Employee leaks hundreds of Google documents revealing its search-results manipulation and biases

[Suika]

1 hour ago, Trik'Stari said:

One with a legitimate claim (Google is actively censoring one side of the political divide to the benefit of their preferred political party and ideology) and the other side, which screeches "racism!" "facism!" and "hate speech!" at anything that disagrees with them.

OK, so swap the words I used with words you would prefer.

 

That's my point.

[Sauron]

26 minutes ago, dDave64 said:

I’m not certain but I think labeling certain sites as potentially false information could lead to lawsuits.

Not any more than actually providing false information, which both of the "sources" here do on a daily basis.

[Arika]

2 hours ago, Commodus said:

Let's be honest: the falsehoods largely come from one side in the current political climate, and there's a good chance Google's approach reflects that.

That entirely depends on the view of the person and what side they "lean" to. There's a number of issues that I lean right on and have seen left media sources spin and mutate into looking like a bad thing when it's not, yet people on the left would say it's true because it aligns with their expectations. No side is innocent in lying about news and nor is it heavily weighted to one side, because again it depends on the biases of the reader

[Taf the Ghost]

21 minutes ago, thorhammerz said:

In such a scenario, I'd wager it depends whether the Mississippi basin and the Eastern seaboard find themselves capable of co-existing - one controls the production of goods / raw-materials, while the other controls the inflow/outflow of said goods and capital.

 

The West will always be their own little enclaves (never capable of fully resisting whichever power controls the Central/Eastern part of the continent, but in turn are never fully subjugated either) until humans figure out how to mass-transport goods (and people) over/on/under mountains (or even flat land) as cost-effectively as they do on waterways.

From a Geo-Strategic perspective, it's actually even more simple: whoever controls Export Shipping from the Gulf controls the Hemisphere. Got into some interesting discussions about this with a few people, and the phrase "New Texan Empire" cropped up a few times. Industry base in the USA starts in the Upper Ohio Valley and exists to the West and South of that. While the Northeast would have plenty of food & refined goods imports, because of the deep water ports, their heating in Winter is completely dependent upon pipelines in the Gulf.

 

Basically, it's an inverse of the "Don't Invade Russia in Winter". Northeast would freeze and the Southern Central Power wouldn't even have to do anything to the North of about Tennessee. 

 

We've heard rumors of multiple War Game Scenarios that the US Government has studied for an internal conflict in the modern USA over decades. Something like "Red Team Games" or other. Talk always ends roughly in the same spot. The Central Government of the USA has no ability to withstand an insurgency situation because basically no city was ever designed to be military defended. To borrow from Admiral Yamamoto, you can't defend every blade of grass. Government would also lose on 4th Generation Warfare principles. Plus there's the little issue of a couple of million former military members.

 

The interesting bit is we know that analysis plays out because the American Elites act like that is the reality, so they never try to push anything quickly. A large collection of eminently trained, hyper-competent people with the ability to execute effectively is not who you want to piss off. What makes America's economy run also can turn on a dime to being very lethal.

 

The clear issue we're seeing is that the major Coastal Cities are at a relative peak of economic activity and population. Add a good dose of modern Puritanism, and the astute historical observer will note quite the similarity to the 1850s. Difference this time is there isn't any one issue for the Cities to key upon as the "great evil of the day!". War is always intrinsically tied to economics, but it sure ain't the 1850s. The Coastal cities are utterly dependent upon infrastructure from well outside of their domains, which is why their politics are getting nuttier with each passing year. Futility does strange things to politicians. 

[thorhammerz]

9 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

From a Geo-Strategic perspective, it's actually even more simple: whoever controls Export Shipping from the Gulf controls the Hemisphere. Got into some interesting discussions about this with a few people, and the phrase "New Texan Empire" cropped up a few times. Industry base in the USA starts in the Upper Ohio Valley and exists to the West and South of that.

And the power that controls New Orleans controls the ability of the entire river basin to interact with the rest of the world.

Quote

While the Northeast would have plenty of food & refined goods imports, because of the deep water ports, their heating in Winter is completely dependent upon pipelines in the Gulf.

It's quite lovely we could just substitute these locations with the names of several European countries (in terms of their relationship with one another)...

[mr moose]

It's alright, I have a conspiracy that explains that conspiracies flaw and I can also dismiss that argument because I don't like the source.

 

 

Me talking to everyone not just the thread topic and rebuttals.

[thorhammerz]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

It's alright, I have a conspiracy that explains that conspiracies flaw and I can also dismiss that argument because I don't like the source.

Conspira-ception?

[Taf the Ghost]

3 minutes ago, thorhammerz said:

And the power that controls New Orleans controls the ability of the entire river basin to interact with the rest of the world.

It's quite lovely we could just substitute these locations with the names of several European countries (in terms of their relationship with one another)...

It tends to get lost in the post-50 States period, but the Louisiana Purchase and the Battle of New Orleans (in the War of 1812) was incredibly important events in early USA history. The USA "bought" the most strategically important resource in the world. Fascinating how things play out.

[Taf the Ghost]

6 minutes ago, thorhammerz said:

Conspira-ception?

I like to have fun with people on this concept: It's not "Who killed Kennedy?", try to explain "Who killed Oswald?". 

[thorhammerz]

5 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

The USA "bought" the most strategically important resource in the world. Fascinating how things play out.

To be perfectly fair to the French and the Spaniards, they had more... immediate issues to deal with. Crystal-ball gazing 100-200 years into the future to see what combinations of geography, demographics, and technology meshes to create the superpower-of-the-day isn't exactly something humans particularly good at.

[Commodus]

 

1 hour ago, Drak3 said:

You're arguing with someone who's main source as to why Veritas lies is a Wikipedia article, whose sources conflict with each other and usually attack the (often illegal) methods Veritas uses, not the actual material they push. And when they do attack the actual material, it's with unsubstanciated claims.

 

 

What's funny is that Ted Cruz's time with Google heads during the last anti trust basically confirmed Veritas' claims.

Nice passive-aggressive attack.  Next time grow a spine and address me directly, please.

 

It's not just their methods, and you know that.  O'Keefe falsely represented what ACORN was doing, for example.  He and Veritas misrepresented NPR; they misrepresented Clinton, the Democrats and supporting groups (for example, falsely claiming that the group AUC was illegally accepting money), among numerous others.  Those aren't conflicting stances, those are observable facts.

 

And besides, even if it was just their deceptive, sometimes illegal methods... why the hell do you think those are tolerable?  What happened to demanding a basic level of integrity in news sources?  Then again, you probably don't care that the source for the latest 'conspiracy' is an anti-Semitic whack job who still believes in Pizzagate, QAnon and anti-vaccine myths.  He thinks he's being oppressed because YouTube won't entertain his lies and hate.

 

To get back on topic, Ted Cruz didn't "basically confirm" anything about Google.  He pandered to conservatives with a false persecution complex; everyone else saw it as the charade it was.  There won't be much of anything coming from that, just as Trump won't get to chill actual free speech by neutering Section 230.

[Drak3]

39 minutes ago, Commodus said:

address me directly, please.

Why waste my time? You’re not interested in any meaningful conversation. Your last paragraph demonstrates that. You either know nothing on the anti trust hearing, or you’re trying to discredit it to further try to discredit Veritas.

[Tellos]

This sums up my view.

 

 

[Jito463]

9 hours ago, Commodus said:

Let's be honest: the falsehoods largely come from one side in the current political climate

Talk about bias and conceit.  I can list numerous falsehoods from the left, on topics ranging from guns to abortion and well beyond (those are just two particular subject matters which are very important to me).  I won't, because that would be running into the rules about politics, but the falsehoods are not coming from just "one side", not even predominately so.

9 hours ago, Cora_Lie said:

Education gives you the tools to understand, process and exercise these freedoms.

I believe the phrase you're looking for is 'critical thinking'.  Unfortunately, here in the states, many of our "education" centers have become more like "indoctrination" centers.  People are no longer taught how to think, and are only taught what to think.  If more people were taught to use critical thinking, the whole concept of "fake news" would be a niche that would at most register as a blip on the radar.

Edited August 16, 2019 by Jito463

[realpetertdm]

9 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

The problem is Google is skewing news sources, and they are pushing a left wing bias. And Fox News is pretty left biased, and centrist for the most part compared to most of the mainstream media, also CNN and MSNBC constantly smear them, which I think is a serious problem that only contributes to the political division in the US. These companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple need to be platforms not publishers placing a bias on information.

"Fox is pretty left biased"

Um, no.

 

Rupert Murdoch is a Republican.

Fox News was built from the ground to be a conservative right wing network.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twenty-first-fox-ailes-newsmaker-idUSKCN1012RM

 

You make it seem like Fox News is the only one getting criticism and smearing, in fact Fox News actually does the smearing and lying more. And you can argue that the smearing Fox News gets is justified because they have a history of lying and spreading fake news.

[mr moose]

My side of politics has a clean nose and never does anything wrong...  

 

 

I have said it many times before, if you think the other side of politics misrepresents the truth more than your own (from any source) you are simply biased and gullible. 

 

EDIT: this thread must be skimming so close to closure that this update might not wor...

[ivan134]

Imagine how far the overton window in the US is to the right, where someone can say with a straight face that corporately owned MSNBC and CNN are left wing. Oof.

[dalekphalm]

7 minutes ago, ivan134 said:

Imagine how far the overton window in the US is to the right, where someone can say with a straight face that corporately owned MSNBC and CNN are left wing. Oof.

One can definitely argue that CNN is "left wing" in their presentation - of course, something being left wing, isn't a good or bad thing. It's just a fact.

 

MSNBC I don't know enough about to comment on.

 

But both of them being mega corporations mean that they often benefit from certain pro-business right wing ideologies.

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

One can definitely argue that CNN is "left wing" in their presentation - of course, something being left wing, isn't a good or bad thing. It's just a fact.

That's not the point - a corporate entity cannot be anything to the left of a centrist or a liberal, otherwise it wouldn't be a corporate entity. Sure, compared to hardcore conservatives and fascists they're on the "left", but that's about it.

[Commodus]

8 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Talk about bias and conceit.  I can list numerous falsehoods from the left, on topics ranging from guns to abortion and well beyond (those are just two particular subject matters which are very important to me).  I won't, because that would be running into the rules about politics, but the falsehoods are not coming from just "one side", not even predominately so.

Please don't equivocate.  I'm not saying the left is flawless by any stretch, but the American right is led by someone who's so fundamentally dishonest you have to assume he's lying... and most of his party is covering for him.

 

To get back on track, I would be highly skeptical of Project Veritas' claimed revelations, let alone them having any meaningful impact on how Google conducts business.  It wouldn't take much effort to show why the blacklist is justified (hyperpartisanship, racists, tabloids, just opinions) and why there needs to be at least some kind of prioritization for content based on relevance and accuracy.

[dalekphalm]

8 minutes ago, Sauron said:

That's not the point - a corporate entity cannot be anything to the left of a centrist or a liberal, otherwise it wouldn't be a corporate entity. Sure, compared to hardcore conservatives and fascists they're on the "left", but that's about it.

I can agree with that - though people can and are contradictory in their beliefs, at times.

1 minute ago, Commodus said:

Please don't equivocate.  I'm not saying the left is flawless by any stretch, but the American right is led by someone who's so fundamentally dishonest you have to assume he's lying... and most of his party is covering for him.

It's pretty ridiculous when they track his lies by how many per day he's made. Because that's how frequent it's gotten. Yes, other Presidents have lied (every politician has probably uttered at least one lie or mistruth) - but typically it's a few per term - or maybe a few over the course of months. This is a different beast entirely.

1 minute ago, Commodus said:

To get back on track, I would be highly skeptical of Project Veritas' claimed revelations, let alone them having any meaningful impact on how Google conducts business.  It wouldn't take much effort to show why the blacklist is justified (hyperpartisanship, racists, tabloids, just opinions) and why there needs to be at least some kind of prioritization for content based on relevance and accuracy.

Indeed - especially for news blobs, you do need to rank sites. Because you can't have The Onion or The Beaverton (Canadian Onion) showing up in legitimate news sources.

 

Nor should The Alex Jones show come up either, given that they are literally a conspiracy theory website that deals in "Flat Earth" and "Vaccines cause Autism" bullshit that is scientifically known to be false.

 

Does that mean all right wing sites should be blocked? Hell no. Fox News isn't blocked. Likely sites like The Globe and Mail or National Post or even The Sun (Canadian right wing news sites) would show up fine.

[Delicieuxz]

16 hours ago, Sauron said:

Not any more than actually providing false information, which both of the "sources" here do on a daily basis.

RT is pretty much the most objective English MSM available right now. You'll find more truth there than at any of the other outlets in Google's site-ranking image that are rated higher than it. That's a part of why talent from places like BBC, NYT, NBC, CNN, keep going to work at RT, at least in their own words.

[ravenshrike]

34 minutes ago, ivan134 said:

Imagine how far the overton window in the US is to the right, where someone can say with a straight face that corporately owned MSNBC and CNN are left wing. Oof.

Imagine how far someone is to the left when they can say with a straight face that anything corporately owned inherently can't cater to the left.

 

 

Addendum - the left/right spectrum, except when discussing things on a country by country basis and in the broadest terms possible with that country's political sphere, is utterly moronic.

[Sauron]

3 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

It's pretty ridiculous when they track his lies by how many per day he's made. Because that's how frequent it's gotten. Yes, other Presidents have lied (every politician has probably uttered at least one lie or mistruth) - but typically it's a few per term - or maybe a few over the course of months. This is a different beast entirely.

I mean, right now 90% of the positions the mainstream right holds are demonstrably lies - it's not that they sometimes lie to bolster their arguments, their core positions themselves are based on bullshit. The Overton window is so far shifted that Bernie Sanders is accused of being a communist despite being a proponent of capitalism. In a sane political landscape he wouldn't be very far left of the center.

1 minute ago, Delicieuxz said:

RT is pretty much the most objective English MSM available right now.

1) that's your opinion and 2) objectivity is obviously not the only metric they would be applying here - it's also a matter of how relevant to the search an article from those outlets is likely to be. Larger outlets like CNN are more likely to have talked about any given topic than a relatively smaller network like RT. Sites like the WSJ also make better use of SEO than others, which naturally leads Google in "preferring" them - that's arguably a problem of its own but hardly a conspiracy.

 

The Young Turks, a mostly left leaning outlet, is also significantly lower than both CNN and RT, as well as the notoriously right leaning Fox News and the openly nazi outlet Breitbart - do you have an explanation for that in your "anti right wing" conspiracy theory? Why is it that it's only the righties who whine about conspiracy theorists being buried by Google results? I could give you the solution to massive corporations controlling the spread of information but I don't think you'd like it.

13 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

Imagine how far someone is to the left when they can say with a straight face that anything corporately owned inherently can't cater to the left.

You can cater to whomever you want but good luck convincing people who hate the very concept of a corporation to like you, as a large corporation. And you definitely cannot believe in the idea that corporatism is a massive problem while being a corporation.

14 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

Addendum - the left/right spectrum, except when discussing things on a country by country basis and in the broadest terms possible, is utterly moronic.

Except it's not, because broadly speaking there is a very clear distinction between ideas that are traditionally right or left wing and this distinction traces back to the French revolution and the enlightenment. It was the French leftists who were first called "left wing" due to sitting on that side of the parliament. You can argue that left or right doesn't tell the whole story, which is true, but the idea that political alignment exists in a vacuum and parties are arbitrarily assigned to be left or right wing regardless of their ideals is absurd.

[Jito463]

24 minutes ago, Commodus said:

Please don't equivocate.

I wasn't equivocating (I don't even think that's the word you meant to use), I was correcting your falsehood that the bulk of falsehoods come from "one side" of the political spectrum, which is patently false.

 

Any who, back to the topic of Google....