Do Not Trust Google

https://lukeboyle.com/blog-posts/2020/08/do-not-trust-google

by DlSGUSTING • 6 years ago

61 36 6 years ago

paulcole• 6 years ago

As people increasingly are using search to navigate the web (as opposed to typing a URL into the address bar), this traffic increases, those people see more ads, Google makes more money.

Pardon my ignorance but I thought all of Googles search advertising was pay per click and not pay per impression?

jay_kyburz• 6 years ago

The ads appear above search results and so are often clicked on.

rbecker• 6 years ago

Google puts ads organic search results, so there's a good chance your users will click your ad instead of the search result. And if you don't advertise, then your ad-buying competitors will show up in search results ahead of your own site, if your site shows up at all: https://old.reddit.com/r/google/comments/gvdsu1/entire_googl...

bergstromm466• 6 years ago

"- what kind of users go to that websites (and does the user searching fit that profile)?

- how much traffic does the website get?

- how relevant the content is to the search term (SEO magic)?

- and, most importantly, does this website fit an acceptable narrative?"

Google analytics seems like a real trojan horse. Surveillance with a side of analytics. Google benefits much more from such a product themselves, compared to the site owner/manager, who supposedly gets thses analytics 'for free'. It's all such a clever and deceptive trick: "just install this small GA snippet and maybe use our tag manager and get detailed insights". I know it's nothing new, but sometimes it just dawns on me how socially accepted all this trickery has become...

DlSGUSTING7• 6 years ago

Yeah absolutely, GA is quite terrifying. And they just ignore "do not track" settings on browsers. Recaptcha is another one trojan horse imo. With recaptcha v3 you get that single score to determine how legitimate of a user you are. I've been outright blocked from sites because of my recaptcha score.

joe-collins• 6 years ago

You don't have to agree with them politically to see that Google is applying different standards to conservative content than to more liberal content.

Or, perhaps a balanced set of standards is being applied, and the author's Overton Window is off-kilter, and the supposedly "(merely) conservative" content described therein remains outside of the actually-balanced metric for search ranking?

(Granting, yes, perfect balance for any actor or reference frame is impossible; and accepting that some degree of filtering-scare-quotes-censorship is a positive, pro-social quality in a search engine.)

cowpig• 6 years ago

Yeah... using Breitbart as an example was really unconvincing.

I recently spent an hour of my life trying to convince an acquaintance that a video she found on breitbart claiming the "Frontline Doctors of America" were fighting to expose a conspiracy to suppress a 100% effective covid-19 cure was faked.

That's not "conservative" content, that's propaganda that puts people people in imminent physical danger.

burke_holland• 6 years ago

This is exactly the problem, though. By suppressing this stuff, they validate the narrative that “THEY don’t want you to know the truth” (whoever the hell they is). This stuff doesn’t go away. It just migrates to different platforms and every time it’s taken down it gains credibility among the faithful.

This is the current paradox that plagues us.

ghthor2• 6 years ago

How was that 3 hours of lectures by doctors faked, I'm curious. What about it was fake, and what about it was putting anyone In danger?

DlSGUSTING7• 6 years ago

I guess what I'm getting at there is, content aside, Google has made a conscious decision to step in here and de-rank that website. We don't know what their motivations for that are because they haven't stated that they de-ranked Breitbart.

Sundar Pichai was asked during testimony if they censor websites and he said (wording might be a bit off) "only in cases where it's a legal requirement or a copyright issue". If Breitbart being de-ranked was one of those then I'm sure they would have let Breitbart know. But as far as I can tell it was a concerted effort to suppress that website in particular.

If you come across any data about other sites that are similarly affected I'd love to know!

panarky• 6 years ago

Funny how people go all conspiracy on Google, with zero evidence, when we have actual evidence of known right-wing Facebook executives personally intervening to delete misinformation strikes against Breitbart et al.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/facebook...

This seems like a legitimate HN story but it was flagged to oblivion when it was posted yesterday.

Don't talk to me about cancel culture.

dundarious• 6 years ago

invidio.us appears to be shutting down, which is a shame, as I was happy to learn there was a sort of startpage.com for youtube.

DlSGUSTING7• 6 years ago

Yeah that's unfortunate. Seems like the maintainer is feeling burned out.

invidiou.site is another instance you can import your invidious data to

mgkimsal2• 6 years ago

"If you believe in a free and open internet then you have to agree this is wrong."

I don't have to agree. Perhaps it was 'wrong' before that Breitbart ranked as high as they did earlier.

I can still go to Breitbart.com - no one is stopping me from going there. No one is stopping them from setting up their servers, hosting their content, and doing all that stuff. They don't get as much 'free' exposure via google as they used to. Other sites now get more visibility. So what? If BB kept their 'visibility' in the search index, every search result they show up in is taking space from a different site that might have shown up instead. Why are they owed anything from google? Google changes their algorithms, and there's more content to compete with too.

If we make some sort of assumption that google's algorithms get modified or perhaps simply adapt to the audience's searches, perhaps... there's less appetite for Breitbart content and ideas across google's user base, and them ranking lower years down the road isn't some grand left-wing conspiracy, but a company serving the needs and desires of its users?

DlSGUSTING7• 6 years ago

I see where you're coming from. In my opinion the search engine shouldn't take a stance when it comes to politics, though. They claimed they only step in when it's illegal content or copyright, but I haven't seen any evidence of them removing left-leaning sites in this fashion.

I can't prove that what Google did specifically targeted Breitbart but if it was just changes to the algo then we should have seen other popular sites with similarly dramatic drops in visibility. I'd love to see other examples if they do exist

AstralStorm4• 6 years ago

If a search engine should not take a stance, then who also should not? Publishers? (Incl. YouTube, which takes some big stances.) Libraries? Social media? Governments?!

Everything is political in some form after all.

thu21114• 6 years ago

Impressive mental backflips.

Appetite for stories doesn't drop overnight like in those graphs. You're in denial - Google is censoring search results to try and manipulate your mind.

mgkimsal2• 6 years ago

Look at the graph in 2012 - it spiked UP a huge percent in a very short time. Then again in 2015 - looks like visibility doubled in 6 months. Was that 'deserved'? Was that 'censoring' other sites?

ezluckyfree• 6 years ago

this is some pretty enlightened centrist content

amanaplanacanal• 6 years ago

There's plenty of evidence to suggest that Google is manually making these decisions to block conservative websites

So show us the evidence.

DlSGUSTING7• 6 years ago

I'll add some more sources to support that claim, but the main one would be about the Google exec meeting after Trump got elected. https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/13/media/google-leaked-video-t...

Haven't vetted this source but I believe it's the right one

thu21114• 6 years ago

The graphs of traffic flatlining overnight aren't convincing evidence to you?

There are definitely blacklists. Here's one that was leaked for news in "Google Now" (aka assistant/suggested stories):

https://pv-uploads1.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2019/08/news-bl...

See the bottom section labelled, "sites flagged for peddling hoax stories".

johnnujler2• 6 years ago

Withdraw unto yourself and your immediate/close community.

AstralStorm4• 6 years ago

Sure, and then when they are wrong you go down with the ship, oblivious.

johnnujler2• 6 years ago

Hmmm... Btw that was a joke to showcase the universality of trade-offs. And the idea that you do you and with that comes the responsibility to bear the consequences. Anyway be well.

rvieira• 6 years ago

Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but perhaps a site trying to seriously discuss bias against Breitbart shouldn't use :ok: as a favicon.

Do Not Trust Google

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