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Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

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Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#61

Post by jimmytidey »

trgv wrote: post #11

I think there's already too much filtering. People need to make up their own minds regarding what is true and what isn't, what's worth their time and what's bullshit, which links to click on and which to avoid. If people can't handle this then we need to spend more money on education, or just accept that some people disagree with us. I don't think aggressively filtering "untrustworthy" content will lead to a net bene…

It's not cognitively possible for a user to simultaneously view every piece of content. Someone has to make a decision about what goes at the top.

Of course, users aren't passive, they could get their news elsewhere or change the filtering. But we know that defaults matter a lot. For many people, the order in which platforms present news is going to be profoundly influential.

The inescapability of choosing defaults settings, and the empirical fact that default settings do influence people a lot, taken together, imply an ethical responsibility on the part of platforms.

Making people smarter would be great - but you've got to be realistic about how effective that would be, and how long it would take.

What other usability problem would you solve by changing the people rather than the technology?

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#62

Post by brewdad »

mc32 wrote: post #27
trgv wrote: post #11

I think there's already too much filtering. People need to make up their own minds regarding what is true and what isn't, what's worth their time and what's bullshit, which links to click on and which to avoid. If people can't handle this then we need to spend more money on education, or just accept that some people disagree with us. I don't think aggressively filtering "untrustworthy" content will lead to a net bene…

As I posted elsewhere on this thread, journalism isn't exactly about the straight facts. It's always more about story and slant related to facts, sometimes more loosely than others. For example, it will take a lot of time for investigators to get close to the truth of what happened but no one is going to wait for official reports before publishing their takes on the incident --and I'm not nor would expect that. But w…

Neither is perfect. Today exemplifies that better than most. Citizen journalists gave us amazing raw footage of LV and sent us chasing the wrong man for much of the morning. Professional journalists did better with LV coverage but reported Tom Petty dead and then retracted their stories hours before he finally passed.

I guess I would ask Google and Facebook, etc. to keep 4chan and reddit off the top of news results in favor of more reputable news orgs. At the same time, I recognize that sites like those can absolutely provide unique info that mainstream media cannot. However, we have to recognize that the info is raw and unfiltered. It cannot become canon without further confirmation.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#63

Post by TeMPOraL »

mc32 wrote: post #27
trgv wrote: post #11

I think there's already too much filtering. People need to make up their own minds regarding what is true and what isn't, what's worth their time and what's bullshit, which links to click on and which to avoid. If people can't handle this then we need to spend more money on education, or just accept that some people disagree with us. I don't think aggressively filtering "untrustworthy" content will lead to a net bene…

As I posted elsewhere on this thread, journalism isn't exactly about the straight facts. It's always more about story and slant related to facts, sometimes more loosely than others. For example, it will take a lot of time for investigators to get close to the truth of what happened but no one is going to wait for official reports before publishing their takes on the incident --and I'm not nor would expect that. But w…

I wish there was a journalist outlet that would not care about story. Just facts. Preferably in bullet points (narratives are misleading). I'd be a paying subscriber to that.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#64

Post by TeMPOraL »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #34
davidjsevans wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence do you have that gender parity in tech (I assume you mean engineering roles) is good and/or natural? The scientific evidence seems to suggest to me that widespread gender disparity in many fields is natural.

I would like to see that evidence, thanks. Edit: specifically I would like to see evidence that 1) a behavioral trait occurs in one gender identity that is universal across the majority of human culture to eliminate cultural bias, 2) that this trait has a causative effect on the career prospects of that person again across the majority of human culture to avoid culture bias (also that when this trait is strong in a g…

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#66

Post by davidjsevans »

Spivak wrote: post #36
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to see that evidence, thanks. Edit: specifically I would like to see evidence that 1) a behavioral trait occurs in one gender identity that is universal across the majority of human culture to eliminate cultural bias, 2) that this trait has a causative effect on the career prospects of that person again across the majority of human culture to avoid culture bias (also that when this trait is strong in a g…

> I would like to see that evidence, thanks. You won't find it. This is the problem in the soft sciences. There are certain hypotheses that you just can't test and this is one of them. Choosing to believe that unbalanced gender representations in certain fields is unnatural is just as unfounded as the parent's opposite view. The best we can do is make conjectures based on the results of things we can test but it's in…

The OP said: "There are a bunch of silly beliefs that we witness even amongst us ... that having no gender parity in tech is both good and natural."

I didn't make any statement on "good" because it was poorly defined. It could be defined as anything from the individual's opinion to measurable outcomes (society's productivity or reported happiness). I think "natural" in this debate tends to mean "biological factors" and not "social and cultural factors". I simply questioned the scientific basis for the OP's belief.

So, how can we know that the rates at which males & females choose to study and work in a given field reflects their "natural" inclination rather than social or cultural factors?

1) We can look at the rates cross-culturally. In search of the numbers relating to "tech", I found the Stack Overflow developer survey (admittedly a subset of "tech"). Stack Overflow references Quantcast visitor numbers in their developer survey[1], so I'll look at those numbers too, around the world. The stackoverflow.com visitors by gender in: India: 94% Male, 6% Female[2] USA: 88% Male, 12% Female[3] UK: 91% Male, 9% Female[4] China: 86% Male, 14% Female[5] Germany: 95% Male, 5% Female[6] Iran: 88% Male, 12% Female[7]. The numbers seem pretty consistent, suggesting that the imbalance isn't due to social/cultural factors.

2) We can look at differences in interest in newborns. There is much discussion about males on averaging being more interested in "things" vs females on average being more interested in people. Here's the abstract from a study I found on the topic: "Sexual dimorphism in sociability has been documented in humans. The present study aimed to ascertain whether the sexual dimorphism is a result of biological or socio-cultural differences between the two sexes. 102 human neonates, who by definition have not yet been influenced by social and cultural factors, were tested to see if there was a difference in looking time at a face (social object) and a mobile (physical-mechanical object). Results showed that the male infants showed a stronger interest in the physical-mechanical mobile while the female infants showed a stronger interest in the face. The results of this research clearly demonstrate that sex differences are in part biological in origin."[8]

Happy to be shown how my numbers & study are incorrect or insufficient.

Personally, I'd prefer to work in a gender-balanced environment, but I wouldn't want those of either gender to be forced into a role they don't want - I think that would lead to unfair (non-meritocratic) treatment of members of the minority and majority gender. I want everyone to be free to choose their field of study and work, and to be free to fulfil their potential in that field. If that naturally results in male- or female-dominated professions, I don't think it's something that needs to be rebalanced with policy, if that's even achievable.

P.S. Interesting that I was socially censored for this: "What evidence do you have that _______ is good and/or natural? The scientific evidence seems to suggest to me that widespread _______ in many fields is natural." I'd say that social censorship as opposed to free discussion plays into the formation of silly beliefs that the OP complains about. Bad ideas are destroyed with discussion. Bad ideas that can't be discussed can't be destroyed. I'm happy to be corrected on the science regarding the current state of affairs.

References: [1] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2017#developer-pro... [2] https://www.quantcast.com/stackoverflow.com?country=IN#/demo... [3] https://www.quantcast.com/stackoverflow.com?country=US#/demo... [4] https://www.quantcast.com/stackoverflow.com?country=GB#/demo... [5] https://www.quantcast.com/stackoverflow.com?country=CN#/demo... [6] https://www.quantcast.com/stackoverflow.com?country=DE#/demo... [7] https://www.quantcast.com/stackoverflow.com?country=IR#/demo... [8] http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.627...

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#67

Post by restlessmedia »

If the results can't be trusted, don't use Google or (especially) Facebook as your news sources. As understand it, Google will aggregate its news - it hasn't got someone picking the articles. Stick with an established news source - i'll pick the BBC because I live in the UK.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#68

Post by solidsnack9000 »

int_19h wrote: post #21
mythrwy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The vast majority of people do not have the skills to use the internet as a source for good knowledge." And this is known how? The aristocracy considers the people ignorant and prefers it that way, but history shows this is not always objectively so. The ideas of freedom of information, of freedom of expression are repugnant to the aristocrat (who always consider they know best), but these are founding principals of…

> The ideas of freedom of information, of freedom of expression are repugnant to the aristocrat (who always consider they know best), but these are founding principals of so far the most innovative and productive societies history has known. I'm not entirely sure this is true. Before Internet, what we had was mostly freedom of the press - which is to say, the freedom to spread information (or disinformation) by those…

So much information in the times before freedom of the press was spread without the press at all. The press made not only communication but also censorship feasible on an unprecedented scale.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#69

Post by magicalist »

untangle wrote: post #59
magicalist wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can be impartial and return results based on relevancy I don't think that's possible. Take a search for "Las Vegas shooting". What is the impartial process for deciding the most relevant result for that? Relevance is inherently editorial.

> Take a search for "Las Vegas shooting". What is the impartial process for deciding the most relevant result for that? Relevance is inherently editorial. In that case, the search should be done on the NYT site (or similar). Or perhaps Google should add a "Use Edited Sites only" preference as a category of SafeSearch.

> In that case, the search should be done on the NYT site (or similar).

Huh? I'm saying the act of putting one site over another is itself a decision based on opinion.

Should machine learning be used to determine if the site has a summary of the situation...or is that even what the user was asking for? Should it just have those exact words in it? Should it be the most cited link? From the most cited source overall or on this particular topic? Should it instead be based on the clicks that links to that site gets? Was the most relevant site even in the sites originally in the list of sites to crawl for an index?

Also, not sure if you were just making a rhetorical point, but you'll note that your

> on the NYT site (or similar).

just kicks the can down the road. Why NYT? What similar sites are a good match instead? How do you even determine that some piece of writing is an editorial? Does it have to call itself that to qualify?

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#70

Post by pjc50 »

rdiddly wrote: post #49
Spivak wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> into a spot that many users believe is fairly authoritative I mean that's the real issue. You can't be unbiased while trying to be a source of truth. You can be impartial and return results based on relevancy or you can intervene in an attempt to return the truth. Google has ventured into dangerous territory by mixing the two -- especially with their automatic snippets that answer questions. > There is only figurin…

The unfiltered results ARE the truth. 4chan is the truth. In the sense that "Someone posted this thing on 4chan." And that's the only truth there is in internet-land: Someone posted something. Is it real? Is it true, what they posted? Or is it "fake news?" You will never know, and you probably shouldn't try to take it that far. Or if you do, at least be able to handle the cognitive dissonance of believing it and not-…

> The only thing you can truly know is what you witness in person.

> The good news is, that which you can't witness with your own eyes, rarely has any real effect on your life

Not only anti-rationalist and anti-Enlightenment, but you're even disagreeing with object permanence!

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