Blekko Launches a Search Engine With Bias

Pickens writes "Previous specialized search engines including Cuil, Hakia, Powerset, Clusty, and RedZ — each had a special trick, but they've all faded from memory, some after crashing in flames, some after making their founders rich. Now Rafe Needleman reports at Cnet that along comes Blekko, whose claim to fame is that you can tilt your search results in the direction you like by using a category of bias, like 'liberal' or 'conservative.' Categorization lists are applied by appending a 'slashtag.' The query, 'climate change /conservative' will give you politically slanted results, for example. 'Climate change /science' will restrict your results to hits from scientific Web sites. Blekko won't have a real, Web-wide impact unless its concept — that bias is good and more aggressive search filtering is needed — gets some traction, writes Needleman. But 'Blekko is a solid alternative to Google and Bing for anyone, and more importantly it's got great potential for researchers, librarians, journalists, or anyone who's willing to put some work into how their search engine functions in order to get better results.'"

Comments

One problem

[Chrisq]

What if you have a liberal/conservative government? In the UK liberal is becoming conservative

Re:Won't work as intended

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's your definition of Fascism that is screwed.

Fascism is about nationalism and strong divisions of social class.

Socialism is about internationalism and removal of social class barriers (at least in theory).

It is true that both advocate a strong central state, but that is the only similarity.

Re:The problem is people confuse what bias is

[Grapes4Buddha]

I respectfully disagree with you on this. There is nothing in my experience with the usage of the word "bias" to indicate that intent has anything to do with it. It may be ethically unjustifiable to be intentionally biased, but it is a perfectly legitimate use of the word.

bias (bs)
n.
1. A line going diagonally across the grain of fabric: Cut the cloth on the bias.
2.
a. A preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment.
b. An unfair act or policy stemming from prejudice.
3. A statistical sampling or testing error caused by systematically favoring some outcomes over others. 4. Sports
a. A weight or irregularity in a ball that causes it to swerve, as in lawn bowling.
b. The tendency of such a ball to swerve.
5. The fixed voltage applied to an electrode.
adj.
Slanting or diagonal; oblique: a bias fold.
tr.v. biased or biassed, biasing or biassing, biases or biasses
1. To influence in a particular, typically unfair direction; prejudice.
2. To apply a small voltage to (a grid).

Re:Kittens

[Anonymous Coward]

In the world of making sure things don't go ka-boom I really don't give a shit if reality hurts your feelings

According to Benjamin Franklin, you deserve neither liberty nor safety.