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DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble

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Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble

#121

Post by dhimes »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #77
dhimes wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree with you if there was a button I could click to turn it off. Their algorithms aren't infallible by any means. Plus, ultimately they are a business and trying to sell, so they are going to eventually skew results towards things they think I may be willing to buy, rather than things I want to know. I think G is more susceptible than MS, but only because MS does make a living selling other stuff. I'm not s…

Turn off personalization by adding "&pws=0" to the end of your search url on Google. You can also use incognito mode in Chrome.

Great! Put a button on the search page. Will "pws=0" allow the engine to "learn" from my corrections? I'm pretty sure incognito won't. But allowing me to "correct" the personalization might be useful to you.

Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble

#122

Post by dhimes »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #106
qjz wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect my search to be faithful to the terms I enter. If the results aren't satisfactory, I'll narrow the search with additional terms. Withholding information based on some guess at my political leanings is dishonest. I'd be appalled if a librarian did it; why should I expect less from a search engine?

If you went to a librarian and said "show me Egypt", she would have nowhere to start. A conversation would then ensue about what you are interested in. Keep going to the library, keep having those conversations, and eventually, the librarian will take you straight to the books you want when you ask for Norway. If you want something different, you'll have to explicitly ask. What Google is doing is no different. It jus…

What Google is doing is no different only if you can, in your ensuing "conversations," correct a misinterpretation that may have happened somewhere along the way. If your ability to do that is hampered because the only way to do it is by clicking on something, you don't see the thing to click on which will do this, then the filtering is not helping (and actually works against Google's and my mutual interests).

Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble

#123

Post by mquander »

romaniv wrote: post #107
mquander wrote: post #86

The purpose of search engines is filtering content to give you what you want, which might be information, or it might be discussion, or polemics, or gossip. If you want to learn about some topic that has some element of subjectivity, familiarize yourself with the different points of view and read the writing of whoever you are interested in. There are lots of tools on the Internet to facilitate this -- Wikipedia, for…

The purpose of search engines is filtering content to give you what you want The purpose of search engines is filtering content to give us what we asked for . Unless they developed mind-reading technology, Google doesn't really know what I want and attempts at guessing it will lead to substandard results. *-- Wikipedia, for example, is built around an ideal of giving people an objective survey of different things. A…

The purpose of search engines is filtering content to give us what we asked for. Unless they developed mind-reading technology, Google doesn't really know what I want and attempts at guessing it will lead to substandard results.

I think you really hit the crux of the issue here. My opinion is, these search engines are built around the UI paradigm of "type something into the box and go find that thing." The user doesn't have one box for finding discussion forums, one box for finding blogs that have people they agree with, one box for finding material that appeared in print publications, etc, and yet search engines are for finding all these things, if you want them.

As long as there's people typing "climate change" into Google, Google has to guess at what they are asking for because there ain't enough bits in the query to tell it. There's no a priori reason to expect that they are asking for the most informative and accurate links covering a wide variety of perspectives on climate change; many people probably aren't.

Regarding Wikipedia, well, that's why I said it was the ideal. You're never going to crowdsource perfect objectivity and truth from a million biased writers with ulterior motives, but they try, and they do an OK job on many topics.

Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble

#124

Post by Uchikoma »

qjz wrote: post #118
Uchikoma wrote: post #83

People that don't want "filtering", also want their search results in German, Chinese or Japanese? Or is "filtering" on language ok?

I think it's fair to assume that people want results in the same language as the search terms they entered.

Like Computer, oh well, no Computer in German is Computer. Try Biergarten, oh well.

Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble

#125

Post by sorbus »

jerf wrote: post #46
yanw wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's a non-issue, and by the way Google probably uses much more that 57 'inputs' (signals) to determine relevance. Personalization is just a different term for relevant results and this is just FUD, the source of which is people who don't understand the technical aspects.

"Personalization is just a different term for relevant results" Fine. It's not a "filter bubble", it's "excessive personalization", and it's still bad. Arguing about what it's called doesn't do a thing to change whether or not it exists, or whether or not it's a real problem.

Is it actually excessive, though? You're just assuming that it's a real problem without any evidence to support that it is.

Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble

#126

Post by mtogo »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #103

If I had to tackle the notion of over-personalization in ~5 minutes, I'd say: - If someone prefers to search Google without personalization, add "&pws=0" (the "pws" stands for "personalized web search") to the end of the Google search url to turn it off, or use the incognito version of Chrome. Personalization tends to be a nice relevance improvement overall, but it doesn't trigger that much--when it launched, the imp…

A much better alternative is https://ssl.scroogle.org , which doesn't have personalization since google can't tell scroogle users apart. It also has benefits like having a bit of privacy while you search.

Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble

#127

Post by Shenglong »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #103

If I had to tackle the notion of over-personalization in ~5 minutes, I'd say: - If someone prefers to search Google without personalization, add "&pws=0" (the "pws" stands for "personalized web search") to the end of the Google search url to turn it off, or use the incognito version of Chrome. Personalization tends to be a nice relevance improvement overall, but it doesn't trigger that much--when it launched, the imp…

Personalization tends to be a nice relevance improvement overall

I agree completely. Reading that page, my first thought was "if (not saying I don't) Egypt is a place I probably don't plan on going to, why should I waste time looking at those links in my search results?"

Overall, I think personalization (wow, this isn't a word?) reaches its own form of market efficiency. If the personalization algorithms are bad, then people would shy away from the search engines that provide them. However, if they make sense, and return the most relevant results most of the time, then that's saving us a lot of time.

Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble

#128

Post by widget »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #95
jarek wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, after all the primary job of a search engine is to fight the user's own biases, and who wants a product that's pleasing to use anyhow?

My phrasing was a bit harsh. I understand that Google (and others) are mainly out to make money. To do that they have to please users most. Anyway, they probably can't make the difference between "relevant" and "pleasant", because user's behaviour only grant them access to "pleasant". As long as this is done in a neutral way (by delivering the same result to everyone), any confirmation bias will be averaged across en…

I cannot see a problem here. Who exactly is being hurt by the "filter bubble"?

The end user is fine - they are more likely to see results they are actually interested in. If a user doesn't trust a source and won't click on their links, they'll soon not have to bother scrolling past them.

The sites themselves actually benefit as well. Sure, they may be bumped from the first page of results for users that are unlikely to visit their site, anyway, but the tradeoff is that they get a higher position for the users who may actually visit their site. It's an ideal trade for those being filtered.

I suppose that leaves the idea that the end result is a "biased" internet. I don't buy it. Google is not removing sites that disagree with them, they are re-ordering them for different users. If your profile wasn't factored in, then what options do they have?

They could order on popularity, but biasing towards popular opinion isn't any better than biasing towards my opinion.

They could randomize the order, this would be without bias, but absolutely useless to anyone.

They could judge the objective truth of sites, but that's far more biased than any of the other options.

Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble

#129

Post by r00fus »

mquander wrote: post #86

The purpose of search engines is filtering content to give you what you want, which might be information, or it might be discussion, or polemics, or gossip. If you want to learn about some topic that has some element of subjectivity, familiarize yourself with the different points of view and read the writing of whoever you are interested in. There are lots of tools on the Internet to facilitate this -- Wikipedia, for…

When the filters themselves aren't transparent, it is a major issue.

I would gladly prefer a "pre-filtered" list, as long as I could tweak it. For example, if I'm searching for viewpoints that don't correspond with my political views, it'd be nice to be able to find those by disabling the "political bent" filter based on personalization.

To not do so is to constantly wear rose-tinted glasses... pleasant, but ultimately, dangerous.

Re: DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble

#130

Post by Matt_Cutts »

pasbesoin wrote: post #116
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #103

If I had to tackle the notion of over-personalization in ~5 minutes, I'd say: - If someone prefers to search Google without personalization, add "&pws=0" (the "pws" stands for "personalized web search") to the end of the Google search url to turn it off, or use the incognito version of Chrome. Personalization tends to be a nice relevance improvement overall, but it doesn't trigger that much--when it launched, the imp…

Do you have a pointer to a publicly visible reference to the definition of some of the other query string parameters Google uses? Just thought I'd ask, given the context. I've noted various references people have cobbled together, but perhaps there's something a bit more... "canonical". Thanks for the above.

http://code.google.com/apis/searchappliance/documentation/61... is a reference for our search appliance, but a lot of parameters are in common. I'm not aware of any other official Google doc available externally, but if you search for [google search url parameters] the top 3-4 results are all quite good.
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