Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Trump Accuses Google of Burying Conservative News in Search Results

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 114 posts

Re: Trump Accuses Google of Burying Conservative News in Search Results

#61

Post by mc32 »

yongjik wrote: post #56
yostrovs wrote: post #10

Try searching for "American inventors" or "American scientists" on Google and tell me if you notice anything odd.

It has a plausible explanation. People searching for Oppenheimer or Gell-Mann don't type "American scientists", they just type "Oppenheimer" and "Gell-Mann". And a website talking about Oppenheimer doesn't spend much time about his being American---after all, that might be the least interesting fact about Oppenheimer's life. OTOH, I'll bet there are websites that talk about, say, "George Washington Carver, an America…

If you go to google.de or google.jp you get a diff selection to the same query “anerican scientists” (in local language).

Re: Trump Accuses Google of Burying Conservative News in Search Results

#62

Post by chriselles »

mindcrime wrote: post #29
YinglingLight wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not believe Silicon Valley has shown thoughtfulness and care for the republic in a way that I would trust them to enact this regulation.

I do not believe Silicon Valley has shown thoughtfulness and care for the republic in a way that I would trust them to enact this regulation. I trust Silicon Valley a hell of a lot more than I trust our government...

I would largely agree.

Although I find it quite troubling that I often feel like I have to hold my tongue when visiting Silicon Valley when discussion turns to politics.

I’m slightly right of center politically but range quite broadly issue by issue, including a couple issue where I Lean to the left.

I feel incredibly uncomfortable discussing most anything right of the political center based on common narratives and what I perceive to be the local/cultural group think average.

I’m decidedly a non tech founder, but tech conversant.

I’m trying to learn more about algorithm fundamentals and design and have been reading an article or two about bias in algorithms.

Would there be public service value in auditing/monitoring commercial algorithms?

I would never wish to hinder the velocity and quality of commercial innovation, but a few algorithms at a few companies have a massively outsized influential impact on our lives.

Re: Trump Accuses Google of Burying Conservative News in Search Results

#63

Post by lovehashbrowns »

Isn't this the same administration/party that is desperate to get rid of Net Neutrality so that the government isn't meddling in private business? But then there's this:

> “This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!”

Wonder what makes Google different/worse from an ISP.

Re: Trump Accuses Google of Burying Conservative News in Search Results

#64

Post by jocs_ »

Dwolb wrote: post #18

Yikes this is a complex topic. There’s a couple of things at play: Google does control (unbiased or biased) a significant portion of what internet users see This control has the potential to sway public opinion, direct discourse, and economically make or break businesses (even those that extend beyond media) Personally I believe gigantic internet companies like Google require more regulation because they can’t be tru…

Google has created ridiculous conditions where there is a massive arms race to be on that first result page on any give subject.

The truth is Google results should not exist for anything and everthing. Especially ambiguous subjects. Who does anyone think wins these arms races that are being set up?

It is as retarded as having the supreme court pumping out decisions in real time. Why does that not happen? The tech exists. The bench can sit on twitter and keep pumping out their mid process thoughts on anything and everything. Imagine if they did that trying to constantly optimize for more like and follower counts rather than optimizing for outcomes that serve justice.

The current architecture to address ambiguity is pure shit. Where people need to be pushed into slow deliberate thinking or where they need to be signaled they have a second graders understanding on a subject, Google is playing a huge role in signalling the opposite.

It's doing a whole lot of unintended evil by setting up these arms races around ambiguous issues.

Re: Trump Accuses Google of Burying Conservative News in Search Results

#65

Post by decacorn »

YinglingLight wrote: post #22
Dwolb wrote: post #18

Yikes this is a complex topic. There’s a couple of things at play: Google does control (unbiased or biased) a significant portion of what internet users see This control has the potential to sway public opinion, direct discourse, and economically make or break businesses (even those that extend beyond media) Personally I believe gigantic internet companies like Google require more regulation because they can’t be tru…

I do not believe Silicon Valley has shown thoughtfulness and care for the republic in a way that I would trust them to enact this regulation.

buddy, let me lay down some knowledge for you, since you are obviously oblivious to reality.

1. All US Intelligence organizations unanimously agree RUSSIA cyberattacked our country, targeting the 2016 election via multiple social networks.

2. No laws passed since by GOP-controlled Congress to prevent or EVEN curtail such attacks.

3. White House is ACTIVELY BLOCKING ANY LAW TO PROTECT AMERICAN ELECTIONS from such attacks.

Please, look no further than those currently in power in DC. You best believe they are actively destroying our Republic.

Re: Trump Accuses Google of Burying Conservative News in Search Results

#66

Post by bepotts »

rory wrote: post #20
tango24 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your suspicion here?

I think the poster's referring to the overrepresentation of black scientists in that result, implying political motivation. It's pretty clear that it's just an artifact of the collision with the common search term "african american scientists". The result for "united states scientists" more or less proves this to be the case.

I think this is correct.

If you Google search "African American Scientists" and "African American inventors", you get almost the exact same photo list as "American Scientists" and "American inventors".

Re: Trump Accuses Google of Burying Conservative News in Search Results

#68

Post by Gys »

nkozyra wrote: post #11
dagenix wrote: post #5

What's the proof? > Mr. Trump’s criticism appeared to be inspired by a segment last night from Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs. During the program, Mr. Dobbs highlighted an article by a conservative website, PJ Media, that said that it had conducted an unscientific study in which 96 percent of Google search results for the word “Trump” were articles from “left-leaning sites.” Oh boy: an "unscientific study", what…

> Oh boy: an "unscientific study", whatever that is. Otherwise known as an "anecdote."

Trump loves anecdotes. Probably a lot of people prefer anecdotes to anything scientific :-(

Re: Trump Accuses Google of Burying Conservative News in Search Results

#69

Post by ramblerman »

dagenix wrote: post #21
yostrovs wrote: post #10

Try searching for "American inventors" or "American scientists" on Google and tell me if you notice anything odd.

Would you care to further explain your point and how that relates to the article at all? Bonus points if you can do it without saying something racist or already debunked.

I would wager it's not the default list resulting from their algorithms, and was in fact explicitly manipulated to present the list you see now.

The original article claims something similar albeit on a different search result.

the underlying idea is that google is not just using pagerank and algorithms to show us the current state of the internet. But rather is adding their own bias to push up / down certain results.

Re: Trump Accuses Google of Burying Conservative News in Search Results

#70

Post by duprat »

michaelmrose wrote: post #55
dx87 wrote: post #32

Whether or not the bias is intentional, this reminds me of the fairly recent accusations that claimed twitter was deliberatley preventing republican congressman from showing up on the front page. They said it wasn't deliberate, it was all done by an algorithm...that just happened to be written in a way that only flagged members of one political party. Looking at the bigger picture, this may be a case of big tech comp…

It shouldn't be shocking to find that google can only afford to hire intelligent educated people for the 7K people who drive its multi multi billion dollar business. It also ought not to be shocking to find that these people lean left once you redefine left to mean anyone left of Attila the hun. 60% of republicans believe that the Earth and the human race were created ex nihilo recently. 20% of trump fans support SLA…

> 60% of republicans believe that the Earth and the human race were created ex nihilo recently. 20% of trump fans support SLAVERY.

Not a Trump conservative by any means, but I'm gonna need a source for that one.

Addendum: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/02/25/donald-tru...

Post reply on HN