Google news search bias....

[Cranky]

I wanted to know what are the "news" in Mr Dispicables world. I went to Google and as usual, Google forces inquiries into the country of origin.

Here is the news sources that Canadians see when one inquires "trump" under the news banner.

Google.ca 7:12PM est

CBC
CBC
Sky News
CNN
CBC
New York Times
CBC
Vanity Fair
Rolling Stones
CNBC
Reuters
BBC
The Gaurdian

Google.com and non nation specific search.

Washington Post
CNBC
Bloomberg
USA Today
NBC
New York Post
CNN
Washington Post



So what is wrong with the Canadian picture? Vanity Fair? Rolling Stones? Where is the National Post? Globe and Mail? Where is there any opinion other then left to further left leaning papers or news sources?

On Google.com, Washignton Post, CNN and Reuters in that list are "center" opinion/news sources. But Canada? Vanity fair? Since when did Vanity fair become a general news source? Or Rolling Stones magazine? You think that is bad? If you want to argue that Fox New is biased, so tell me, what is CNBC or The Rolling Stones or The Guardian? Even far left garbage sites like Thinkprogress, Dailycos make it to Google.ca and on occasion into Google.com news.

If you want to argue that you can go and get the news from Google.com, well, that is the problem right there. On Android devices (and I suspect on Apple device it's worse}, it's very hard if not impossible to force Chrome to go to Google.com. On my tablet and links, I actually have to have a separate link to the Google.com site. This is done deliberately by Google to force country specific adds on us. The problem with the adds is that the news sources are also biased. And google knows this bias, but chooses to ignore it.

I always had a problem with newspapers reporting with bias, long before the internet was invented by Al Gore. The Toronto Star use to be center left and now simply left, The Globe and Mail use to be center right and now is center left, The National Post is about the only paper that was and is mostly center right. That's fine. They can be whatever they want because one CHOSE TO PAY MONEY FOR THEM and whatever bias they had, was ones choice to pay to read it. (For the record, we use to subscribe to the Star before it went PRAVDA, then the NationalPost.)

On the other hand, news now comes "free" from Google and other sources. The problem with that is that left leaning people like Soros and the like identified it as a way to "educate" the masses and started funding dozens of "internet news sites". Basically, biased and otherwise garbage blogs masquerading as news. And for the record, yes, there are garbage right wing sites.

Soooo......

First..... Google is no longer "do no harm" organization. Their old defense that they only present the links is pure garbage because their search bots have parameters. What the bots search for and what makes it to their top of the list is not "accidental". If they made this public knowledge, then at least one is aware of the issues, but they don't. In fact, they keep defending their searches and results as 'neutral".

Second....the majority probably do not bother to parse the news with multiple sources. Headlines and who is winning American Idol is the news issues of the day. Simply shaped sheeple minds writ large. That is fine for North Korea, but not so fine in open democracies where politics and agendas should not be subliminally pushed on us. Particularly by self proclaimed "neutral" search engines.

Third...if one likes the sound of ones own thoughts in an echo chamber, then there is nothing to see here.

[franko]

Nov 20, 2016 19:54:50 GMT -5 Cranky said:

The problem with the adds is that the news sources are also biased. And google knows this bias, but chooses to ignore it.

Google is no longer "do no harm" organization. Their old defense that they only present the links is pure garbage because their search bots have parameters. What the bots search for and what makes it to their top of the list is not "accidental". If they made this public knowledge, then at least one is aware of the issues, but they don't. In fact, they keep defending their searches and results as 'neutral".

actually, you can pay your way up the google scale. they don't ignore it, they encourage it.

[Cranky]

Nov 20, 2016 20:32:20 GMT -5 franko said:

Nov 20, 2016 19:54:50 GMT -5 Cranky said:

The problem with the adds is that the news sources are also biased. And google knows this bias, but chooses to ignore it.

Google is no longer "do no harm" organization. Their old defense that they only present the links is pure garbage because their search bots have parameters. What the bots search for and what makes it to their top of the list is not "accidental". If they made this public knowledge, then at least one is aware of the issues, but they don't. In fact, they keep defending their searches and results as 'neutral".

actually, you can pay your way up the google scale. they don't ignore it, they encourage it.

Are you talking about add space or actually skewering the links?

i saw a pure political add the other day, which suprised me. Here is their policy ....

support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6014595?hl=en

I get a lot of Google calls to advertise. Thankfully i can easily block them on the cell phone.

[Cranky]

Here is how and why those with money and political bend control links. And Google knows it.

*When another website links to one of your pages, it’s a vote of confidence. It’s an indication of relevance, and Google notices.

*When many sites link to one of your web pages, even better. Link popularity works like any popularity contest. You want a lot of votes.


*The best links are from sites that have a high link popularity themselves. These links are worth more. Just like a popularity contest, one vote from someone popular is worth more than a dozen votes from the unknown.


*If a page is linking to several sites, the value of those links is divided. So a link to you from a page that’s also linking to all kinds of other pages isn’t as valuable.Again, in a popularity contest, if the person who votes for you is voting for three people at once, it’s not as good. You’re really only getting a third of a vote.

So if Thinkprogress links to Dailykos and a plethora of other far left sites, your search criteria words lands up on the deliberatly skewered "news sources". That is also why you get one article shared by many of these sites, which then rises to the top as a link. If one is not not aware of it, one would assume that any said article, which is nothing more the blog babbling, is actually an important article/opinion.


It goes beyond with just news articles. I remember specifically doing a Google word search for "historical data sea level rise". About fifteen years ago, i got several articles off the front page on just that. Post glacial ice melt and decent scholarly articles. Try that today and you wont find anything that is not linked to "global warming" and "climate change". What was a mostly natural change in sea level is now hijacked as as an example to sell an meme/agenda/opinion.

The example cited is not the issue, but the deliberate skewering of results is. Probably a third of everyone past 18 has grown up with Google as their source of information. Thus any agenda skewering has a direct influence on opinion/outlook and subsequent political and social agenda.

So it comes down to this. Do we as a society want an easily and deliberatly skewered "search engine" to shape our societies opinion, social outlook and policies? In a wired world, do we want fallible Google to be the gatekeeper of knowledge?


.

www.orbitmedia.com/blog/google-website-rank/

[franko]

Nov 21, 2016 2:44:51 GMT -5 Cranky said:

Nov 20, 2016 20:32:20 GMT -5 franko said:

actually, you can pay your way up the google scale. they don't ignore it, they encourage it.

Are you talking about add space or actually skewering the links?

skewering the links. you pay, you get priority

[seventeen]

Nov 20, 2016 19:54:50 GMT -5 Cranky said:

I wanted to know what are the "news" in Mr Dispicables world. I went to Google and as usual, Google forces inquiries into the country of origin.

Here is the news sources that Canadians see when one inquires "trump" under the news banner.

Google.ca 7:12PM est

CBC
CBC
Sky News
CNN
CBC
New York Times
CBC
Vanity Fair
Rolling Stones
CNBC
Reuters
BBC
The Gaurdian

Google.com and non nation specific search.

Washington Post
CNBC
Bloomberg
USA Today
NBC
New York Post
CNN
Washington Post



So what is wrong with the Canadian picture? Vanity Fair? Rolling Stones? Where is the National Post? Globe and Mail? Where is there any opinion other then left to further left leaning papers or news sources?

On Google.com, Washignton Post, CNN and Reuters in that list are "center" opinion/news sources. But Canada? Vanity fair? Since when did Vanity fair become a general news source? Or Rolling Stones magazine? You think that is bad? If you want to argue that Fox New is biased, so tell me, what is CNBC or The Rolling Stones or The Guardian? Even far left garbage sites like Thinkprogress, Dailycos make it to Google.ca and on occasion into Google.com news.

And where the hell is Fox!?

I want my daily ration of racist rants.
I noticed that the alt right in the US has suggested New Balance as their 'national' shoe because the 'N' logo (on its side) looks like a swastika. Of course, this only proves how dull they are. A swastika is a stylized 'S', not a stylized 'Z'. They can't even get that right.

[Cranky]

Nov 21, 2016 12:46:07 GMT -5 seventeen said:

And where the hell is Fox!?

I want my daily ration of racist rants.
I noticed that the alt right in the US has suggested New Balance as their 'national' shoe because the 'N' logo (on its side) looks like a swastika. Of course, this only proves how dull they are. A swastika is a stylized 'S', not a stylized 'Z'. They can't even get that right.

Rolling Stones and MSNBC is no better serving bias garbage as news then Fox.

The problem becomes when one can't tell the difference.

[CentreHice]

Huffington Post is another left "news" source....pervasively cited on Facebook.

[Cranky]

Nov 21, 2016 13:31:35 GMT -5 CentreHice said:

Huffington Post is another left "news" source....pervasively cited on Facebook.

Huffington was launched in 2005 with the specific mission statement to be a liberal/left counter to Drudge Report. Now, since AOL acquired it, it pretends it's a news source. It's on the staple of Google.ca links.

Like i said, if one wants an echo of confirmation bias as news, from either side of the spectrum, then none of this matters.

[Cranky]

Very interesting read on confirmation bias. This applies directly to how people seek out the "news" sources that fits their bias. They see whatever source they are biased to as "netral/truth/reality" and everything opposed to their bias as propaganda /lies.

Once we have formed a view, we embrace information that confirms that view while ignoring, or rejecting, information that casts doubt on it. Confirmation bias suggests that we don’t perceive circumstances objectively. We pick out those bits of data that make us feel good because they confirm our prejudices. Thus, we may become prisoners of our assumptions.

www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-choice/201504/what-is-confirmation-bias