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Google Wants To Rank Websites Based On Facts Not Links
wabrandsma writes about Google's new system for ranking the truthfulness of a webpage. "Google's search engine currently uses the number of incoming links to a web page as a proxy for quality, determining where it appears in search results. So pages that many other sites link to are ranked higher. This system has brought us the search engine as we know it today, but the downside is that websites full of misinformation can rise up the rankings, if enough people link to them. Google research team is adapting that model to measure the trustworthiness of a page, rather than its reputation across the web. Instead of counting incoming links, the system – which is not yet live – counts the number of incorrect facts within a page. 'A source that has few false facts is considered to be trustworthy,' says the team. The score they compute for each page is its Knowledge-Based Trust score. The software works by tapping into the Knowledge Vault, the vast store of facts that Google has pulled off the internet. Facts the web unanimously agrees on are considered a reasonable proxy for truth. Web pages that contain contradictory information are bumped down the rankings."
It's about time, but I really hope their 'factual accuracy' engine gets open sourced so we can be clear on exactly how they determine what are 'facts'
That WILL be a bad move. There are a lot of facts out there that academics still debate over. Pretty much anti-free speech afaic.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
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Fox News, religious websites, homeopathy websites at the bottom? That sounds like a good reason to buy stock, not sell it.
In other words, if your web page contents do not agree to some arbitrary consensus as defined by the pages Google chooses to trawl, your web page will not be listed anywhere near the top of the search results.
This is idiotic, as this has nothing to do with facts, and everything to do with conformance and not rocking the boat.
However, as a business plan, this might actually work: it will be easier to package the products to the advertisers, as all possibly controversial information is removed from the searches.
I for one welcome our Corporate Overlords!
Well there goes Wikipedia!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
While in theory the idea is great, the problem is that one person's facts are another person's propaganda.
Look at the crap storms on wikipedia for example with all sorts of various groups all fighting over who gets to edit some page. Can you honestly say that always ends with the people standing up for truth winning? I can think of a few situations where it was controversial and the people that were pushing bs just happened to win or nearly as bad force moderators to lock the listing in a pre crisis state. Thus basically white washing the whole incident out of existence.
Again, I think it is a nice idea in theory, in practice I'm sure assholes and trolls are going to fuck it up.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Not in science. A fact is an observation or evidence that has been repeatedly observed to be true. It doesn't mean always true or only true.
The problem is when existing theories compete. OR more precisely points within large theories compete. Take relativity for instance, gravitational waves help explain the big bang but not all observations support the big bang model. But gravitational waves are considered fact for the purpose of the theory even though it has never been directly observed because it can be explained in mathematical computations that explain observations.
So what happens when we actually detect them for real and they operate slightly different than we think? Does this new observation or fact get pushed to the front of the line or is it buried because the fact engine hasn't updated yet or the wikipedia article it is referencing is in a mod battle. How about if something else is found to explain the theory concerning gravitational waves but lives in the same limbo as gravitational waves in which it hasn't been directly observed but can explain observations with math also.
It reminds me in the 80's when (and I forget who) some doctor was claiming most stomach ulcers were the result of bacteria. Turns out that is a fact but he was originally ridiculed because the fact at the time was that no one believed that bacteria could survive in the stomach's acidic environment longer than it takes to pass through it. Now the fact is that it's cheaper to just giving a couple antibiotics and seeing if the ulcer disappears than to test if the ulcer is bacteria related or other. But it was indisputable at one time, then someone disputed it and now it is indisputable again. Facts change.
You are not envisioning a fact based result but a "your opinion" based result. Not really what is discussed here. Fox News for instance, gets more facts right then wrong even though they are selected to shill for the republicans. You have no facts stating that _ALL_religious_websites are wrong.
If a site says the world is flat and is filled with rationals about it being flat then that site should probably come up on a "flat earth" search. Yet we can all agree that the facts in this case are completely bogus.
But what about inconvenient facts, for instance the various western governments put out employment numbers that are pretty hard core "facts" yet other people will look at the same "facts" and realize that they have had massive amounts of spin put on them. For instance in my neck of the woods they desperately hide the fact that most jobs being created are really crappy. Thus these "facts" then become politicized.
Or what about someone writing about NSA evildoing? Those are facts that the government would love to go away. Or what if every stock analyst suddenly agreed that Google was doomed as a stock?
Then there is group think. Prior to the 2008 financial crisis there were some "crackpots" who called it exactly and made fortunes based on their predictions; yet those facts flew in the face of general consensus. The same in economics. One joke at many economics universities is that the questions never change on the final exam, it is the answers that change year to year. If you look at something such as to the best time to loosen monetary policy and every major economic school has its own "facts".
I don't think that Google's search engine problems come from facts it is more that SEO whores like huffpo or the various directories are driving all the results to their crap sites. I don't know how many times I have searched for a company that has a perfectly good site that has not been through an SEO pimping putting it on page 3 or more while the first many pages are all kinds of crap yellowpages that ask "Is this your site?" where they want to upsell the owners on crap services.
"Fact optimization" is already behind more than one multi-billion dollar industry: advertising, political lobbying...
And this is why I fear this initiative, no matter how well intentioned, is doomed to failure. Just because something gets repeated a lot, that doesn't make it factually correct. Moreover, censoring dissenting opinions is a terrible reaction to active manipulation and even to old-fashioned gossip, because it removes the best mechanism for correcting the groupthink and promoting more informed debate, which is introducing alternative ideas from someone who knows better or simply has a different (but still reasonable) point of view.
Remember, not so long ago, the almost-universal opinion would have been that the world was flat.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
All of which will still outrank CNN. :)
If this ever happens, expect Fact Engine Optimization to become a new industry, and do exactly what SEO did to the reliability and utility of search engines.
Finally! It is the tautology club's moment to shine
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
Remember, not so long ago, the almost-universal opinion would have been that the world was flat.
A good example of a wrong fact that too many people believe. As soon as people really started traveling, especially on the ocean, it became obvious that the Earth is not flat. Something like 2500 years ago a Greek used geometry to measure the circumference of the Earth though there were idiots like Columbus who were convinced the world was much smaller then the generally accepted size.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Yes, 2+2=4, therefore global warming is a lie by Al Gore, who served as Vice President. I'm sure the linguistic style will look odd at first, but packing one lie per page and lots of valid facts could game the system. That's why they should release it early, so we can start gaming it early, so they can improve it before release (but they'll get around it by calling everything a beta).
Learn to love Alaska
So, if enough of the high-ranking trustworthy sites like cnn.com tell you that the bailing out of the banks in 2008 was an unambiguously good thing, than that becomes a fact? And if you opine otherwise, you're ranked down? So what we have here is a full blown censoring of the web, nothing less.
Don't be daft, good vs bad are not facts. Facts are things like when the bank bailout happened, which laws were used, who signed the laws, which banks benefited, how big of bonuses were given out etc. Ideally you base your opinion about good vs bad based on facts rather then bullshit and good vs bad is always an opinion.
And how is it censorship if a private entity prints whatever it wants? You, I and Google are free to put whatever we want on sites we own. Everyone is free to visit which ever sites they want to visit and we're all free to stop visiting a site if we don't like/agree with its content. Google fucks up and they'll go the way of Alta Vista.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
"Fact optimization" is already behind more than one multi-billion dollar industry: advertising, political lobbying...
And this is why I fear this initiative, no matter how well intentioned, is doomed to failure. Just because something gets repeated a lot, that doesn't make it factually correct. Moreover, censoring dissenting opinions is a terrible reaction to active manipulation and even to old-fashioned gossip, because it removes the best mechanism for correcting the groupthink and promoting more informed debate, which is introducing alternative ideas from someone who knows better or simply has a different (but still reasonable) point of view.
Remember, not so long ago, the almost-universal opinion would have been that the world was flat.
My advice to save a lot of time and effort, Do not let republicans, terrorists, the religious, anyone connected with the oil companies or climate change deniers anywhere near this technology ever!
Q.E.D.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way