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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday September 25 2018, @06:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the subtle-influences dept.

Days after the Trump administration instituted a controversial travel ban in January 2017, Google employees discussed ways they might be able to tweak the company's search-related functions to show users how to contribute to pro-immigration organizations and contact lawmakers and government agencies, according to internal company emails.

The email traffic, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, shows that employees proposed ways to "leverage" search functions and take steps to counter what they considered to be "islamophobic, algorithmically biased results from search terms 'Islam', 'Muslim', 'Iran', etc." and "prejudiced, algorithmically biased search results from search terms 'Mexico', 'Hispanic', 'Latino', etc."

The email chain, while sprinkled with cautionary notes about engaging in political activity, suggests employees considered ways to harness the company's vast influence on the internet in response to the travel ban. Google said none of the ideas discussed were implemented.

"These emails were just a brainstorm of ideas, none of which were ever implemented," a company spokeswoman said in a statement. "Google has never manipulated its search results or modified any of its products to promote a particular political ideology—not in the current campaign season, not during the 2016 election, and not in the aftermath of President Trump's executive order on immigration. Our processes and policies would not have allowed for any manipulation of search results to promote political ideologies."

wsj.com/articles/google-workers-discussed-tweaking-search-function-to-counter-travel-ban-1537488472


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @06:48PM (15 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @06:48PM (#739809)

    that would be another story indeed. We would manipulate the shit out of results!

  • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday September 25 2018, @07:24PM (14 children)

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 25 2018, @07:24PM (#739826) Journal

    What's it even mean to manipulate the results now? It's already an opaque multi-dimensional algorithm that's designed to optimize some unknown set of variables.

    If you add a "reduce results that promote racism/bigotry" is that meaningfully different from "reduce results that promote conspiracies/pseudoscience" that they already do? That's not a rhetorical question, what actually defines unfair versus fair meddling in this already hyper-complex space where we just trust a giant corporation to give us the best* results for what we ask for.

    *violations against US copyright laws need not apply.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by DannyB on Tuesday September 25 2018, @07:51PM (5 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 25 2018, @07:51PM (#739842) Journal

      I remember SEO scammer manipulators that would game Google's search algorithm. Google would tweak their algorithm to not be manipulated and send all SEO pages to the bottom where they belong. So "Search King" sued. Google argued, and court agreed that search results are Google's opinion about what Google's users want in response to any particular query. That opinion might also include that the SEO pages do not belong at the top. Google has a 1st amendment right to express this opinion through its search results.

      (NOTE: my negative opinion of the term SEO was formed by events similar to the above.)

      Now suppose Google believes users want search results that don't promote racismm, bigotry, sexism, mysogeny, homophobia, treason or nazis.

      Is it political manipulation of the search results, or just good business on Google's part to exercise its right to give users what Google believes they want.

      The great thing about the intarweb tubes is that if you don't like Google's results, you can try to find, or even create your own search engine more to your liking. If other people share your view, then your search engine would get more traffic. See Conservapedia which has facts more to some people's liking.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday September 25 2018, @09:00PM (3 children)

        by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Tuesday September 25 2018, @09:00PM (#739867) Homepage Journal

        like providing a Site Description that is 160 characters or less so it's not truncated in the search results. That enables searches to more-effectively decide whether to visit the page.

        Using simple natural language words in URL pathnames like "../jam/strawberry.html" that are directly related to the content.

        Keyword stuffing hasn't worked in years.

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:54PM (2 children)

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:54PM (#740138) Journal

          > There really is a good kind of SEO

          IMO, no.

          They need to come up with a word that is not forever tainted.

          SEO stinks to high heaven of scam, deceit, gaming the system, and manipulation in order to perpetrate "dodgy" web sites.

          SEO is not the same thing as a best practice to make a site more transparent so that search engines can better classify it, and who would be interested in it.

          Just my opinion. But I'm not alone in that view. When I read about sites that want to practice SEO, I cringe, and might even stop reading if I haven't yet formed the opinion that the site in question is respectable and simply doesn't know how tainted SEO is.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
          • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:48PM (1 child)

            by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:48PM (#740217) Homepage
            A stance that there's no such thing as good SEO is similar to a stance that there's no good SJWs. Superficially true, but there's the occasional Pankhurst or King. Any field that invites and encourages abuse and deceit is going to end up pretty toxic, but there's nothing that actually obliges you to corrupt yourself so.
            --
            Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
            • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:22PM

              by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:22PM (#740358) Journal

              It's like a stance that there is no good SPAM.

              The word is entirely tarnished.

              Is it possible to legitimately use email in business? I think so.

              --
              People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday September 25 2018, @09:03PM

        by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Tuesday September 25 2018, @09:03PM (#739870) Homepage Journal

        -"

        That's why I created Soggy Jobs: craigslist and the like our filled with stuff like "Our client is seeking a rockstar" without identifying the actual client. That means the only way to determine whether you'd want to work there is to actually apply. By linking directly to each company's own job posts my user can limit their applications to only those companies they've already checked out.

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:29AM (7 children)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:29AM (#739983) Homepage Journal

      "What is the user trying to find" vs. "What do we want the user to find". Adjusting for the former is what users want. Adjusting for the latter will piss them off. I'm amazed you couldn't figure this out on your own. You usually speak like you've put at least some thought into $the_matter.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:59PM (6 children)

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:59PM (#740140) Journal

        If a search engine is not optimizing for what the user is trying to find, then ultimately they are self defeating. And indeed Google, like the life cycle of many other companies, may eventually jump the shark. Users will find something else. It will be a gradual shift. There isn't one single day where you can point to when it happened. Ten years ago I was saying the same thing would happen to Microsoft. There would be a tipping point. It would be obvious that Microsoft's best days would be behind it and not ahead of it. And I said there would be no single identifyable day this occurred. Like a grayscale gradient from white to black. Which point on the gradient is where it instantly switched from white to black?

        I hope Google continues to focus on what the user is trying to find. But I can accept that they might not. They may have crossed that point already. It's difficult to say.

        There are alternatives. Think how FireFox gradually took all of IE's market share -- a thing that seemed incredible, even impossible, yet it happened.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
        • (Score: 2, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:38PM (5 children)

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:38PM (#740160) Homepage Journal

          Exactly. Search engines are entirely too easy to make and host for monopoly to ever be a worry. Lessen your quality of service at your own peril.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:09PM (4 children)

            by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:09PM (#740186) Journal

            Your new, fair, search engine might not take the market overnight. And Google might recognize the competition and mend its ways -- which doesn't help your project to be successful. So now there is a potential cycle.

            10. Monopolist starts to become abusive
            20. Open competition starts to become a threat
            30. People start using the competition
            40. Monopolist pretends to be nice again
            50. Most people come back to the monopolist.
            60. GOTO 10

            With each iteration, the competition gains more users. Unless, the competition is wiped out on each iteration, or even only some iterations.

            However this didn't seem to work for Microsoft. Linux won. Open Source won. Microsoft is now trying to embrace.

            --
            People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
            • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:09PM

              by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:09PM (#740187) Journal

              I suppose I could have added:

              70. PROFIT

              --
              People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:27PM (2 children)

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:27PM (#740330) Homepage Journal

              Monopolist doesn't mean "has all the customers", it means controls the supply of $product/$service. Google doesn't and can't for search engines. Google isn't on top because they can control what people search for, it's on top because they have a reputation for providing the most relevant results very quickly. Having to repair a reputation they've damaged if they want to keep users is the market functioning precisely as intended.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:29PM (1 child)

                by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:29PM (#740366) Journal

                I don't disagree.

                Another factor that contributes to Google being on top is that it is the path of least resistance. Since I've used it for ages, it took me a while to try another the duck thing. Then a while to bookmark it. Then a while to make a habit of it. Even thought I still use Google search a lot.

                Google also has built a moat around its castle. A 250 mile wide moat. (not length but width) That moat is all of its other free services. Gmail. Keep. Docs. Drive. News. Android play store, with cloud backups. Etc.

                Basically the same factors that keep people locked into Microsoft. Not just inertia. But deep hooks into a lot of things that would have to be changed.

                --
                People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
                • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:42PM

                  by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:42PM (#740454) Homepage Journal

                  Eh, it's not as wide as you think. Most of the stuff they have besides Android and YouTube is garbage compared to other free services or products out there. Just Android the OS, mind you, not the Google apps.

                  --
                  My rights don't end where your fear begins.