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Measuring the “Filter Bubble”: How Google is influencing what you click

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Re: Measuring the “Filter Bubble”: How Google is influencing what you click

#101

Post by ape4 »

kibwen wrote: post #60
ergothus wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have Google routinely deciding that I didn't mean to use ALL three words I searched for and "helpfully" dropping them. Sure, I can tell it "no, I really want those", but the experience is definitely becoming more and more sub-par for me. As bad is when a search doesn't give me what I want, so I narrow it, only to find that Google uses my previous search to decide what I want to see so I still end up finding similar…

Fun example of this: last week I was trying to figure out all the floating point operations that can produce NaN. Go ahead and try searching Google for "ways to make nan"; it's going to show you dozens of pages of naan recipes, and there isn't even a link to click to make it actually search for what you've typed (instead there's a link for Did you mean "ways to make naan"? , which shows a different set of naan recipe…

Its too bad it ignores the case of NaN (and other queries)

Re: Measuring the “Filter Bubble”: How Google is influencing what you click

#102

Post by jccalhoun »

This doesn't show evidence of a filter bubble. It shows evidence of different results. The filter bubble is the idea that we are in a bubble, cut off from differing viewpoints.

(additionally, I am highly skeptical of the filter bubble's existence/effects and the book was terrible - full of "mights" and "coulds" and few solid facts.)

Re: Measuring the “Filter Bubble”: How Google is influencing what you click

#103

Post by drivebycomment »

eksemplar wrote: post #41
maxxxxx wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use DDG out of principle but to be honest Google is still much better for the stuff I am searching.

Google is better at localized stuff, but very often I prefer the English version. Like in the case of Wikipedia, if my goal was to look something up on wiki I’d always pick the English version, but on google it’s on the second or third result page. Quora is another good example, it’s a place I often visit after search results, but on google.dk, it’s almost never a result, possibly because it’s not in danish. DDG is m…

I just tried googling pipeextender, tried it on both google.dk and google.com, and the results look reasonable to me - the first row is their sponsored, but that's actually a list of pipe extenders so still useful. Then the organic results all look reasonable.

What do you see when you google pipeextender ?

Re: Measuring the “Filter Bubble”: How Google is influencing what you click

#104

Post by [deleted] »

amelius wrote: post #73
bduerst wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would allow some pretty rampant gaming of SEO, wouldn't it?

If Google shows "these results were filtered using the fact that you're a Caucasian, in the age-group 30-35, with a predicted income of $50.000", then how is that going to help SEO much?

[deleted]

Re: Measuring the “Filter Bubble”: How Google is influencing what you click

#105

Post by alopecoid »

throwawaylolx wrote: post #95
alopecoid wrote: post #5

Google can and should customize search results based on location, and it's not just about "local articles" as the article suggests. If enough people from the same general location click on certain results more frequently, then those results should rank higher for others who search from that same general location. We use Google because the results are useful, not because they are "unbiased". Ranking implies some sort…

>Google can and should customize search results based on location Should there not be an opt-out option though?

There is: Use something else.

I don't mean this in a snippy way, but truly. If it's that bothersome, why not try something else? It seems that most people instead think that they have the privilege to change the product to their desires.

Re: Measuring the “Filter Bubble”: How Google is influencing what you click

#106

Post by rlucas »

alopecoid wrote: post #5

Google can and should customize search results based on location, and it's not just about "local articles" as the article suggests. If enough people from the same general location click on certain results more frequently, then those results should rank higher for others who search from that same general location. We use Google because the results are useful, not because they are "unbiased". Ranking implies some sort…

You can't just handwave "useful" as an explanation for why location-based SERP discrimination is desirable.

It is "useful" for me to be on the phone with someone in Cleveland and describe how to find something on the Web, expecting that they can follow a similar set of steps at a similar time and get a similar result.

A (sort-of-)deterministic Web can be good and useful. It is a very strong statement of preference and exercise of power to declare that "useful" results must be meaningfully different based on the characteristics of the individual searching.

For whom is that exercise of power most beneficial? I would argue that a rapidly shifting, slippery, personally-dependent presentation of the world's information is extremely useful as a tool of control, but gives only occasional and relatively marginal benefit to individual searchers.

The 2016 US election is a big case in point. Personalizing information delivery, when coupled with asymmetric processing power and data availability, lets you have situations where an atomized polity winds up seeing what suits each individual, but with a radically degraded ability to form collective truths or consensus.

The definition of "useful" is an exercise of power.

Re: Measuring the “Filter Bubble”: How Google is influencing what you click

#107

Post by moultano »

c3534l wrote: post #87
ggggtez wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unbiased compared to what? Let's say you have three search orderings: ABC, BCA, and CAB. Which one is the unbiased one?

The one that isn't selected based on your identity.

They provided no evidence that it is selected based on anyone's identity.

Re: Measuring the “Filter Bubble”: How Google is influencing what you click

#108

Post by scrollaway »

citilife wrote: post #71
FilterSweep wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious difference being state sponsored actors from a foreign entity weaponized this “feature.” Not sure how you’re equating the two, but it’s disingenous.

I actually would argue it doesn't matter if it's an internal or foreign actor that's doing it. The results / outcomes are effectively the same, the problem is the same. It's disingenuous to claim a feature like targeted advertising is also "weaponized". There's always been targeted propoganda, that doesn't make it a weapon. Everyone is capable of self deception and their own decisions. If you argue against that, then…

The point is about the wording. That this is possible at all is bad regardless of whether it's pro-democrat, pro-republican, pro-communist or whatever.

But you complain people are calling it "manipulating an election". They're calling it that because of who is doing it (foreign agents) and why they are doing it (to gain control over a powerful enemy state). That is what makes it election interference and it seems very purposefully blind not to acknowledge it.

Re: Measuring the “Filter Bubble”: How Google is influencing what you click

#109

Post by opportune »

maxxxxx wrote: post #34
eksemplar wrote: post #18

2018 was the year I adopted ddg, not because of privacy, but because google result sucks. Almost every time I search, I don’t get a single result I want on the first page. The first 3 results are sponsored adds, then there is the Danish Wikipedia article (useless), then 3-6 advertisements pretending to be content, and then if I’m lucky something that was relevant 5 years ago. DDG isn’t much better, but it’s better. I…

I use DDG out of principle but to be honest Google is still much better for the stuff I am searching.

Yeah have you ever tried plugging an exception with the function name into Bing or DDG? It doesn't work on those, it does work on Google.

I'm quite a privacy-conscious individual but I'm not going to significantly hamper my engineering abilities to prevent google from knowing what technical problems I'm having.

Re: Measuring the “Filter Bubble”: How Google is influencing what you click

#110

Post by sanowski »

kibwen wrote: post #60
ergothus wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have Google routinely deciding that I didn't mean to use ALL three words I searched for and "helpfully" dropping them. Sure, I can tell it "no, I really want those", but the experience is definitely becoming more and more sub-par for me. As bad is when a search doesn't give me what I want, so I narrow it, only to find that Google uses my previous search to decide what I want to see so I still end up finding similar…

Fun example of this: last week I was trying to figure out all the floating point operations that can produce NaN. Go ahead and try searching Google for "ways to make nan"; it's going to show you dozens of pages of naan recipes, and there isn't even a link to click to make it actually search for what you've typed (instead there's a link for Did you mean "ways to make naan"? , which shows a different set of naan recipe…

a search for your question "all the floating point operations that can produce NaN" gave useful results for me.
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