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Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

theatlantic.com

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Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#41

Post by electricEmu »

partisan wrote: post #30
electricEmu wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original replier doesn't sound as if they're extropolating to me. You're also telling a story, and shouldn't be the only one in the conversation to do so. > Over time, the noise is stripped away and what we get is the official narrative and that is one we can "count" on. I'd ask why fixing Facebook or Google isn't the answer, but that would play into _your_ extropolating narrative. Instead, why shouldn't Google a…

You've simply restated the problem. Why not contribute to the discussion? How would you fix Google and Facebook? How would you hold them responsible and accountable? And why?

> You've simply restated the problem. Why not contribute to the discussion?

I'm sorry, but I've already asked a direct question and do not consider it a restatement of the problem.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#43

Post by electricEmu »

justhackedme wrote: post #40
electricEmu wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original replier doesn't sound as if they're extropolating to me. You're also telling a story, and shouldn't be the only one in the conversation to do so. > Over time, the noise is stripped away and what we get is the official narrative and that is one we can "count" on. I'd ask why fixing Facebook or Google isn't the answer, but that would play into _your_ extropolating narrative. Instead, why shouldn't Google a…

Huh? Why would you blame your car or someone else's car for driving when someone slams into you from behind? You blame the brakes when they stop braking. The car when it stops driving. Don't blame the car when the people are at fault. It's hilarious seeing people blame Facebook as if it's some real person trying to trick everyone, when it fact it's just someone using the tool wrongly.. hint: you can use nearly every…

There's a large difference between vehicles, which are wholly owned by a consumer, and services.

Running an open source news aggregator on my personal server is something I would own and be responsible for, similar to a fully owning a car. If I selected a ride share and the driver wrecks, then a company is responsible for my personal injury as well as the service I didn't receive.

> When you start to blame things like Facebook or Google for doing their job and presenting popular/trending topics, you lose any grasp on the real problem

Suggesting someone who blames Facebook or Google has "lost sight" is a very confident statement that you have not backed up. If this question were settled then there would be no thread on HN.

I _consider_ looking into the matter more. Google and Facebook play in the news aggregation space, and getting it wrong has lead to serious questions about their role.

I stand by looking into things further. Please feel free to clarify your claim that someone has "lost grasp on the real problem" when they start to blame Facebook and Google. Should either be responsible then blame should be expected.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#44

Post by forapurpose »

mc32 wrote: post #24

Google is more a conduit of news rather than a gatekeeper. FB is both a gatekeeper and a conduit to news as well as a news producer (since it pays or underwrites some orgs to produce news for it). That said, I think The Atlantic is wrong in placing blame on Google when they themselves engage in questionable journalism (clickbait as well as often biased news-source). There is no way we're going to come up with somethi…

> There is no way we're going to come up with something "objectively truthful" because, news as it exists today is not about facts. It's journalism and journalism has always been about putting a slant on things --quoting unauthoritative sources ("man named Joe claims," etc.) loose factchecking, and more. All to sell more news (packaged with ads or for subscriptions, where you don't want to alienate your subscriber "base".

I look at it much differently: Nothing is perfect, no news source, no politician, no text editor, no scientific theory. They all fail our ideals but some are a lot better than others, some are a little better, and as others have pointed out in this discussion, an essential skill is to differentiate between them and also to assume the uncertainties of imperfection and to read critically.

To throw together all journalism as 'imperfect' is like throwing together all science, from the theory of evolution to latest upload to arXiv, as all a failure because it's imperfect. Yes, read Darwin critically, but don't conflate his work with everyone else's. The more I accept inevitable human imperfection, the more I'm amazed by people like Darwin and by organizations like the NY Times, which cranks out a very good, very difficult product on an amazing schedule. That they and others accomplish all of that under the constraints of humanity is truly amazing to me.

> The Atlantic is wrong in placing blame on Google when they themselves ...

We're kind of stuck with ideas from hypocrites, at least until the great AI awakening - and if it's strong AI, hypocrisy might be the first sign that it's working.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#46

Post by kashprime »

llamataboot wrote: post #20

Zeynep Tufekci had a couple great columns about this recently regarding FB and the US elections this year. While I recognize that there's always a concern about who the gatekeepers get to be in the marketplace of ideas, I think this is a considerably more complex issues than "let all the information go wherever it wants and let the people sort it out" Putting 4Chan in a top news slot is not "allowing unedited and unf…

It would be trivial for FB and Google to allow tailoring of feeds. Even keyword exclusions or subject filters would be a huge step-up from the gamified engagement-getting monster that we have now.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#47

Post by grandalf »

phrh8 wrote: post #37
trgv wrote: post #11

I think there's already too much filtering. People need to make up their own minds regarding what is true and what isn't, what's worth their time and what's bullshit, which links to click on and which to avoid. If people can't handle this then we need to spend more money on education, or just accept that some people disagree with us. I don't think aggressively filtering "untrustworthy" content will lead to a net bene…

These platforms have hyper-optimized their products to show as much stuff as possible that people will engage with (share, click), so that they also engage with ads and stay active. The problem is there is often some time when there is no news. No news isn't interesting, so it doesn't get shared as much as "news". Take the moments immediately following a disaster. Two types of news articles will show up: "There was a…

This comment is absolutely right. The algorithms are not optimized to inform people, they are optimized to maximize the number of ads people click on while consuming whatever content the algorithms promoted to the top.

This is at best a conflict of interest when it comes to content that ought to be viewed as news. But there is significant pressure these days to blend news with entertainment (which simply means engagement, which entails ad sales).

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#48

Post by magicalist »

Spivak wrote: post #35
llamataboot wrote: post #20

Zeynep Tufekci had a couple great columns about this recently regarding FB and the US elections this year. While I recognize that there's always a concern about who the gatekeepers get to be in the marketplace of ideas, I think this is a considerably more complex issues than "let all the information go wherever it wants and let the people sort it out" Putting 4Chan in a top news slot is not "allowing unedited and unf…

> into a spot that many users believe is fairly authoritative I mean that's the real issue. You can't be unbiased while trying to be a source of truth. You can be impartial and return results based on relevancy or you can intervene in an attempt to return the truth. Google has ventured into dangerous territory by mixing the two -- especially with their automatic snippets that answer questions. > There is only figurin…

> You can be impartial and return results based on relevancy

I don't think that's possible. Take a search for "Las Vegas shooting". What is the impartial process for deciding the most relevant result for that? Relevance is inherently editorial.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#49

Post by rdiddly »

Spivak wrote: post #35
llamataboot wrote: post #20

Zeynep Tufekci had a couple great columns about this recently regarding FB and the US elections this year. While I recognize that there's always a concern about who the gatekeepers get to be in the marketplace of ideas, I think this is a considerably more complex issues than "let all the information go wherever it wants and let the people sort it out" Putting 4Chan in a top news slot is not "allowing unedited and unf…

> into a spot that many users believe is fairly authoritative I mean that's the real issue. You can't be unbiased while trying to be a source of truth. You can be impartial and return results based on relevancy or you can intervene in an attempt to return the truth. Google has ventured into dangerous territory by mixing the two -- especially with their automatic snippets that answer questions. > There is only figurin…

The unfiltered results ARE the truth. 4chan is the truth. In the sense that "Someone posted this thing on 4chan." And that's the only truth there is in internet-land: Someone posted something.

Is it real? Is it true, what they posted? Or is it "fake news?" You will never know, and you probably shouldn't try to take it that far. Or if you do, at least be able to handle the cognitive dissonance of believing it and not-believing it at the same time. The only thing you can truly know is what you witness in person. Or perhaps what you hear from trusted parties, but even there, your trust may be misplaced, or they may report something false in good faith that was the result of their having been deceived or mistaken. And you can misperceive and twist reality even all by yourself in the presence of supposedly non-subjective and "real" stimuli.

Regardless, from the vantage point of "looking at a computer," all you know about anything you see there, is that someone put it there. And even the "someone" part isn't necessarily true... it could be AI-generated like some sports and financial news is now.

The good news is, that which you can't witness with your own eyes, rarely has any real effect on your life. I'm experimenting with that. The sun still comes up, and it's still time to get some shit done. Sure sure, of course there are myriad ways someone or something far away can have an influence on me. What I'm saying is, what if you ignore that? What if you construct a mental model of the world where it's actually not one big joyous tapestry of unity and interconnectedness, but just a fragmented patchwork and you have your own little square and that's it. Neither view is right per se, but they're both equally valid, which is to say, bullshit, yet incontrovertible to those who believe it. I'll say one thing though, take the fragmented view and suddenly you don't especially find yourself immersed in news of shootings and Google can't "fail you" because you don't rely on it as a window to the world - you only use it for what it's actually good at: looking for shit on the internet.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#50

Post by hsod »

Google is all about filtering. It doesn't just show you a random selection of every page on the internet containing your search term. Instead it applies subjective criteria to present you with what Google thinks would be the "best" results for you.

This is why people use Google.

So I don't understand when people make the generic argument against filtering, that filtering is categorically bad and Google shouldn't be in the business of deciding what we see and don't see. That's the whole point of Google!

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