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posted by martyb on Monday July 01 2019, @12:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the Google-Biasing-Results? dept.

[Editor's note: This story has an interesting viewpoint given the proliferation of "Deep Fake" videos we recently covered here. I see it as a portent of discussions to come. How much can we trust reporting? How much slanting and posturing of "reports" and "studies" are going to be promulgated in the lead-up to the next presidential election? Is this item all a bunch of crap or an indication of things we can expect to come? How much can we trust, and how to we go about assessing the veracity of what is presented to us by not only the main-stream media, but also social media, too? We hereby disclaim any assurance as to the credibility of the accusations made here and present it solely as an example of what may be coming -- and an opportunity to practice techniques at validating/corroborating or challenging/refuting it. The story submission appears after the break.]

NOTE TO READERS - this is scummy content and scummy journalism, at best. That said, it is news, as the story has been commented on by two congressional questionings and the president. Ugh.

Congressional testimony and comments by the president are being made on a Project Veritas video/report, which details how Google biases their search results to favor certain political narratives. REP Dan Crenshaw (TX) and SEN Ted Cruz (TX) have made comments on the Google reports (link below). President Trump made the comment "they're trying to rig the election".

Basically, Project Veritas had an internal whistleblower at Google who detailed how they bias content against conservative sources. The leaked internal project documents (which may be fake) present a relatively technical discussion on how to bias existing trained neural networks. These are somewhat correlated with leaked internal E-mails (which may be fake) describing how the algorithms are modified to create more 'fair' results as part of "search engine fairness". The whistleblower was interviewed, but their face was masked and voice changed (may as well be fake). This is then correlated against a certainly-illegally-obtained-and-selectively-edited interview with a Google executive, which appears to be at a hotel bar from Project Veritas "undercover" agent. This was all combined into a report from Project Veritas that indicates that Google is politically biasing search results as a byproduct of algorithmic tampering and human influence. Ugh.

Predictably, the Project Veritas video was banned everywhere (YouTube, Reddit, Twitter), with accounts suspended/banned from certain platforms. Some people would say that it is an attempt to silence the "report". Some other people would say that this "report" is dubious at best. I think reasonable people would say, at a minimum, posting illegally-obtained material to the internet warrants a ban. Personally - if Veritas wants to do this 'reporting' then it needs to *report* - and not produce material that is illegally obtained or fake.

Original Source: https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/06/24/insider-blows-whistle-exec-reveals-google-plan-to-prevent-trump-situation-in-2020-on-hidden-cam/
Summary: https://thinkprogress.org/trump-believes-google-is-trying-to-rig-the-election-project-veritas-video-cb82f03caee3/
Washintgon Times: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jun/24/google-exec-project-veritas-sting-says-only-big-te/
Congressional Testimony: (1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueCMWBixP4Y (2) https://youtu.be/ik_kzn3etsE?t=44

Final note:
Among other things, the "leaked internal E-mails" indicate that Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, and Dennis Prager are Nazis. At the time of writing, this "story" was picked up by Fox News, TheBlaze, and the Washington Times, according to duckduckgo News ( https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jordan+peterson+nazi&iar=news&ia=news ). This "story" doesn't exist according to Google News ( https://www.google.com/search?q=jordan+peterson+nazi&source=lnms&tbm=nws ). The combination of the report, its details, and my own observations when comparing against DDG results have influenced me to switch my search engine to DDG rather than Google. Something is going on.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Spamalope on Monday July 01 2019, @04:19PM (4 children)

    by Spamalope (5233) on Monday July 01 2019, @04:19PM (#862013) Homepage

    Jordan Peterson is popular with Nazis because he pushes the idea that the people who are in charge are in charge because they're among other things genetically better than those who aren't

    You write that while bashing the veracity of anyone else? What chutzpah. You're opinion of him must either be based on smears other people made or be dishonest. The guy's body of work could be summarized as 'Why authoritarianism is murderous; exploring WTF is wrong with human psychology that lets that happen and how to avoid it.' Part of that is describing what actually happens, including the fact that psychopathy is a common trait among leaders - as a warning (there is no praise anywhere). He goes on to detail social structures that limit the power of psychopaths emphasizing their importance for this reason.

    I see people agitating for centralized control of social discourse attacking him because he became a lighting rod when he opposed compelled speech. Compelled speech and suppression of dissenting speech are two of the things authoritarians need to get, so it's not a shock he'd refuse to comply. Branding him as authoritarian is rich. Especially right authoritarian. The guys a liberal.

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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday July 01 2019, @04:58PM (3 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Monday July 01 2019, @04:58PM (#862055)

    Branding him as authoritarian is rich.

    His famous (or infamous depending on how you read him) "lobster argument" boils down to: Lobsters have hierarchies of obedience, and are hard-wired to try to gain more control in those hierarchies. Human brains are like lobster brains in the way that matter for forming hierarchies. Ergo, humans should have hierarchies of obedience, and anyone saying differently is denying human nature.

    That's not the argument of an anti-authoritarian. (It's also not accurate about the evolutionary relationship between humans and lobsters, but that's irrelevant to this point.)

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @01:15AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @01:15AM (#862240)

      Even if your simplistic summary of the lobster argument is correct, you really need to learn the difference between IS and OUGHT .

      Arguing that something is true is not an endorsement of the morality or ethics of that truth.

    • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @01:43AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @01:43AM (#862247)

      His "famous" lobster argument is apparently not famous enough for you to actually know what it is.

      humans should have hierarchies of obedience

      Find me a quote where he says that or just accept that you are parroting your favorite political propaganda.

      If you have any allegiance to the truth, you should wonder why is left (and not just far-left) so hell-bent on assassinating a professor's character who is literally talking about science.