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The thing that gets me about Google news is that the personalization is incredibly coarse. I can see a "17 apps that take great selfies" article and the only way to express disinterest is by removing Android from my interest list. I might dislike an article because the publisher is low quality or I'm not interesting in one aspect of the content but it just picks one "reson" to justify showing the article.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have any examples of things they've gotten wrong?
I wrote an angry email to a Politifact intern after seeing this article: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/apr/03/... They rated this article as "pants on fire" for reporting on something that came directly from the mouth of a public official. The politifact intern actually reached out to the official in question and he personally confirmed that he gave the outlet bad information, and yet it retain…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have any examples of things they've gotten wrong?
I wrote an angry email to a Politifact intern after seeing this article: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/apr/03/... They rated this article as "pants on fire" for reporting on something that came directly from the mouth of a public official. The politifact intern actually reached out to the official in question and he personally confirmed that he gave the outlet bad information, and yet it retain…
> A website pushing conspiracy theories claimed that the March For Our Lives permit was actually prepared months in advance.
> We contacted the police officer referred to in the story who confirmed that the story is inaccurate and the permit was actually issued 11 days prior to the march.
> We rate this story Pants on Fire.
The police officer said they made an honest mistake. The websites that are spreading the mistake have ostensibly ignored the correction. How is that not intentional?
I hope this fixes the current issues with google news on ios. The app crashes constantly and freezes my phone completely for a good 20-30 seconds until it restarts. This has persisted across multiple iPhone 8’s. Not a fan of the UI of apple news either.
The upside is that it's a desperately needed solution to funding journalism. Hopefully people can pay per article, making quality journalism better funded and far more available (many people who can afford one article can't afford a year subscription, I assume).
But the cost is far too high: Google knows everything you read, and becomes the gatekeeper for journalism. Yikes. For those not worried, imagine the day when Google ownership/management shifts from the current well-intentioned people to someone else. That day will come.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have any examples of things they've gotten wrong?
I wrote an angry email to a Politifact intern after seeing this article: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/apr/03/... They rated this article as "pants on fire" for reporting on something that came directly from the mouth of a public official. The politifact intern actually reached out to the official in question and he personally confirmed that he gave the outlet bad information, and yet it retain…
I don't want personalized news, I use Google News for the exact opposite reason. I want to see semi-random headlines from a variety of source to increase my exposure to stories I might not have seen otherwise.
2. Every news story has a "Full Coverage" button on the bottom-right that pulls up that same story from a variety of stories, so you can get different perspectives.
I agree that injecting AI and personalization into news is an easy way to put yourself in a bubble, but it seems that Google has at least tried to give users the tools to minimize that.
I don't want personalized news, I use Google News for the exact opposite reason. I want to see semi-random headlines from a variety of source to increase my exposure to stories I might not have seen otherwise.
> I don't want personalized news, I use Google News for the exact opposite reason. That's what I used to use google news for too. Then a few years ago, google "personalized" and "localize"d news to your area and it became pointless. Google news was especially great for international events in the early 2010s because you'd get international sources listed back then. So you could see the difference in coverage between…
I still get international sources (sometimes as the first source on a story , as on the Iran deal right now) on both the Google News & Weather app and the Google News desktop page. Strangely, the new Google News mobile page doesn't as much (and doesn't seem to expand to provide multiple sources for the same story the way it used and the other interfaces still do), and there's little consistency in sources, or even stories selected, between the three interfaces.
I don't want personalized news, I use Google News for the exact opposite reason. I want to see semi-random headlines from a variety of source to increase my exposure to stories I might not have seen otherwise.
> I don't want personalized news, I use Google News for the exact opposite reason. That's what I used to use google news for too. Then a few years ago, google "personalized" and "localize"d news to your area and it became pointless. Google news was especially great for international events in the early 2010s because you'd get international sources listed back then. So you could see the difference in coverage between…
What? This is certainly not my experience.
I just went to news.google.com in my desktop browser, and I clicked on the World section. On the Iran sanctions/deal story, there are several sources grouped together in one card. The top source is indeed Washington post but the same card also contains coverage from Mehr News Agency (which it highlights as "From Iran"), Reuters, The Hill, RollingStone.com, NYT (highlighted as "Opinion"), NEWS.com.au, and Associated Press.
If I click on "View full coverage", I get more sources, of course.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wrote an angry email to a Politifact intern after seeing this article: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/apr/03/... They rated this article as "pants on fire" for reporting on something that came directly from the mouth of a public official. The politifact intern actually reached out to the official in question and he personally confirmed that he gave the outlet bad information, and yet it retain…
I don't understand your objection. The Politifact assessment of "pants on fire" is not for the public official, it's for the conspiracy websites that are peddling the public official's mistake to intentionally mislead people. Read the end of the article ("Our ruling"): > A website pushing conspiracy theories claimed that the March For Our Lives permit was actually prepared months in advance. > We contacted the police…
But, sure, reckless disregard for basic journalistic norms and fact checking because the story fit their preconceived nsrrstive seems reasonably to warrant “pants on fire”.