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Google Looks at People As it Pledges To Fight Fake News and 'Offensive' Content (betanews.com)
Google said today it is taking its first attempt to combat the circulation of "fake news" on its search engine. The company is offering new tools that will allow users to report misleading or offensive content, and it also pledged to improve results generated by its algorithm. From a report: While the algorithm tweaks should impact on general search results, the reporting tools have been designed for Google's Autocomplete predictions and Featured Snippets which have been problematic in recent months. Updated algorithms should help to ensure more authoritative pages receive greater prominence, while low-quality content is demoted. Vice president of engineering at Google Search, Ben Gomes, admits that people have been trying to "game" the system -- working against the spirit of the purpose of algorithms -- to push poor-quality content and fake news higher up search results. He says that the problem now is the "spread of blatantly misleading, low quality, offensive or downright false information."
So, it's a democratic process to determine what news is fake? Ah yes, the "if we all agree it's not true then it isn't" method of understanding the universe.
Let's go burn down the observatory so this can never happen again!
They are the leaders.
Google needs to quit pretending and just limit it's search results to NPR, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.
That would fix it.
Caution: Contents under pressure
I suspect so, and I don't trust Google, or, Alphabet.
I never asked for censorship on the internet. And an algorithm? A freaking experiment on society.
better off banning slate, salon, msnbc, foxnews, cnn, breitbart. that would clean up a good 80% of fake news
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Either all speech is protected or none of it is.
That should be easy. Just delete anything said or tweeted by Donald Trump. Viola, less fake news.
This should be marked alternatively "funny" or maybe even "insightful" but certainly not "troll".
It is clear the current president is profoundly dishonest (and before his apologists scream "they are all dishonest", no, they are not the same. Yes, everybody lies, and arguably most if not all politicians probably lie or stretch the truth a little more than the average person ... though with the behavior of Trump supporters online this past year, I'm not so sure the last bit is true, but either way, the Democrats in general, and politicians in general, do not engage in the kind of wholesale lying that has come to characterize Republicans of late, and Trump in particular.
So yeah, an effective "fake news" filter is going to end up being a bit of a Trump muzzle, in the sense that it becomes a bit of a "Liar muzzle" with Trump, Putin, and their enables being the most prolific liars these days, by orders and orders of magnitude. Doesn't mean there won't be plenty of left-wing bogus news articles being filtered as well (there will be), but by current metrics, they will amount to a tiny fraction compared to the fiction coming from the Right.
The underlying problem is Google is supposed to be a *search engine* It's supposed to show you where to find stuff on the internet. At some point in time they decided to complete with Ask Jeeves and become an "answer engine." Good luck with that.
Have leftists ever thought about why so many average people are turning away from so-called "mainstream" news sources, and instead choosing to get their news from alternate sources?
It's actually quite simple: average people see what's being reported in the "mainstream" press, and they just can't reconcile what they're being told with what they're actually seeing while on the job or going about their daily lives.
Meanwhile, the reports from these alternate sources actually end up being far more reliable. What's reported actually matches what average people are actually witnessing for themselves.
Average Americans are well aware of how their jobs, and/or their relatives' and friends' jobs, are being shipped off to third-world countries who can offer better prices only because these third-world locales totally lack the safety and quality standards that are found in the US.
Average Americans are well aware of how illegal aliens are taking many jobs. It frustrates these average Americans when the go to get fast food, or they go to fill up their gas tank, or they try to get a small home repair done, and they're served by somebody who can barely speak English and who can barely do the job at hand.
Average Americans are well aware of how so much of the violent crime in places like Chicago, St. Louis, L.A., Philadelphia, Atlanta and Houston is black-on-black violence, yet the police and non-blacks end up getting blamed for it by "protesters" and the mainstream media.
Average Americans know that something is wrong when they take a vacation to San Francisco, and they spend their days dodging the homeless who are urinating and defecating on the sidewalks.
Average Europeans know that something is very wrong when all sorts of third-worlders, many of them illegal aliens, are allowed to flood into Europe uninhibited, and this is supported by the EU. It becomes even more evident when there are numerous violent attacks committed by these foreigners or their Europe-born offspring.
Average Europeans know something is wrong when there are grenade attacks in Sweden and sexual assaults in many German cities during New Year's Eve celebrations, and it isn't people of European descent who are responsible for these incidents.
Average Europeans watch videos like this one, showing the real illegal immigrant situation near Calais.
Average Australians know something is wrong when they're priced out of even the smallest homes in the major Australian cities because foreigners have bought up much of the property, often not even bothering to use it in any way, other than as a way to try to store what's likely ill-gotten wealth.
The "mainstream" narrative has diverged so far from what average people around the world are witnessing that they can't help but look for other sources of information that better match what they're actually seeing and experiencing. They're looking for real news, not politically-correct news that pushes a leftist narrative.
Have leftists ever thought about why so many average people are turning away from so-called "mainstream" news sources, and instead choosing to get their news from alternate sources?
Yes, over three hundred years ago:
Besides, as the vilest Writer has his Readers, so the greatest Liar has his Believers; and it often happens, that if a Lie be believâ(TM)d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceivâ(TM)d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effectâ¦
Seriously, look at your own recitation and find the lies and falsehoods in them. There are plenty.
And yours aren't even new. The anti-immigrant Know-Nothing party was preaching its hysteria before the American Civil War. Civil War secessionists built their cause on a house of lies. Anti-Indian, Anti-Irish, Anti-Chinese, Anti-German, Anti-Jewish, Anti-Russian sentiment was similarly fostered with fraud.
The question you should ask, is why you think leftists don't know, while you seemingly demonstrate great depths ignorance yourself.
Or rather, you should answer it.
Anyone can gin up nonsense to fit a curve. That's what fake news largely is. The biggest error I see in most mainstream media is the assumption that details and context can be omitted. It is far easier to digest a simpleton falsehood compared to reality when the audience lacks the foundational information to understand it. You cannot communicate the complexities and nuance of reality in 30 second sound bites.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once