinion, or struck entirely as fiction, i.e. fake .

> Readers who seek a factual account of an event.

"Factual"? You do realize that "events" have many different sides to the story right?

> Why is this so subjective

Because life is subjective and life is complicated.

How about this? There is a lgbt protest in saudi arabia. The saudi arabian news says "Police stopped anti-islamic protest that offends muslims". Should that "factual" story be the only one allowed?

It is factual right?

> If it isn't, it should be clearly flagged as opinion, or struck entirely as fiction, i.e. fake.

By whose standard? Who decides it's fake? You?

So if the western media said "Saudi authorities attack peaceful lgbt protesters", then the saudis are right to block it as "fake" news right? Because it isn't "factual" right?

If the story is fake, then expose the fakeness rather than banning it. It's better that people openly expose fake news.

Re: As Google Fights Fake News, Voices on the Margins Raise Alarm

#69

Post by eighthnate »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #40
factsaresacred wrote: post #33

> "Google said it had added more detailed examples of problematic pages into the guidelines" 'Problematic'. There's that word, again. The news need not even be 'fake' anymore. Simply 'problematic' will do. Here's Mark Zuckerberg not long ago: > While the amount of problematic content we've found so far remains relatively small, any attempted interference is a serious issue. Problematic to whom, one wonders? The loser…

If you don't know what "problematic" means you could just look it up in a dictionary. adjective: constituting or presenting a problem Or are the "word-checkers" in on the big conspiracy too?

You are being facetious. Problematic is subjective.

Here is a simple comparison. Jews are problematic to nazis. Nazis are problematic to jews.

Feminism is problematic to chauvanists. Chauvanists are problematic to feminist.

You see the problem with problematic right?

Re: As Google Fights Fake News, Voices on the Margins Raise Alarm

#70

Post by jorvi »

spdustin wrote: post #53
probably_wrong wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a line of thinking that claims that 'true' objectivity is impossible, because even choosing what to speak about (or not) involves a degree of subjectivity. This idea was taken to the extreme with outlets like Fox News, and I think we are witnessing a counter-move in the opposite direction as a result. Once the pendulum swings enough in that direction, and 'legitimate' news start being censored, the GP comment…

Fox News, when they report objectively factual accounts of world events, isn't "fake news". Breathlessly repeating irrelevant stories against the current political grain on Fox News? Still not fake news. Biased, sure. Selectively edited. But not fake. Reporting a rumor or an outright fiction in the form of an objectively factual account of a world event? That's fake. There is zero reason for the issue to be political…

> Fox news isn't fake news

Haven't heard a good one like that in a while. Here is Bill O' Reilly on Amsterdam, with factual counterpoints: https://youtu.be/sTPsFIsxM3w

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