Google News Initiative • Hacker News Board

Re: Google News Initiative

#91

Post by danso » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

arghwhat wrote: post #74

kingnight wrote: post #42

Sadly, Google is also sitting on a HUGE amount of archival newspaper in a completely unsearchable state. They've OCR'd thousands of historical papers but the search is completely broken. https://news.google.com/newspapers It's a pretty incredible resource if you know the date/place of an event but if you wanted to research a little more broad it's a tool with incredibly untapped potential. I wish they would spend mor…

What do you expect? They're just an advertisement agency. They don't have the tools or skills required to perform advanced searches in a large, unstructured data corpus. Oh, wait.

This wasn't the reason given when the 2011 announcement was made regarding the end of the project. But since then, the archive has faced copyright issues as newspapers sign contracts with other archive services: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160825/10114535344/newsp...

Re: Google News Initiative

#92

Post by mtreis86 » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

olivermarks wrote: post #70

'journalism' and 'news' are obsolete concepts. A journalist was an employee of a large entity who wrote articles and made videos that complied with the reality and perspective the company they work for wanted to promote. (There are still a few of these employees left working for what's left of these entities) 'News' was selective packaged information to influence and inform the broadest reach, with a goal of selling…

Newspapers existed long before advertising. The goal was to inform, and to have a public place of record accessible to all.

Re: Google News Initiative

#93

Post by ucaetano » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

kingnight wrote: post #42

Sadly, Google is also sitting on a HUGE amount of archival newspaper in a completely unsearchable state. They've OCR'd thousands of historical papers but the search is completely broken. https://news.google.com/newspapers It's a pretty incredible resource if you know the date/place of an event but if you wanted to research a little more broad it's a tool with incredibly untapped potential. I wish they would spend mor…

> I wish they would spend more time providing tools for people to consume information in powerful ways rather than trying to 'tailor' experiences.

Power users are a very, very small number, probably sub-million, generate zero revenue, complain a lot and want features that cost a lot of money. There's no reason why Google would target them.

But I'm sure you can find a professional service that does that, allowing for powerful search of historical news. Probably costs a lot, though.

Re: Google News Initiative

#94

Post by IAmEveryone » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

mudil wrote: post #86

IAmEveryone wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly can two competing companies share a monopoly?

Duopoly, to be precise

Plus, of course, those other 15% of the market, to be even more precise. Not to mention that online advertisement to a certain degree is the same market as other forms of advertisement.

Re: Google News Initiative

#95

Post by wuliwong » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 6:30 PM UTC

I think my issue with this is that google has all lots of special interests. I believe a true, functional solution most likely needs to come from a new company. A company that can build its reputation on surfacing "quality" news but without any particular bias or agenda. I'm not sure how any already large corporation would ever be able to win my confidence to act in this way.

Re: Google News Initiative

#96

Post by markdog12 » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 6:33 PM UTC

WalterGR wrote: post #73

lgleason wrote: post #9

Given the bias inside of Google and the fact they have already demonstrated that they are not a neutral arbitrator, the last thing I want to have is them being the arbitrator of who or what news is seen. This is more of an attempt to consolidate their power, what you can and cannot see etc.. Hard pass.

Given the bias inside of Google and the fact they have already demonstrated that they are not a neutral arbitrator I hear this accusation a lot, but I haven't heard about (or perhaps I just forgot) specific examples. Perhaps there's a comprehensive rundown of what's being alleged, somewhere on the web? Alternately, can someone clue me in with examples?

Damore's class action lawsuit: https://www.dropbox.com/s/f6p02fijxrd7c6m/20180108%20Damore%...

Some tidbits: http://thefederalist.com/2018/01/10/19-insane-tidbits-james-...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=google+sued+by+james+damore&t=ffab...

Re: Google News Initiative

#97

Post by freehunter » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 6:34 PM UTC

fortythirteen wrote: post #62

freehunter wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Snopes and Politifact If these are your enemies, your political views might be a little further than "slightly" right of center.

Don't be hyperbolic and put the word "enemies" in my mouth. They are biased sources, though. Those who align with the left typically don't see it, because the organizations align with their biases... and because people rarely read beyond the "truth gauge" at the top of their articles. Politifact will regularly find a small technicality with a right wing politician and use it to label something "untrue", but give a pa…

>Those who align with the left typically don't see it, because the organizations align with their biases

Are you sure it's not the opposite? That you don't agree with them because they don't align to your biases? Again, based on your comments here, your viewpoint seems to be far more than "slightly" right of center. By comparison, if I were a hardcore socialist, I would find objections with much of the center-left/center/center-right news sources too, because they did not agree with my viewpoint. That doesn't make them less reliable, nor does it make their facts any less factual.

It is completely possible to hold opinions that don't align with facts. That doesn't mean those facts are untrue. It also doesn't mean your opinions are less valid, only that they're just opinions. The more extreme your views get to one side or the other, the more you're going to find reality seems to be biased against you. So if you find that reality seems to be biased against you and that troubles you in any way... you may want to reevaluate how close to center your viewpoints actually are.

Re: Google News Initiative

#98

Post by fortythirteen » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 6:34 PM UTC

WalterGR wrote: post #88

fortythirteen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be hyperbolic and put the word "enemies" in my mouth. They are biased sources, though. Those who align with the left typically don't see it, because the organizations align with their biases... and because people rarely read beyond the "truth gauge" at the top of their articles. Politifact will regularly find a small technicality with a right wing politician and use it to label something "untrue", but give a pa…

Could you cite some neutral sources to support your claims?

Unfortunately, most articles pointing this out come from right-wing outlets, because they're the ones incentivized to put in the work. I don't think that negates the facts (pun-ish unintended), because you can investigate the claims yourself. Here, though, is a Forbes article detailing how they engage is coverups of their own political punditry: https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/12/27/in-200...

Re: Google News Initiative

#99

Post by Ivoirians » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 6:39 PM UTC

jfaucett wrote: post #69

All I want is a resource like "google" for all newspaper articles ever that we have stored anywhere. Whenever I'm studying a topic, I'll often look up very old or contemporary newspaper writings to see how our perceptions and attitudes regarding the issue have changed over time. I did this with the civil war and slavery at one point and recently with artificial intelligence. I would highly recommend it for comparing…

Someone else pointed that this exists and, surprise, it's run by Google: https://news.google.com/newspapers

There are other newspaper archive services though.

Re: Google News Initiative

#100

Post by fortythirteen » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #97

fortythirteen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be hyperbolic and put the word "enemies" in my mouth. They are biased sources, though. Those who align with the left typically don't see it, because the organizations align with their biases... and because people rarely read beyond the "truth gauge" at the top of their articles. Politifact will regularly find a small technicality with a right wing politician and use it to label something "untrue", but give a pa…

>Those who align with the left typically don't see it, because the organizations align with their biases Are you sure it's not the opposite? That you don't agree with them because they don't align to your biases? Again, based on your comments here, your viewpoint seems to be far more than "slightly" right of center. By comparison, if I were a hardcore socialist, I would find objections with much of the center-left/ce…

What have I said that's solidly right? I've only stated that other organizations show bias. The irony is that you're applying your own biases to someone whom you've never met while denying bias.

I don't agree with most of what comes out of right-wingers' mouths. I'm a center-leftist that's tired of having half of the viewpoints "filtered". When Politifact labels something Trump said as "Pants on Fire", then buries the fact that he was 95% correct at the bottom of the article, I call that bias.