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Google News Initiative

newsinitiative.withgoogle.com

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Re: Google News Initiative

#141

Post by radlad »

ucaetano wrote: post #124
TeMPOraL wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Empowering users to become more and more power users is literally the reason humanity bothers with science and technology. It was the reason shared by many people who started now successful software companies. It's sad to see profit motive distract people away from that core reason.

> Empowering users to become more and more power users is literally the reason humanity bothers with science and technology. Quite the opposite. Technology allows users to become less and less power users. > It's sad to see profit motive distract people away from that core reason. Not sure I got that part, are you complaining that other people are not leaving their jobs and living aside to build the product you want…

> Quite the opposite. Technology allows users to become less and less power users.

That seems pedantic. Technology allows users to become "less and less power users" by giving them the tools to solve problems they were not advanced enough to solve before, or that were too time-consuming or difficult to solve before.

That's exactly the same point the OP is making -- Google has the potential to build a tool which would allow people who otherwise cannot make use of these archives to do so.

Re: Google News Initiative

#142

Post by pasbesoin »

Ok, I guess I'll try to read this.

However, this comment won't wait:

If you were "with" the news, you wouldn't have done things like kill Google Reader, a primary vehicle power users used to process the news.

Stop prescribing. Start listening.

Re: Google News Initiative

#143

Post by dnomad »

fortythirteen wrote: post #98
WalterGR wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Isn't that convenient? The only sources that document this widespread, omnipresent bias against right-wing are far-right "news" organizations who themselves engage in endless propaganda.

BTW, that forbes article doesn't show any kind of determined bias on behalf of Politifact. I don't think you really grasp what the problem is when we talk about bias in journalism. Newspapers can make mistakes. Newspapers can even report totally incorrect information. What's important is that mistakes and erroneous reporting are acknowledged, discussed, and critiqued. It's like science -- peer review is the key. When an organization like Politifact makes a claim and is then subjected to legitimate critique and then it responds to such criticism -- that is the process working. This is very different from what happens with the far-right news complex though, isn't it?

Re: Google News Initiative

#144

Post by brlewis »

kyrra wrote: post #4

EDIT: It looks like there were 3 blog posts by Google announcing this initiative. Blog posts announcing Google News Initative: https://www.blog.google/topics/google-news-initiative/announ... Subscription payments feature: https://www.blog.google/topics/google-news-initiative/introd... Elevating quality journalism: https://www.blog.google/topics/google-news-initiative/elevat... Some news coverage on it: https://www.th…

Good to see in that third link that they're still interested in fact checking. I wasn't sure if this was going to be abandoned: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15528824

Re: Google News Initiative

#145

Post by swebs »

freehunter wrote: post #127
swebs wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know about Snopes, but Politifact has a well documented bias. http://thefederalist.com/2016/12/16/running-data-politifact-...

Just for the sake of everyone reading this, I'd like to point out the The Federalist is a far-right publication that until recently had a section devoted to "black crime" and just a few months ago published an article defending a politician who was accused of the sexual assault of several underaged girls. I would take their claims of bias with a grain of salt.

It was the first result on Google. Regardless of what you think of the site as a whole, their statements in this specific article hold up well enough in a vacuum and they provide enough evidence and give good justification for their reasoning. The examples given are particularly damning.

Re: Google News Initiative

#146

Post by WalterGR »

markdog12 wrote: post #96
WalterGR wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

And how is Google not a neutral arbitrator?

Re: Google News Initiative

#147

Post by vesrah »

joecool1029 wrote: post #63
Moto7451 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can weigh your news sources. I intentionally give a little more weight to sources I don’t always agree with but aren’t obviously biased. Things like fake news spreaders, conspiracy theorist, government propaganda machines, or fair topical sites that simply don’t interest me (mostly Celebrity News and Gossip) get black holed. You can find those sliders in your settings. Also they ask you periodically on the deskto…

>You can weigh your news sources. Neat site that does it for you: https://www.allsides.com/

Thank you for this, hadn't run across a site as well presented as this.

Re: Google News Initiative

#148

Post by dang »

AJRF wrote: post #46
jacksmith21006 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could not disagree more. I am generally pretty liberal but get news stories from Breitbart, Fox news, etc all the time in my feed. I like to read all sides so love this aspect of Google news. Heck I get negative Google stories from Google. Can't ask for more neutral.

Wow you really, REALLY like Google based on your comment history

I understand the temptation to interpret people's comments that way, but users are far too quick to jump to conclusions about astroturfing or PR, and cross into personal attack in the process. That damages the community at least as much as what you all are insinuating, if it's true—and it's usually not true. For example, I doubt that a shill would write about their Cobol programming experience.

I just wrote more about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16632589

Re: Google News Initiative

#149

Post by evolve2k »

"The future of journalism depends on all of us working together."

Translation:

"Your future as a new organization depends on you working well with us here at Google and finding ways for us to quietly tax part of your prior earnings"

Re: Google News Initiative

#150

Post by joedevon »

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 recently got a subscription to newspapers.com to get access to archival data. Surprised no one has mentioned them. It's not super cheap, but I think it's worth it for the amount of information available. TBH I don't use it much for some reason but when doing research it will let you access sources most people ignore, because it's not google or facebook.
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