Google uses the word 'personalization' as a euphemism for 'censorship'.
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Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results
41–50 of 56 posts
Re: Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results
#42I'm tired of Gabriel Weinber telling me how bad Google is and therefor why I should use DDG instead. I'm happy with Google, I'm glad that when I search for "ruby" I get the programming language and that when my brother who works in jewelry searches for "ruby", he gets the gemstone. But seriously, tell me why DDG is awesome and unique, stop bashing the competition. It was fun at the beginning but now it's getting old.…
Your comment is why speaking truth to power is so hard. Don't say you're "fatigued" from hearing him. If he's right that this is a pernicious and dangerous trend from Google, then he should never stop shouting it.
Assume that Gabriel is 100% sincere and explain why his concerns are unwarranted. Personally, I find the "it's only .3%" of searches argument fatuous. That's the current rate. You can be sure Google is trying to "improve" that number. It's not clear to me what the consequences for this sort of search segmentation down the line are, but it definitely worries me. Confirmation bias is already a gigantic drag on human progress. I don't need the chief intellectual discovery engine of the world reinforcing it!
Re: Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results
#43Assigning a moral value to Google's algorithms here, or to personalized search in general, doesn't make sense. I like personalized search - when I change main operating systems, as I do every few months, my information for debugging is always for the right os. If I look up hashmaps, it usually gives me results for the programming language I'm using that day. In the middle of a study session for linear algebra, I can just search for inverse and get a useful wikipedia page.
If I want results that are not personalized like this for some reason - more balanced coverage, I actually want to know about pythons, whatever - then hopefully I have the discipline and ability to go to incognito or another search engine. Maybe I don't know about them, in which case if I'm politically engaged I will find out from a fearmonger. But the reality is that there are two products, each ideal for different people and use cases, and neither of them is evil. It has always been difficult to get 'unbiased' information, whatever that is. With Google, I have a chance to see beyond my local papers and the people I know in one way, and with DDG it's another.
Re: Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for your answer. I'm not offended, I'm just getting some kind of fatigue reading your anti-google posts. I think insinuating Google care more about Obama than Romney is bordering on FUD, like all of your anti "bubble" articles are always bordering on FUD or at least intend to scare people a bit. You can't deny you're kind of aware of that, aren't you? It's been more than a year now since you're writing anti-go…
why do we have to have an assumption that personalised means doing so in a negative way like enforcing a political affiliation? perhaps the engine can be clever enough to realise that some things like localised weather are a reasonable personalisation, whereas politics are more dangerous and should be less personalised. it seems to me that both google and ddg have problems here, ddg in not personalising at all, and g…
> ddg in not personalising at all
I think DDG has some personalization based on your location, for example if I search "weather" it shows me the weather near me.
Re: Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results
#45Just so that everyone is on the same page on what is being discussed here: this is a “study” by a competitor who can't implement personalised search and thus is spreading FUD to spin that as a differentiating advantage. It might be a good marketing strategy as he managed to get coverage by a couple of outlets during the elections frenzy in the US, but this "filter bubble" buzz-phrase is nonsense. Don't fear personali…
"We also saw in Google chrome that magic keyword transformations sometimes jumped incognito sessions, meaning that if you started a new incognito mode, got a transformation, then shut it down and started a new incognito mode you could sometimes see the same transformation again (without searching for the same magic keyword again). This weird behavior was not reproducible in Firefox's private browsing mode."
If that is FUD, that is some pretty damn creepy FUD.
Re: Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results
#46I'm tired of Gabriel Weinber telling me how bad Google is and therefor why I should use DDG instead. I'm happy with Google, I'm glad that when I search for "ruby" I get the programming language and that when my brother who works in jewelry searches for "ruby", he gets the gemstone. But seriously, tell me why DDG is awesome and unique, stop bashing the competition. It was fun at the beginning but now it's getting old.…
Hi, Gabriel Weinberg here. Sorry to offend you, as was of course not my intention. I also of course don't think this is FUD at all. As far as I know, this is the first quantitative study of any kind about the filter bubble. I think it is hard to dismiss a concept out of hand when it hasn't even been effectively studied yet. Also, the filter bubble it is not an effective marketing message because it requires too much…
I question your methodology, to be honest. Starting with such loaded search terms is the opposite of the scientific method, since you haven't established any kind of neutral baseline. Picking candidates' names is also problematic, since (as pointed out by numerous people) Obama has been President for a long tome whereas Romney has only been the Republican nominee for 7-8 months. It would have been more rational to start with, say, Democrat and Republican which are comparatively 'timeless' terms. Also, I don't see any indication that you attempted to offset bias in your sample set.
I don't mind it as a bit of election-related marketing, but it doesn't strike me as very rigorous.
Re: Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results
#47I'm tired of Gabriel Weinber telling me how bad Google is and therefor why I should use DDG instead. I'm happy with Google, I'm glad that when I search for "ruby" I get the programming language and that when my brother who works in jewelry searches for "ruby", he gets the gemstone. But seriously, tell me why DDG is awesome and unique, stop bashing the competition. It was fun at the beginning but now it's getting old.…
I'm tired of Gabriel Weinber telling me how bad Google is and therefor why I should use DDG instead.
Perhaps avoid his blog next time, since he's clearly passionate about it and likely to do similar articles.
Re: Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results
#48What if I turn off Google Web history?Doing this should resolve tailoring result,or not?
Re: Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results
#49"We chose to use these keywords (abortion, gun control and obama) because they are both a) searches where many people want unbiased results..." I suspect that someone searching for these keywords are looking for reinforcement of their predetermined beliefs. Which is exactly what personalized search would do. [edit] I've been downvoted so I feel I should clarify. I'm saying that these keywords are "magic" for a reason…
Filter bubbles are troubling for exactly the reason you don't seem to have a problem with.
It's not particularly good for the world to have Obama searches be filled with either Fox news results or MSNBC (pro-Obama/Dem) results.
Re: Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results
#50"65% of people said personalized search was a 'bad thing'" So does this guy ( http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bu... ) on TED and will easily convince you if you aren't already.
if people really wanted to find the other side of the story its available to them. I absolutely love personalized search. When I search for something I want local results, I want results that are most relevant to me. Its been proven that people would only go to sites that support their ideas and beliefs already. So showing unbiased results make no difference.
So if things are already messed up, we should just throw our hands up, pander, and go along with it?