Google: Please Stop Telling Lies About Me

https://ehudreiter.com/2019/01/21/google-lies-about-me/

by Pattio • 8 years ago

130 97 8 years ago

If you want Google to be authoritative, you're going to have a bad time. It's literally not designed to be a source of truth. It's designed to tell you what it finds on the Internet.

LeoPanthera• 8 years ago

It's designed to tell you what it finds on the Internet.

It used to be.

Per-user algorithmically customized search results now means that it shows you what you want to find on the internet - which is not the same thing.

x0x0• 8 years ago

There's nothing in the upper right box on this search

https://www.google.com/search?q=ehud+reiter&oq=ehud+reiter

to indicate the person box isn't authoritative, or isn't intended to be authoritative...

saagarjha• 8 years ago

It's literally not designed to be a source of truth.

Google seems to be pushing very hard lately to be considered the source of truth, picking information out of context and putting it in their infobox with no explanation as to where they grabbed it from.

fixermark• 8 years ago

Knowledge graph makes this more challenging since it doesn't always do a good job of surfacing the source of the information. In this specific case, for example, the box that pops up indicating Ehud is an Israeli computer scientist says nothing about why the system believes that to be true.

SquishyPanda23• 8 years ago

Its mission is technically to "to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful."

I would argue that organizing and making incorrect information universally acceptable meets some of the criteria, but it fails to be "useful."

VikingCoder3• 8 years ago

"Vaccines cause autism." "Vaccines don't cause autism."

Both of those convey information. Both are expressed frequently. Only one is backed by research. And only one of those is true.

At best, Google might be able to tell you which is backed by research. But that's no guarantee that it's the true answer.

The study of epistemology is fascinating.

sonnyblarney2• 8 years ago

" It's literally not designed to be a source of truth."

The info top-right is presented as factual not as 'search results'.

Barrin922• 8 years ago

Given that Google is one of the, if not the single most important window to all internet content I don't think that is an acceptable status quo or a sufficient explanation.

Surely if we use search engines most of us try to obtain relevant and factual information about the world, instead of trying to get some tautological answer out of the engine.

The comparison here to journalism is apt. Technically, journalists could simply declare everything to be the mere invention of the journalist's mind, but we don't think that's acceptable for a lot of good reasons.

VikingCoder3• 8 years ago

Actually, the comparison to Librarians is more apt.

If you want to find a book declaring that vaccines cause autism, you can find that book.

Google tries really hard to have the Card Catalog system be as good as possible, but "solving" that problem is basically impossible.

FVIIIvWF2• 8 years ago

I thought the colon should be a comma instead. It misled me to thinking Google was unhappy about people telling lies about them.

jnbiche9• 8 years ago

Actually, the author's use of the colon is correct, and your interpretation doesn't accord with the usual rules of grammar for colon usage.

What I assume you're thinking of is the journalistic use of a colon as shorthand for attribution, normally used in headlines. In that case, the colon and person/organization fall at the end of the sentence. So you'll see things like, "We'll never pass upcoming bill: Rep Smith".

But that's not what the author of the blog post wrote. Instead, he placed "Google" at the beginning of the sentence, writing "Google: Please Stop...". As such, he used the colon in accordance with one of its most common usages--as a means of address in correspondence, similar to common letter opening "Dear Mr. Smith: Please find enclosed...".

greenyoda2• 8 years ago

Also, the pronoun "me" is generally used to refer to a person, not a corporation. So there doesn't seem to be any ambiguity about the meaning of the title.

mattmcknight• 8 years ago

The colon is also used at the beginning of the phrase in the sense of identifying the speaker in plays.

When used in a letter it is commonly preceded by a salutation, as in your "Dear Mr Smith:" example.

jolmg• 8 years ago

Actually, putting the attribution at the beginning is how transcripts are usually done. You can see it in articles that are mainly the transcript of an interview[1], or even in court transcripts[2].

similar to common letter opening "Dear Mr. Smith: Please find enclosed...".

It's been some time since I've written a letter, but I remember that the typical format uses a comma and not a colon. For example:

    Dear Mr. Smith,

    Please find enclosed...

This[3] could be an example.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2006/09/02/an-interview-with-vc-paul-...

[2] https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcr...

[3] https://www.fotolip.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/How-to-Wr...

FVIIIvWF2• 8 years ago

Ah, thanks for the detailed explanation, I definitely needed a grammar revision.

JustSomeNobody2• 8 years ago

Google doesn’t care. They offer their products, generally, for free. They don’t owe you any customer service at all.

Edit:

> If a journalists says something incorrect about me, I can complain to him or his newspaper/magazine, and this will be taken seriously; indeed most journalists give me an opportunity to fact-check anything they say about me before it is published. If Experian says something wrong about me in its credit report, I can report this and they will take this seriously. In fact almost all organisations which give out information about me allow me to complain and point out problems. Except Google, who clearly doesnt care.

That's what I was commenting on.

zapzupnz4• 8 years ago

This comment does not correspond with the content of the article. The blog writer is discussing the way that Google's algorithms are faulty, presenting false information quite high in search results. This has little to nothing to do with customer service; this is about the ethics and responsibility of algorithms that present information to vast numbers of people.

anonytrary7• 8 years ago

He was probably responding to the clickbait title, which uses the phrase "telling lies" as opposed to the more apt phrase "spreading misinformation".

JustSomeNobody2• 8 years ago

If a journalists says something incorrect about me, I can complain to him or his newspaper/magazine, and this will be taken seriously; indeed most journalists give me an opportunity to fact-check anything they say about me before it is published. If Experian says something wrong about me in its credit report, I can report this and they will take this seriously. In fact almost all organisations which give out information about me allow me to complain and point out problems. Except Google, who clearly doesnt care.

That's what I was commenting on. This quote came from the article.

ClassyJacket• 8 years ago

This doesn't logically follow. I don't charge you money for anything, but that doesn't give me the right to slander or libel you. This case isn't as extreme but the principal is the same.

pliny• 8 years ago

Wikipedia (de) lists Ehud as an Israeli(-American) computer scientist and this may be the source of the problem.

doublekill• 8 years ago

I've read discussions between Wikipedia editors and people the article was about, and they were told to not edit the article, or produce a "no original research" authoritative source. On facts about their own life. So either a kind soul should edit it for them, or TechCrunch should pick up on this story.

And then hope they don't call you something outrageous like: the grandfather of X. Or: some people call her a Y. Because that will be in the article lead as a cold-hard machine readable logical fact for the ages.

JorgeGT2• 8 years ago

Or do like Philip Roth and have the New Yorker publish your Wikipedia rebuttals: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/an-open-letter-t...

Zanni• 8 years ago

Came here to say this. In the absence of an English-language Wikipedia page, Google probably treats the German page as definitive (though why they lop off the hyphenate American, I can't imagine).

blattimwind• 8 years ago

The Wikipedia (de) article has pendings edits changing it to "britisch-amerikanischer". Google (de) already shows this, but didn't put the nationlity in the subtitle in the first place ("Ehud Reiter, Informatiker").

smsm42• 8 years ago

More likely source of confusion is Wikidata, which lists him as Israeli both in Hebrew and English. It could be also a case of confusion with another person (neither name Ehud nor last name Reiter make it sound impossible, they sound like a typical Israeli name, but I didn't verify whether another person by that name exists). de.wikipedia looks fine now, as far as I can tell, but Wikidata is still wrong.

sonnyblarney2• 8 years ago

This will become an ever more important issue and I feel the only way forward is via legislation.

Google might care, but not enough to fundamentally do something about it.

FB and G are profitable because they have 'very low touch'. They don't have legions of tellers, fact checkers, CSR reps and people to handle the myriad of details other business have to deal with.

These issues are not only 'high touch' - they are hard.

G is not going to start hiring thousands of people to do such things, it's just not in their DNA.

Maybe some issue will be the straw on the camels back.

paul7986• 8 years ago

Easy solution don’t use Google use DuckDuckGo.com or another search engine.

zapzupnz4• 8 years ago

This comment doesn't correspond with the content of the blog post. It relates to Google's algorithms; one's personal choice of search engine does not change the fact that the results Google shows are ultimately seen by more eyes than anything else.

jakeogh• 8 years ago

Sure it does. General awareness of google's increasing tendency to engineer language will result in people not trusting it... possibly to the point where this person wouldnt bother to write about it.

jnbiche9• 8 years ago

Seeing as how the author was indeed born in Israel, I figured at first that it was unreasonable to complain, since like or or not he was probably an Israeli citizen.

However, looking into Israeli citizenship law, I learned that Israel does not have birthright citizenship. So he was not automatically a citizen despite being born there. Had his parents been Israelis (and that doesn't appear to be the case), he would be Israeli.

It's true that he's likely eligible to claim Israeli citizenship through the law of return. But being eligible for Israeli citizenship isn't the same as having it.

So I do understand the annoyance. It's not just a technicality--he actually doesn't have Israeli citizenship. Google's algorithm appears to assume all countries practice birthright citizenship like the US (when many, probably most, do not).

p1necone2• 8 years ago

Is there a set of circumstances that could result in someone being born in Israel without gaining citizenship, while also not getting citizenship in the country their parents were from?

cwzwarich• 8 years ago

This sort of thing is technically possible for children of Indian citizens born in countries without birth citizenship, see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_nationality_law#Citizen.... Given that millions of Indians live in Persian gulf countries with these sorts of citizenship laws, I wonder if it has ever happened.

mey• 8 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statelessness

jnbiche9• 8 years ago

I think that in the vast, vast majority of countries (all of them?), you receive the citizenship of your parents, regardless of the country in which you're born.

So unless therhttps://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jnbichee's a country where this is not the case, the situation you're describing would not occur. And if there is such a country, the problem would not be unique to Israel, since birthright citizenship is not practiced in many (most?) countries.

Edit: Interesting. As user cwzwarich points out, it appears that India is indeed such a country. So looks like it's possible to be stateless at birth if you're Indian and born in one of the many countries without birthright citizenship. That said, all an Indian citizen has to do if that happens is to report the birth at an Indian embassy within 1 year of the birth, and then the child is an Indian citizen. But if your parents are irresponsible or unaware of the law...

JorgeGT2• 8 years ago

probably most, do not

Indeed, as a rule of thumb ius soli is found mainly in American countries: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

pgrote• 8 years ago

Seeing as how the author was indeed born in Israel

And Google notes this in the knowledge box. Above where it says he is born it states: Israeli computer scientist

I would say in most cases you could make the leap that someone born somewhere is an X computer scientist. In this case, it isn't correct.

The more concerning thing about this is Google's lack of attention to the feedback reports they solicit for knowledge box. I've put a couple through in the past and they haven't change the information. Who knows.

Maybe the feedback process exists to gauge what actually needs to change? <100 requests and it is ignored.

EDIT

After I posted this I made a feedback request and immediately received this back from Google:

"Thank you for submitting feedback for Ehud Reiter.

We're currently processing other feedback related to this topic so the changes you requested might already be underway.

Here’s your submission:

====================

He is not Israeli.

====================

If accepted, this suggested edit will be added to the Knowledge Graph, where it will help Google return richer information and more meaningful results to users’ queries. Your submission is governed by Google's Terms of Service and will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy. If you are the authorized representative for this entity, please review these guidelines on the process to get verified."

jnbiche9• 8 years ago

I would say in most cases you could make the leap that someone born somewhere is an X computer scientist.

In most countries of the world, this is not the case. As a general rule, only the countries North/South America practice ius soli, or birthright citizenship.

jccalhoun• 8 years ago

I hate it when people call being wrong "lying." This is a semantic argument. He was born there so it could be argued that Israeli is technically accurate. I hate it when people call being wrong "lying."

gnud2• 8 years ago

According to the author, he was asked by Google to give feedback on the info they had about him. He did, and they ignored it.

What will it take before you consider them to be lying?

paulcole• 8 years ago

How does Google know he’s not lying?

anonytrary7• 8 years ago

That's not the definition of lying. Lying is about intent. If you keep using that word wrong, you'll end up saying something that isn't true. Are you lying?

Being wrong is not the same thing as lying, or else everything wrong becomes lying and the word "lying" loses its meaning. No one wants to be wrong. That is where intent comes into play.

kurtisc• 8 years ago

It's the same for the liar paradox:

'The sentence below is true

The sentence above is a lie'

Well no, it just means one is wrong. Though I imagine the philosophic roots had more nuance than the sci-fi that came from it.

alistairSH2• 8 years ago

Being wrong once without intent to be wrong is not lying.

In this case, Google continues to repeat wrong information long after being corrected multiple times. At this point, it's fair to say they are lying.

anonytrary7• 8 years ago

It's not lying. Maybe it's being wrong, maybe it's negligence, but it's not lying. It's not like they're trying to display the wrong information. The algorithm isn't a person. It's not as simple as saying "oh, our algorithm messed up, we'll kindly tell it to say that you live over there from now on".

I wouldn't call it lying, I'd call it a sub-optimal algorithm design.

orionblastar• 8 years ago

Wikipedia and Buzzfeed and other websites suffer from being wrong as well. Trying to get a bias in the news to get more clicks that might be wrong.

At what point does it become fake news or just being wrong?

benologist• 8 years ago

What's the difference between lying vs being wrong when your platform generated over $100 billion in savings but you refuse to pay for the same kind of routine customer support that allows many other companies to fix mistakes for their customers?

jnbiche9• 8 years ago

Israel doesn't have birthright citizenship, so calling him Israeli is not technically accurate.

But I agree that Google is almost certainly not lying, which implies intent. They're simply wrong.

Lazare2• 8 years ago

As noted in the article, it could be also be argued that Ted Cruz is a well-known Canadian politician, but at some point you move from "technically right" to just "wrong", and I think that easily passes it. Ted Cruz is not a Canadian politician, and it's not even technically accurate to say he is.

(The distinction between being "wrong" and "lying" I'll grant you, but I suspect the author is a bit peeved, and should be excused for using hyperbolic language when being ignored by Google's famously amazing customer service.)

threatofrain• 8 years ago

So what is the distinction anyway between lying and being wrong?

Is the dividing line between wrong and "plain lying" whether someone has cold customer service? Is that why my buggy programs are just wrong, whereas Google is engaged in dishonesty? Or is hyperbole just dishonesty here.

pie_hacker• 8 years ago

I do not understand why you hate this. Making a false statement is lying, at least in my playbook.

That the argument is semantic is irrelevant. It may be the case that Google is only wrong because of a technicality, but they are wrong nevertheless. (Unless you believe that Google is right and the author is actually Israeli, but that is a different discussion.)

Kalium• 8 years ago

In vernacular usage, the act of lying requires intent. Is it perhaps possible that Parent is trying to communicate a difference between intentional false statements, commonly called lies, and unintentional false statements, commonly called being wrong?

If someone is incorrect about the time when you ask, it's possible they are deliberately misleading you. It's also possible they are not, and their clock is also incorrect. Would you consider both cases to be lying?

WhitneyLand2• 8 years ago

For anyone else curious.

I'm not sure, but a cursory search suggests it's perfectly fine to publicly lie about a private citizen with no recourse, as long as you avoid financial or related damages?

"In order to determine the damages from a slander or libel suit, there must be quantifiable damages. Defamation of character damages a person’s or company’s reputation, and it must be proven that the damage to reputation correlated with a loss of money, property, relationship or was subject to harassment that led to any of the above losses."

https://thelawdictionary.org/article/when-to-sue-for-defamat...

greenyoda2• 8 years ago

It may be "perfectly fine" in terms of legal repercussions, but there are also ethical considerations. If someone knowingly makes false statements about someone else, they would rightfully be regarded as unethical and untrustworthy.

WhitneyLand2• 8 years ago

You're very sweet. How about telling them something like...

Pardon me, Mr. Google and Mr. <consider who you're dealing with in these scenarios>, how are you sir? Would you kindly consider not publishing false statements about me?

Of course you may not be compelled to do so. However as a gentleman I'm sure you would ageee the ethical and trust implications are philosophically untenable. Therefore I assume you are intrinsically highly motivated to immediately take corrective action. Thank you!

Regarding the first sentence, please take it at face value. If that's your point of view I'd be glad to count you as a friend if you'd have me - ping anytime.

However, I'd probably not guess well how long Ehud will have to remain an Israeli computer scientist.

robbrown4512• 8 years ago

I think it is far less an issue of faulty AI and more an issue of Google ignoring requests to change information about someone when that person notifies them that it is incorrect.

It's one thing to show things in search results, a very different thing to have a little box saying "We Google have deduced that this is true." They should take more responsibility.

In my opinion they should be required to do something about it. It is very similar to how you can tell google your privacy is invaded by something on Google Maps and they will fix it (with blurring, in that case).

mqus• 8 years ago

Actually, there already is a (EU) law for it, it is called GDPR[1] and within it, you have a right to let businesses correct personal information about you.

[1]https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... See Article 5, Paragraph 1d and 2 and Article 16

caf• 8 years ago

...and as a UK citizen, the author should have no problem making such a request.

O1111OOO• 8 years ago

Sent (very unkind) feedback to Google via the infobox that appears for Ehud Reiter[0]. It's about time Google developes a mechanism for handling cases like these and so many others (like all the cases where people lose access to their accounts completely).

We shouldn't need legislation or lawsuits.

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=Ehud%20Reiter

Lazare2• 8 years ago

Coincidentally, I just ran across someone else trying (and failing) to get Google to update a similar incorrect line in their knowledge graph. In this case, the person is fairly well known on YouTube, and their profession line should almost certainly read "Canadian YouTuber" (as the profession line for all of her peers does), but instead it reads "Actress", which is pretty odd and inaccurate. (You could make an argument that someone who posts content on YouTube is technically an actor/actress, but that's a very uncommon usage, and as with OP, misleads much more that it conveys useful information. And again, Google, who owns YouTube, clearly prefers to label prominent YouTubers as <nationality> YouTuber.)

In her case she apparently got a response saying "our systems don't allow us to fix this type of error", she escalated, then she got a response saying "good news, it's fixed!", but it's not fixed.

If Google is just summarising info from other sources (and in many cases, they just repeat what Wikipedia has), that's fine, but in cases (as here) where they're acting as an independent source of truth, they really need some process for fixing mistakes...

puzzle• 8 years ago

Interestingly, Google gets it right about Terry Gilliam. He was famous also for being the only non-British Monty Python, but he became a citizen and gave up his American passport.

He's listed as "British screenwriter". I guess you could argue that he's that, sure, but a director first, so it doesn't get this one exactly right, either, but for different reasons. Anyway, although British is technically right, I'm probably not the only one that will forever consider him American.

BTW, the Wikipedia snippet underneath says "Terrence Vance Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor, comedian and former member of the Monty Python comedy troupe." Makes you wonder...

sohkamyung• 8 years ago

For reference, author Greg Egan also had troubles with getting Google to stop putting up incorrect information on him, including photos of other people named Greg Egan on his profile [1]

[1] http://www.gregegan.net/ESSAYS/GOOGLE/Google.html

Google: Please Stop Telling Lies About Me

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