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Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

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Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#91

Post by basch »

gre wrote: post #80
basch wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just had one today, said the result was from 3 days ago, result was from more than a decade ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22617635

It used to work well for Reddit, but now you can't trust the date filter. Something changed less than a year ago.

It's like sites are modifying their templates, and it refreshes the published date, and google goes off that page change date and not the date on the page. It's terrible and googles search by date is now nearly useless. Sometimes it helps filter out old results, but it is impossible to keep new results from bleeding into the past.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#92

Post by Aeolun »

basch wrote: post #69
Barrin92 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There was a promise of a marketplace of ideas, making the world a better place, that being interconnected would make the world smarter and democratize knowledge Did anyone really believe this other than middle aged libertarian hackers from the 90s who kept repeating this in prayer like fashion? The internet is, as the name suggests, a network. Google also is a sort of network, one that is semantically searchable. Bu…

>Google mission statement is “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.” It does not succeed as well as it did in the past at its current mission. It has regressed.

I think it’s mostly the average quality of the information available has regressed.

I’m fairly certain they’re doing the best they can with what’s available to them, but right now they probably get more accurate results by focusing on what is popular than by blindly accepting the contents of the websites.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#93

Post by cletus »

What a bizarre piece.

We have low-quality content generation not because of Google but because of the low cost of publishing (which the author even mentions). It's exactly why we have email spam: it costs nothing to send. To repurpose a Chris Rock bit, "if sending an email cost $5,000 you'd have no more spam email".

What's the alternative being touted here? No Google? Making things harder to find? Seriously?

I'd say a far bigger issue is people sharing content from and to people who think the same, creating these myopic echo chambers of self-reinforcing beliefs.

Google may do a questionable job at filtering out provably false content but people are way worse at that.

Within such a system it's too easy to foster fear, anger and hate and to propagate provably false information. Anti-vaxxers are just one such group that seem to thrive in this informationless world.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#94

Post by devinplatt »

gumby wrote: post #60

Google’s mission is/was “to organize the world’s information”. There was no adjective on “organize”. “Worse is better” wins again.

Google's mission statement is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."[1]

According to a Wikipedia citation (The Guardian) this was the original mission statement.[2]

[1] https://about.google [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/03/larry-pag...

Disclaimer: I work at Google.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#95

Post by RickS »

notacoward wrote: post #75
chrisco255 wrote: post #43

In my opinion, "the Feed" ruined the internet. The news feed, the Twitter feed, the Reddit feed, etc. The addictive nature of the Feed, and the tendency to reward dramatic or outrageous or ridiculous content leads to the herd mentality and mindless dogpiling that occurs on these platforms. And then, because expression is compressed into short form soundbites, pics and videos, the platforms actively inhibit constructi…

A very good thought, but I don't think all feeds are equal. A strictly chronological feed under user control is a wonderful thing. I have that, for example, in my RSS reader. What sucks is the popularity-contest nature of most feeds. At the top of my Facebook or Twitter or Google News feed is a bunch of stuff that I think is crap, any semi-sensible algorithm could tell that it's crap, it shouldn't be shown to me anyw…

Agreed. It's not the feed that broke the internet – it's the forced filter.

The notion that forced filtration, reprioritization, and chronological rearrangement of content is implicit the idea of information feeds (search, social media, etc) shows how deep the brokenness is baked in.

Sometimes the filter is a feature, but sometimes it's not. In the name of convenience, it feels like we've given up our right to choose to see everything and decide for ourselves how to filter.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#96

Post by soneca »

I think I am much more likely to find the truth about a question I have with Google than asking on a BBS forum or browsing through a curated list of links on Yahoo.

That's like saying Gutenberg ruined books because now I can find books full of BS.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#97

Post by cosmodisk »

basch wrote: post #7
hombre_fatal wrote: post #3

> The web was supposed to forcefully challenge our opinions and push back, like a personal trainer who doesn't care how tired you say you are. What does this even mean? The web wasn't "supposed to" be anything. Though I'm not sure what magic search engine OP actually has in mind and how it's supposed to work. Besides, one of the modern mysteries is that we're in the age of instant information yet you'll notice how ma…

I support the author here. There was a promise of a marketplace of ideas, making the world a better place, that being interconnected would make the world smarter and democratize knowledge. All that may be true, it may be out there, but it's damn hard to find. Google, Youtube, Reddit, and Facebook all prioritize freshness. Instead of being exposed to things outside our comfort zones, we take solace protected inside fi…

The tech has changed,not humans. Back in the day, Romans were happily watching gladiators slaughtering each other and all they cared was 'bread and entertainment'. Obviously not everyone, some tried to invent things,do commerce,medicine and etc. Those were the curious ones. It was a small percentage then and it is a small percentage now. The majority are much simpler people. The internet is bursting at its seams with amounts of knowledge available one click away from potential users( yes,you may need to look deeper to find it) but majority don't need it,they want entertainment and they get it.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#98

Post by neutronicus »

chrisco255 wrote: post #43

In my opinion, "the Feed" ruined the internet. The news feed, the Twitter feed, the Reddit feed, etc. The addictive nature of the Feed, and the tendency to reward dramatic or outrageous or ridiculous content leads to the herd mentality and mindless dogpiling that occurs on these platforms. And then, because expression is compressed into short form soundbites, pics and videos, the platforms actively inhibit constructi…

I think Podcasts are mainly popular because you can consume them in the car on the way to work.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#99

Post by thatcat »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #8
CM30 wrote: post #5

Have to be honest, I'm surprised the article wasn't about SEO. That gets a lot of blame for ruining the internet, especially on tech sites. But Google's propensity to reward sites/pages that are popular or new rather than those which are actually more accurate/better in terms of quality is definitely an issue.

If you have a good suggestion on how to rapidly measure site accuracy and quality I know some VCs who would very much like to chat. Well, no, I don't. But I highly suspect that they exist and would want to chat.

For scientific/technical domain stuff you could:

1) look for references to source materials

2) check references quality - is reference real? does the quoted text match the text from the reference? is it an academic paper published in a journal?

3) authorship quality - what is the academic "impact factor" score for the author?

4) confirmed viewer reviews - subjective review by confirmed users

5) accessibility score - automated user interface usability analysis

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