Google Looks at People As it Pledges To Fight Fake News and 'Offensive' Content (betanews.com) 173
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."
Aka "The Trump Muzzle" (Score:2, Funny)
Google said today it is taking its first attempt to combat the circulation of "fake news" on its search engine.
That should be easy. Just delete anything said or tweeted by Donald Trump. Viola, less fake news.
Re:Aka "The Trump Muzzle" (Score:5, Insightful)
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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
Re: Aka "The Trump Muzzle" (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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All bigotry is, in general, fostered by fraud and deception, including self-deception. Part of why the mainstream media as a whole has been bleeding credibility is that it's getting easier to check--do you think things like the libelous article in the Rolling Stone would have emerged quite as quickly and publicly before the internet?
More importantly, people are gaining awareness that this is a thing--journalists are losing the ability to have their readers just take their word for things, and as more peopl
Re: Aka "The Trump Muzzle" (Score:1)
These comments are interesting ones!
Well, that is humble of you.
I think that yours actually proves what the GP's comment is saying.
Insofar as the concept of belief in lies being prevalent, you might have noticed there was no argument to that , it was merely to the particulars, not the sentiment.
Your comment is nothing but denial, misrepresentation, and a gibberish uncited quote (although to be fair, Slashdot's broken UTF-8 support is partially responsible for its untidy appearance).
Really, yet you cite no particulars for it, and if you wanted to look up the quote yourself, nothing is stopping you.
The comment you replied to, on the other hand, gave numerous clear, relevant and factual examples.
Your blind, unquestioning, acceptance of them is not in your favor. But no, I did not consider it worth my time to expose them in detail. Anyone interested would be able to investigate on their own.
Furthermore, the comment that's actually correct in this case (the GP's comment) was modded down to -1, while your nonsensical comment has been modded up to +1. Slashdot's broken moderating is another example of how traditional media is thrashing around wildly in the face of changing times.
I'
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You are full of s***. Your argument boils down to "I am right. But I can't bother to explain why. Anyone who wants to know that I am right can investigate for himself" (add some smugness).
This is an unfalsifiable statement. If somebody says something different (such as GP's comment), you only say: "Oh, he's so wrong. Of course I can't bother explaining why. Google it".
Maybe GP's comment is completely wrong. But you can't win the argument by default. GP's comment gave some assertions and you can dispute that
Re:Aka "The Trump Muzzle" (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess Truth == Troll for the Right (Score:1, Insightful)
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 s
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e 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.
I see your trump and raise you a clinton, a warren, a cuomo and a pelosi
sorry, you are not correct here
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Re: I guess Truth == Troll for the Right (Score:1)
Obama lied constantly. The only reason you don't know is because you only take in propaganda supporting the Democratic Party. You really do live in a bubble.
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"profoundly dishonest" How do you know he is more profoundly dishonest than anyone when the major news organizations, online partisan web sites, and the idiots pumping out misleading bullshit every 15 minutes. The MSM publishes provocative headlines that have nothing to do with the actual content of the article. The words could, possibly, may, or would are used because whatever crisis the article is addressing is really just someone asking an open ended question. News organizations and individuals publish i
Re: I guess Truth == Troll for the Right (Score:1)
Sorry but you are wrong. It will end up being a Trump muzzle because Google is apposed to Trump. Things would be different if Trump supported the TPP and Ha1b programs. Google will filter results based on what's good for Google. Just like once the republicans are finished raping the open internet you will start noticing a speed difference in Google approved left leaning results because ISPs are mostly right leaning. Its a game just like the campaign donations. In the end of the day large corporations will d
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Yup
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It's not "an effective fake-news filter", because it would allow things like "It's illegal to read wikileaks" to be viewed while filtering away "Stem illegal immigration" as 'racism'.
It's the Ministry of Truth, not a filter for facts.
Re: Aka "The Trump Muzzle" (Score:3, Interesting)
Sort of like how MSNBC blamed the recent riots in Venezuela entirely on a Trump campaign donation, and made no mention of the rampant starvation or roving death squads supporting the regime?
Yeah... Tell us more about fake news, dipshit.
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I agree it's impossible to eliminate it entirely, but the mainstream media doesn't even try. In fact, they go out of their way to be as biased as possible without stepping into blatant lie territory (most of the time). Then they cry about 'fake news' and 'alternative facts' from the liars on the other side.
Hypocrites all. Perhaps they should apply the scientific method to their 'journalism' to see just how hokey most of it probably is.
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No, the whole 'fake news' thing was started by a mainstream media that couldn't reconcile reality with the heavy lensing effects of their ideological slant. So while it started with Trump's win, and he has done much to enhance it, the starting point is still the so-called 'journalists.'
But I love offensive content! (Score:2, Funny)
Why do you think I'm on the fucking internet in the first place?
Users can report? (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Truth (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Brilliant insight!
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It is insightful and about sums up the issue.
I think a lot of this has to do with (excuse me while I silently vomit as I say this) 'thought leaders' - (or in proper terms) 'influential people' deciding that Google should or shouldn't offer up - from politicians to the heads of certain political, social, or other advocacy groups.
In so far as Google intends to placate these concerns, it's up shit creek if it just wants to return actual valid results that aren't influenced by such concerns. That ship has saile
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Your reasoning is dangerous. Should we stop letting politicians and the state decide that the world is billions of years old and just let the kids Google it. Whoever spams Google the most gets to decide how old the Earth is and the correct answer on the exam is "my phone confirms 6,000 years".
Is there really no way we can flag up things like "vaccines cause autism", "the would is 6000 years old" and "Hillary Clinton runs a paedophile ring out of a pizza restaurant" as heavily disputed?
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There may be, but it also needs to not be so wide open to abuse that it's absolutely certain it will be.
Re:Truth (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
It has always been an answer engine, and that's the reason it became popular.
Back in the day (mid 90s) most everyone was certain that search engines could never be very useful. Lycos, Altavista, etc. weren't terrible, but they also weren't very good, because although they could effectively spider the whole web that just meant that any search matched thousands or millions of pages, and they had no way to determine which of those were the best answers for the query. The "smart money" was betting on Yahoo!'s approach of manually curating enormous lists of links.
Then Larry Page's pagerank algorithm found an excellent (not perfect, but excellent) way to figure out which of all of those answers were likely to be the best ones. That insight launched Google. It took off precisely because it provided better answers, rather than just returning a list of everything that was on the Internet. A list of everything on the Internet is not useful.
Re:Truth (Score:4, Informative)
While I guess you have a point that Pagerank was designed to deliver better results, so were all other "search engines" of the time. Pagerank was just a better algorithm than others. But by your definition all search engines back then were "answer engines," since they all were trying to rank results somehow.
The thing is: back then Google's algorithms were still based on terms actually found in the searched pages. Hence, it was still a search engine. The ranking may have been tweaked, but you were still searching for actual text and actual search terms.
Somewhere around 2005 or so, it became possible for Google to serve up top hits that no longer contained the literal search terms. At that point it ceased to be a "pure" search engine and became about trying to guess what you wanted rather than just retrieving pages with your text. As the years went by, Google deprecated and screwed up the plus operator, increasingly screwed up verbatim search until it became nonfunctional for people who just want a literal search, and incorporated "personalization" to serve up pages more like other pages you've viewed, rather than what you literally asked for.
Google hasn't been a functional search engine in about a decade.
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Google hasn't been a functional search engine in about a decade.
Perhaps by your very narrow definition. But it's vastly better than it was at finding what people are looking for, which is what they always wanted, regardless of terminology.
However, it's *not* as good at "keyword regexp bingo" as it used to be. But if you're still trying to use those old-style queries, you're doing it wrong. Try typing complete natural language questions for what you want to find. I find this works amazingly well, even on obscure technical topics which include lots of "keywords" which a
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Perhaps I am weird but I don't understand why anyone would want to type complete sentences into a search engine. Natural language is bad at being precise and machines aren't exactly good at interpreting it.
Try it. It's what people naturally tend to do, so it's what Google optimizes for. It really does work very well, regardless of what you might expect.
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At some point in time they decided to complete with Ask Jeeves and become an "answer engine." Good luck with that.
It was shortly after Microsoft made a deal with Wolfram Alpha to do the same thing [wolframalpha.com]. Google had a huge push after that to give answers and such.
Flat earth (Score:1)
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Instead of an objective algorithm, how about a transparent one? Post it (or them) publicly for all to see, so that there can be no allegations of bias (assuming the algorithm(s) is(are) not biased.)
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That would make results far too easy to game and then the top results will just be whomever understand the algorithm better, not what's searched for.
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Except their algorithm is being adjusted to down mod conservative sources http://imgur.com/HM89EbE [imgur.com]. Even using 'Adjust Sources' in Google News , left sites still pop up to the top and are cited many more times. Same thing is happening today, CNN still gets cited more than any other source with the example 'Adjust Sources' . It is impossible to get to that output without a manual parameter that ends up over-riding the user preferences.
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No more comments about Communist party leaders.
No finding out about Tiananmen Square and 1989.
No cartoons that make people question their faith.
From a classic search engine to gatekeeper.
Do No Evil (Score:4, Insightful)
Better idea (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
You're right - that's an equivalent filter.
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They pretty much are already doing that. Media Matters of America,PoliticusUSA, and ThinkProgress are considered 'legitimate' news sources(check their 'Adjust Sources'). While they just removed sites like http://www.thegatewaypundit.co... [thegatewaypundit.com] in the last few months. All three of those sites are much worse than the thegatewaypundit at report accuracy. There is no way to add a personal source either.
Google is evil right? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Regardless if I think Google can do this effectively and neutrally, I don't think this is the answer. I don't think any service or institution curtailing "fake news" is going to do a good job of it, and even if they do, I don't think it will be effective.
The problem is people actively seeking support to their view and disregarding anything contrary. By filtering results, you are just ensuring those people go elsewhere for their fake news.
I believe that real change on this front will only come from a lon
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And once people are looking for things they dont want you to know there will be something each user runs into that will stick.
If you want control over what sticks well you just can't do that if you are driving everybody into a vast randomized process.
CENSORSHIP! (Score:1)
CENSORSHIP!
Slipery slope (Score:3, Interesting)
Great, another self proclaimed judge to "offensive content". I'm sure the automated tools will be great at banning all the bad words.
I find google offensive, now, ban google.
Real people saying fake things (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately, if real people say things that are false, then it's still real news to report on what that person said. Especially, if we're talking about people of note. Of course what most people are going to see (especially, if they want to believe the statement) is: Important person says, "Dogs can be milked" ==> Dogs can be milked.
The problem isn't fake news. The problem is people not taking an unbiased and well-thought-out view on life.
Fake people saying real things (Score:1)
Uhh.. dogs CAN be milked. They're mammals.
*licks finger, sticks it in the air* (Score:5, Funny)
What's Offensive today?
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>What's Offensive today?
Oh, for mod points. Best comment on this article.
This is bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Either all speech is protected or none of it is.
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Fake news publishers are still protected, they have every right to publish it.
Not everywhere. Among "free countries", Europe tend to put much more limits on free speech than the US.
For example, in France and Germany, it is almost impossible to talk about the Nazis in a way that isn't approved by the state. You can get condemned for defamation even if you speak the truth. In some cases, insults are outlawed too, and they can lead to prison sentences if they are racial in nature. In general, "hate speech" is considered a serious offense.
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I get this argument. And you're not entirely wrong because it's not an entirely black and white issue. But remember that freedom of speech is an ideal. It is not limited to the first amendment which provides the legal right to keep the government from restricting your speech. It's not something that only applies to other people.
Take Slashdot comments for example. Is it censorship if people have their comments voted down? Everyone can still see them if they choose to. But I think no one would argue that wi
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What is the difference between removing the link or putting it 1 millionth in the search results? Who looks further than the first few pages?
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I'd just like to know WHO decides what is "offensive"??
And who elected him or her Czar of the Internet??
Is this the new Hays Code??
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As sensible a post as most ACs on here these days.
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Google is exercising its right to free speech by not including fake news in its news search.
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Either all speech is protected or none of it is.
Google doesn't have to publish/display anything they don't want to. Free Speech does not mean companies are required to give you a platform to express your views.
If the Trumpettes don't like that -- they are free to create their own Alternate-Google.
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They tried that with Conservapedia and we all know what a steaming pile of turd that is.
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Either all speech is protected or none of it is.
Caveats of threats of violence aside, your speech is protected because you have conflated freedom of speech with freedom from consequences of said speech. If you read the actual U.S. constitution then you will notice it's protecting you from the government. There is nothing that says you are free from the consequences of what you say from other people.
In other news.. (Score:1)
There has been a deadly outbreak of fake news fighters. It appears many wealthy corporations are infected with the sudden urge to correct the news. The long term effect of this infection is currently unknown and it is not clear if the news will ever return to normal.
Geoffrey over to you....
One of these things is not like the others. (Score:2, Interesting)
"Offensive" is not the same sort of thing as "misleading", "false", and "low quality".
an extension of SafeSearch ? (Score:2)
Google has long offered users an option to filter search results. No doubt many parents and some others prefer this. Why should this be a problem?
"SafeSearch can help you block inappropriate or explicit images from your Google Search results. The SafeSearch filter isn't 100% accurate, but it helps you avoid most violent and adult content."
A filter bubble for every man-women and child. (Score:1)
The only reason Google sucks so much is that there's nothing that sucks less in the search *business*. Maybe a non-profit Search engine is the solution? Academia may be a great way to incubate such a product.
Those who object the loudest (Score:1)
Simple solution: Unpaid Mechanical Turk (Score:2)
Step 1. Find a good set of sources of a variety of fake news. At least one conservative (Brietbart), Russian (RT), and Liberal (Huffington Post) to start.
Step 2. Set up software to track everyone that regularly reads any of those three as your secret mechanical Turk testers. Everything those people like, post, or otherwise support will be fake news.
Step 3. Create a solid scoring system based on your testers.
Basically, use the stupidity of the users against them. Once you find people stupid enough to
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"Fake News" does not just mean not true. That is called slander and libel. Nor does it refer to just true facts that are not "news." (Then it would include all of sports reporting).
Instead the term Fake News was created because of people avoiding the libel and slander laws by taking a fact and stretching it all out of proportion to reflect something that a certain mindset will either love or hate.
In this manner, the clear and obvious successor to " Pravda", called "RT", achieves its goals of lying to Amer
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If you're conflating bias and "fake news," then what you might want to do is invert your plan, and instead build a 'consensus' news aggregation algorithm that picks sources according to their factual reliability and transparently flag sources for their biases. You might even give more weight to sources known to be honest enough to report stories that are harmful to their side--especially, perhaps, when those stories are hitting the news--and give 'sets' so people can read how multiple sources report the sa
define offend (Score:2)
Disagree in any way with a liberal snowflake and they are highly offended to point of needing counseling or playing with puppies and kittens.
Kiss in a public place in the presence of a prude and they are offended
Be observed eating meat in the presence of a PETA member and they are offended
the list goes on...
Google Search Manipulation (Score:3, Interesting)
Frankly with Google's record of integrity, I don't trust them to decide for me what is fake news.
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They are still doing it and it even over-rides your personal 'Adjust Sources'. http://imgur.com/HM89EbE [imgur.com]
Most of this comes from certain Net block regions (Score:1)
Just don't let them post news without it being verified first.
Problem solved.
Their motivation is to lie to get the click ad dollars. They will do whatever Russia asks them to get the sweet bonus spiff for pushing Russia fake news, since they get both the ad dollars and the Russian extra.
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...without it being verified first.
Verified? By whom? By whose standards? Who determines the definitions used? Do citizens get to vote for these people? How far can they go, what are their powers? What kind of checks against political/ideological-weaponization will there be?
You allow anyone the power to control what you see/read/hear, you allow them the power to make you their slave. It's always the edge-cases, the socially-repugnant extremes that authoritarians use to justify removing your choices and freedoms. It's happened over and over
Comment removed (Score:3)
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Does Google really think that Salon, Infowars and Breitbart readers are getting to those sites via Google? I'm sure some do, but I'll bet most go right to their site of choice.
In our world of ideological teamism - the players have picked their sides and I'm willing to bet that Google had very little to do with their choice.
Those who dont want their views challenged will be going to sites like Breitbart direct as they don't want to risk running into anything that may make them question their preconceptions.
However that is a very small number of people. The masses tend to use search engines and social media.
If anyone can successfully and accurately fight fake news, it is someone like Google. Fake news is best defined as non-fact based articles pretending to be news. Google with their experience in search and data management wou
Offensive Content? (Score:2)
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T'would be amusing if Slashdot tried to lead, eh? (Score:2)
Too early? One "funny" modded comment that wasn't much. Several "insightful" mods, apparently on some sort of confusion of wit with insight. Brevity is only the soul of wit, sorry.
Actually, I sort of think that the (increasingly evil) google has a good idea there, even if it's intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. Reputation is ultimately a human thing, and it is ultimately based on a network of trust. Three obvious problems:
(1) Abuse of anonymity breaks the foundation of the trust network.
(2) Th
It will become a censorship tool by political orgs (Score:1)
A tool that political organizations will fire up their supporters to abuse. No doubt the ideologs at Google and their elitist silicon valley peers will not call into question.
The choice is to continue to use Google where ideologs decide what you see and do not see or non-partisan alternatives like Newslookup.com
Yay! Leftist indoctrination for everyone! (Score:3)
Fuck that noise.
Freedom of speech. It's for everyone, not just those who agree with you.
Offensive? (Score:2)
Didn't the Supreme Court strike down every new version of the CDA on the exact grounds that 'offensive' wasn't clearly defined? - Because what is offensive to one may not even remotely be to others... Doubt that Facebook can do better in defining this.
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Exactly. Criticism of the policy will and is being censored so they can push the false narrative that the majority of people are for it.
Anecdotal, but I am seeing that kind of censorship of my tweets showing concern for Googles new fake news tool on Twitter. My tweets still exist under the news publishers that reported on Google. However all my tweets criticizing Google have disappeared from Twitter search that did appear in search all day today. Although I still see them when I login and search, so effec