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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

Related Stories

U.S. House Intelligence Committee Holds Hearing on "Deepfakes", Warns of "Post-Truth Future" 39 comments

House holds hearing on "deepfakes" and artificial intelligence amid national security concerns

The House Intelligence Committee heard from experts on the threats that so-called "deep fake" videos and other types of artificial intelligence-generated synthetic data pose to the U.S. election system and national security at large. Witnesses at Thursday's hearing included professors from the University of Maryland, University at Buffalo and other experts on AI and digital policy.

In a statement, the committee says it aims to "examine the national security threats posed by AI-enabled fake content, what can be done to detect and combat it, and what role the public sector, the private sector, and society as a whole should play to counter a potentially grim, 'post-truth' future," during Thursday's hearing.

[...]In his opening remarks, Committee chair Rep. Adam Schiff said the spread of manipulated videos presents a "nightmarish" scenario for the 2020 presidential elections -- leaving lawmakers, members of the news media and public "struggling to discern what is real and what is fake."

Schiff urged that "now is the time for social media companies to put in place policies to protect users from misinformation, not in 2021 after viral deepfakes have polluted the 2020 elections. By then, it will be too late."

See also: Deepfake videos could 'spark' violent social unrest
Lawmakers grapple with deepfake threat at hearing
'AI is not the cause, it's an accelerant. The pace of change is challenging' Experts give Congress deepfakes straight dope
Deepfake Video of Mark Zuckerberg Goes Viral on Eve of House A.I. Hearing

Previously: House Intelligence Committee to Hold Hearing on "Deepfakes"


Original Submission

"Deep Nude" App Removed By Developers After Brouhaha 27 comments

Katyanna Quach over at El Reg is reporting on the removal of the DeepNude Web and desktop apps from the developers' website. DeepNude is an application that takes photos of clothed women (apparently, the app does not function properly with photos of males -- there's a shocker!), digitally removes clothing and adds realistic looking naughty bits.

From the article:

A machine-learning-powered perv super-tool that automagically removed clothes from women in photos to make them appear naked has been torn offline by its makers.

The shamefaced creators of the $50 Windows and Linux desktop app DeepNude claimed they were overwhelmed by demand from internet creeps: the developers' servers apparently buckled under a stampede of downloads, their buggy software generated more crash reports than they could deal with, and this all came amid a firestorm of social media outrage.

[...] Basement dwellers and trolls could feed it snaps of celebrities, colleagues, ex-girlfriends, and anyone else who takes their fancy, and have the software guess, somewhat badly, what they look like underneath their clothes, keeping their faces intact. These bogus nudes are perfect for distributing around the 'net to humiliate victims.

Former Google Employee Leaks Docs to Project Veritas, Claims Google Initiated Wellness Check[Repost] 148 comments

[Ed note: This story was originally posted 2019-08-15 04:41 UTC but was lost when we had the site crash Thursday morning. Prior comments have, unfortunately, been lost. --martyb]

'Google Blocked TorrentFreak From Appearing in Search Feature'

Documents released by whistleblower Zachary Vorhies suggests that Google actively blocked hundreds of sites, including TorrentFreak, from its Google Now service. The blocklist doesn't provide a specific reason for the blockade, but other sites are flagged for having a high user block rate or for peddling hoax stories. Vorhies has shared the documents with the US Department of Justice.

At TorrentFreak, we have written hundreds of articles about website blocking and censorship. Today, we're featured in one ourselves.

Leaked Google documents reveal that TorrentFreak.com shows up in one of Google's previously unknown blocklists, which actively hides our domain from the Google Now service.

Google Now was a Google search feature that presented users with informational cards, to provide users with more details on subjects of interest to them. While the brand no longer exists, the feature is still present in the Google Android app and its feed.

The controversial blocklist is part of a treasure trove of files that were leaked by whistleblower Zachary Vorhies, who shared them with Project Veritas. The entire collection of files uncovers many previously unknown policies and actions from Google.

The story that broke SoylentNews™.

See also (Zachary Vorhies in the news): YouTube Software Engineer Describes Seeing Altercation In Building Courtyard
America's Greatest Makers is like American Idol for geeks, so we talked to one

Previously: Veritas Claims Leaked Internal E-Mails from Google Showing Political Bias of Results


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @01:22PM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @01:22PM (#861907)

    Stay away from Google, Facebook, Twitter, and all the rest of those companies that offer you "free" services. Their entire purpose is to spy on you and manipulate you.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday July 01 2019, @02:13PM (8 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 01 2019, @02:13PM (#861929) Journal

      Their entire purpose is to make money. That is done, of course, by spying on you and manipulating you.

      The fact that their purpose is to make money, and that they are giving you "free" services seems contradictory -- unless those "free" services are part of how they make money. Nothing new. Just like Network TV back in the 1960's and 70's. By the late 1970's it was so bad most people were sick of it and anxious for the promise of cable tv. But once again, advertising, as it does with every medium it ever touches, turned cable tv into a vast wasteland.

      Since Google, Facebook, Twitter are tied up with advertising, is it any surprise what will inevitably happen to them?

      Just look at what advertising has done to every medium it has ever touched in the past century.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 3, Touché) by Gaaark on Monday July 01 2019, @03:40PM

        by Gaaark (41) on Monday July 01 2019, @03:40PM (#861984) Journal

        The medium is the tracking.
        --Marshall McLuhanGaaark

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by Spamalope on Monday July 01 2019, @04:51PM (3 children)

        by Spamalope (5233) on Monday July 01 2019, @04:51PM (#862044) Homepage

        The purpose was to win the competition to make money. They have. Now it's 'make the world better' aka make everyone's politics ours or else. Thus the ideological purity tests.

        I'm seeing this happen to liberal commentator Tim Pool, as soon as he started talking about bad behavior on the extreme left as well as right. (auto unsubbed; not showing in feed; not showing in suggested - whereas they had been before the mass change)

        I watched Jordan Peterson's psych lectures a few years before controversy made him a public figure. He's got good material about authoritarianism - not 'it's bad' but why it is, why it's a danger and the things that have worked to counter it. Also what's going on today that's a danger. (ex: teaching about left authoritarian genocide removed from Western schools - Holocaust yes; Holodomor, Great Leap Forward no)

        His lectures showed up in my feed normally until he had recognition, then when he was trending he disappeared instead of being featured.

        I'm seeing the blandest of bland content removed and the author smeared. A lawyer who covers the legal aspects of current events. He covered the deposition of Alex Jones with a 'even if you have a good case, you still have to prepare aka don't give the defendant room to weasel' vlog because the lawyer suing made mistakes he wanted to illustrate. Very little was said about Alex himself, and that was all negative. There was nothing even near questionable, it was bland legal explanation. The video was demonitized, confirmed on appeal, then removed with a defamatory message saying the video was removed for hate speech. There is an unwritten rule that some people are unpersons and some topics are untopics. Mention them and things happen. I saw that Scott Adams has been doing A/B testing by saying words or not at the end of his video to determine what some of the 'topics that can't be said' are, and he's getting results.

        All the things I'd see if the allegations were true, I am seeing.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @11:29PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @11:29PM (#862202)

          teaching about left authoritarian genocide removed from Western schools - Holocaust yes; Holodomor, Great Leap Forward no

          They're not being removed because they were left authoritarian, but because they are less important to the Jews.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @04:23AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @04:23AM (#862274)

          There should be more study of the famine, the Left Opposition, Stalinism's reaction to the kulaks, and the founding of the Fourth International.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @11:51AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @11:51AM (#862341)

          I'm not sure why you're currently modded flamebait, I'm not from the US, so maybe there are.. erm, dare I say it.. "triggers" in your post that make sense to a US centric mind.

          But what you're saying is absolutely true. Of course, it's always been true.. and the topics that it is 'true' about constantly changes, morphs, and is modified.

          Of course the problem here is that things are very, very difficult to manage. Literally, you just can't censor "bad stuff" correctly. Censorship is censorship, and as soon as you censor the 'delivery mechanism", eg.. Google's platform, you're putting power where it shouldn't be.

          Realistically, Google shouldn't censor. Just like the cable company shouldn't censor. That individuals be just as liable as TV networks used to be. And this is primarily, quite important.. because we may not always have a centralized form of control. Worse, if you censor Google, then it just goes underground anyhow!

          So, either one of two things will likely happen.

          1) More speech censorship. Things like "you can't say this in public" akin to 'swearing' laws in the 1900s. This can, has happened all over the world, including in the US. Doesn't mean you can't speak of such things privately, with I suppose IM clients, chat clients being "private" and public webpages being "like the street". Much like "in your house" and "public forum".

          Note that this is well established. Private and public are different. For example, try having sex on a park bench, or your couch. Big difference.

          2) A fully, non-anonymized internet will appear. Perhaps IP addresses statically assigned to individuals, with massive fines for people appearing anonymously. I'd suspect that many power brokers in the US want just this.

          Amusingly, #2 would actually HURT quite a bit of Google's business model. After all, a lot of their power comes from taking the unknown, and linking it to a person and habits. If the person part is already linked, then it's a lot easier to create a database of habits.

          But anyhow, my point is.. the platform is the wrong place to censor.

      • (Score: 2, Touché) by fustakrakich on Monday July 01 2019, @05:58PM (1 child)

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday July 01 2019, @05:58PM (#862100) Journal

        ust look at what advertising has done to every medium it has ever touched in the past century.

        The Sunday Classifieds are still secure...

        --
        La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 01 2019, @06:04PM

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 01 2019, @06:04PM (#862102) Journal

          Sunday classifieds are not what I had in mind. Touche.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @04:46AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @04:46AM (#862279)

        I definitely would not assume, at this point, that their entire purpose is to make money.

        Google has taken an extremely political trajectory in how the company operates. It's easy to dislike Trump which is unfortunate because that masks what is happening. Google, one of the largest companies in the world, seems to be increasingly overt in their effort to try to decide the outcome of democratic elections. Think about that for a minute. It's easy to say we live in a corporatocracy since corporate money always plays such a big role in elections. But this is going way beyond this and this is not a corporation aiding politicians, but instead a corporation deciding it, itself, will determine who gets to win democratic elections.

        Now pair that with what Google is and has. Google is a company primarily focused on the invasion of individual privacy. This is ostensibly so they can deliver more profitable ads, but regardless they are collecting sensitive information on billions of people. Most of everything you've done on your [Android] phone - Google has. What you've searched for - Google has. Any site you've visited that has Google analytics - Google has it all. And if you were naive enough to use 8.8.8.8 as a domain name server (as I was) - Google has it all. Google has collected embarassing, compromising, and other sorts of information on a large chunk of the entire human species. And now, this same company, is going sharply political.

        Let's assume Google is able to start manipulating democratic elections to fit their desires. Where do those desires take them? I don't think it's to just add a few more zeroes to the accounts of Sergey Brin and Larry Page. One last note on the topic of those two individuals. Many do not seem to know that Google is a public company only on the surface. Much like Zuckerberg and Facebook, Brin and Page organized the share structure of Google into regular shares - which are the ones traded on the market - and exclusive shares which they allocated primarily to themselves with 10x the voting power. Brin and Page, alone, still have majority control of Google. The actions they've taken in recent times are not simply because they're beholden to share holders. Sergey and Larry could take the company in whatever direction they would like. And this is what they've chosen.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @08:15AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @08:15AM (#862317)

      So this Russian guy starts a search engine.... and you don't expect a leftist bent?

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Monday July 01 2019, @01:26PM (50 children)

    Given that James O'Keefe [wikipedia.org] and Project Veritas have repeatedly been caught manipulating photos, video and information [sourcewatch.org], it's hard to see why we should trust *anything* that comes from these folks.

    Not that I trust Google farther than I can kick them, but Project Veritas? Geez Louise!

    I get that this is meant to spur discussion about "Fake News" and how people are presented with information. But can't we at least have some decent counterexamples [cjr.org]?

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by SunTzuWarmaster on Monday July 01 2019, @01:32PM (26 children)

      by SunTzuWarmaster (3971) on Monday July 01 2019, @01:32PM (#861911)

      The representative from Google issues a public statement that indicates that their words were selectively edited. Presumably this means that the words were actually said (and that the whole thing isn't a deepfake).

      Note that the "Peterson Nazi" story was recommended to me by Google Now, but doesn't exist according to Google News. I am convinced that Google is doing *something* to the results.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday July 01 2019, @01:46PM (13 children)

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 01 2019, @01:46PM (#861917) Journal

        I am convinced that Google is doing *something* to the results.

        Google always does *something* to the results. Isn't that their business?

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by SunTzuWarmaster on Monday July 01 2019, @01:51PM (11 children)

          by SunTzuWarmaster (3971) on Monday July 01 2019, @01:51PM (#861919)
          Sure - but in this case it means "explicitly removing the content that I am searching for, which was also previously recommended by Google" (note that the content does exist, and is from Fox News, findable as the first result from DuckDuckGo).
          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday July 01 2019, @02:19PM (10 children)

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 01 2019, @02:19PM (#861934) Journal

            Really, mate, I went over your link in DDG and I obtained a list of exactly 3 results - one from FauxNews, one from The Blaze and the final one from Washington times (so far, smells to me like a tempest in a glass of water, I wonder why should I get all inflamed over such a nothing?)

            So, let me try to apply a modicum of Googlefu like general searching for your terms, but only happening last week [google.com]. Oh, wow, Google doesn't seem to be such a master of concealment.

            So, again, why the heck should I get all triggered and inflamed?

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
            • (Score: 5, Interesting) by SunTzuWarmaster on Monday July 01 2019, @02:43PM (9 children)

              by SunTzuWarmaster (3971) on Monday July 01 2019, @02:43PM (#861947)

              It doesn't seem weird to you that the general Google Search results and the Google News results differ? That the Google Search returns results including the Washington Examiner and Fox News, but that Google News returns neither of these? For news that is already week old?

              And that, when you use Google News to specifically search for news, specifically within the week, the result whose title *literally includes* all of the words is relegated to position 6? This is specifically what you are searching for... that is quite a few hoops to jump through to actually get your result, which, I remind you, is the first result from DDG.

              • (Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Monday July 01 2019, @03:06PM

                by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 01 2019, @03:06PM (#861969) Journal

                It doesn't seem weird to you that the general Google Search results and the Google News results differ?

                Nope. Be it for the reason I don't actually expect whatever happened a week ago to be still classify at news and to find it on the Google news section.

                No, really mate, you may call me weird for it, but I don't even expect that whatever makes the S/N front page is current news or even actual news. Do you?

                --
                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
              • (Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday July 01 2019, @05:09PM (3 children)

                by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday July 01 2019, @05:09PM (#862069) Journal

                And that, when you use Google News to specifically search for news, specifically within the week, the result whose title *literally includes* all of the words is relegated to position 6? This is specifically what you are searching for... that is quite a few hoops to jump through to actually get your result, which, I remind you, is the first result from DDG.

                Have you used Google in the past 15 years or so? Yes, it used to do things like return results with the literal terms you searched for. It hasn't done that in a very long time. Its algorithms are supposed to be "smart," but I fight them all the time, because verbatim search is broken (and has been for nearly a decade) and any attempts to get Google to pay attention to your actual search terms -- rather than what it thinks you mean -- is futile.

                Look, I use search engines for actual research. Anyone who does knows these systems don't behave the way you apparently think they should. It's NOT because Google is trying to hide something by putting down at link #6, rather than #1. It's because the vast majority of people using the internet are morons who type in BS queries and never learned how to use a full-text literal search. So Google has tweaked their algorithms to serve the stupid masses -- guessing that you probably just meant to search for a cat video rather than an intellectual topic -- while making its results useless for people who want to do real research.

                Now, it is possible that in tweaking these AI algorithms, they also put in some sort of bias? Sure, I suppose. But you haven't produced any evidence of that. And generally whenever someone claims this sort of thing, by trying a dozen different ways of searching, you can easily show Google pops up all sorts of different orderings and highlights different sorts of articles. I have yet to see evidence of consistent bias.

                Instead, I see the same crap I always get from Google -- not returning what I literally asked for. That's no surprise. And most of my queries are not political in any way. Google's a crappy search engine if you actually know how to search -- you really didn't know that?

                • (Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @05:16PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @05:16PM (#862075)

                  Yes, there was a paper I was able to easily find a few years ago that found evidence that lung cancer rates increase immediately after people quit smoking.

                  I can no longer find it anywhere, all I find is anti-smoking propaganda.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @07:21PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @07:21PM (#862129)

                  Google stopped returning what I was searching for in the past few years. None of it was political stuff or news either. Literally no way to search for exact things anymore. If its not mainstream, you literally get a sprinkle of relevant results and the rest filled with garbage or worse, no results found.

                  I've had to go back to other search engines like its 1998. On top of their terrible performance they hit me with captchas when using a VPN. Doesn't matter how many times I fill it out, next query I'm always a robot. As soon as the v3 captcha comes out I fully expect to be banned.. and at this point good riddance.

                • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday July 02 2019, @01:51AM

                  by deimtee (3272) on Tuesday July 02 2019, @01:51AM (#862249) Journal

                  I've said pretty much the same for years, but I think it's getting worse too.

                  A couple of years back I switched to DDG for search, and now every few months when I have to switch back to G for a specific search, it is ever harder to get decent results. It's like they aren't just nerfing results for the masses, but are actively trying to destroy targeted search.

                  --
                  If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
              • (Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday July 01 2019, @05:18PM (3 children)

                by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday July 01 2019, @05:18PM (#862076) Journal

                Oh, and by the way:

                It doesn't seem weird to you that the general Google Search results and the Google News results differ?

                Nope, not in the least. Again, I've spent a lot of time fighting Google's BS search algorithms. I first realized how broken Google was maybe 6-7 years ago when I was doing a Google Books search for a few very specific terms in the date range from 1910-1920. It returned maybe 6 hits. I don't know why but a little while later I tried a query from 1910-1915 with the same search terms. I got some NEW hits, and some of the ones from the 1910-1920 search were missing. I went back to the 1910-1920 search range, and it was the same list I got previously. Tried 1915-1920 and again got a different list. In any reasonable search engine, the 1910-20 hit list should obviously be a superset of the smaller lists of dates. Not in Google's world.

                Google's algorithms are simply not literal anymore in any way. They don't behave consistently. They don't obey your queries, even when explicit. They decide what they THINK you want to see. Earlier this year, I specifically wanted to search for news stories prior to a final episode of a TV series to see what people were saying before the episode came out, and when I explicitly gave Google a range only BEFORE date X, at least half of the first page of results was actually from AFTER date X.

                Bottom line: Google is an insanely stupid product that returns completely unreliable and inconsistent results. Noting the order of links is messed up or Google News results differ a bit from the search results is very minor compared to the BS you will see if you actually try to get Google to give you specific results. It's completely broken for real search, so never assume that it should give you results according to what any logical person would think. You'll be disappointed if you try.

                • (Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Monday July 01 2019, @05:33PM (2 children)

                  by Fnord666 (652) on Monday July 01 2019, @05:33PM (#862086) Homepage
                  So is there a better SE that you can recommend to actually find what you're looking for?
                  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday July 01 2019, @06:15PM (1 child)

                    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday July 01 2019, @06:15PM (#862108) Journal

                    No. At least not for general internet search. Obviously if you're doing real research, there are lots of specialized databases, many of which will actual restrict results to terms you literally search for (as well as the fields you want them to be in). Some internet search engines will "take instructions" better than Google. DDG does somewhat better verbatim results than Google, but it too will add things you didn't ask for.

                    If I could have back the Google of pre-2007 or so, I would take it in an instant, especially if it could be applied to new content that has come up since then. Anyone remember Google of that era? You could click on a "cached version" of the target website within Google, and get a version that was stripped of scripts and BS with the search terms highlighted, so you could see right where they were. Obviously this ran afoul of copyright law for Google, so they stopped allowing that. But that was sweet. Fast, smart, included all the stuff I wanted, took out stuff I didn't want when I asked... followed instructions to restrict queries, etc.

                    The problem is Google still seems to win on the size of the database and content front -- there's all sorts of cool stuff in Google Books that is difficult to find elsewhere, if you want older content. If Google Scholar worked with the pre-2007 Google engine configuration, it would probably beat out many academic search engines too. And despite Google's inclusion of nonsense results I don't want, its algorithm to prioritize results still often will put good hits on the first couple pages (when it actually listens to what I ask it for).

                    I don't begrudge Google for trying to optimize results for its largest audience. Ultimately, it wants to sell ads, and I'm sure its algorithm is also optimized sometimes to help do that too.

                    But if I had to pay a fairly large amount to subscribe to Google pre-2007 or so, I'd do it. Definitely worth $100/year, maybe several hundred per year for me even for personal use. It would pay for itself in just a few weeks of decreased frustration and less wasted time. Unfortunately, I don't have that option anymore.

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @11:45PM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @11:45PM (#862210)

                      Search all over the place sucks. Youtube has to be the worst. I've done a lot of legal research in my time -- always hated natural language searches and the waste of time they spit out. Give me boolean searches.

                      ((get w/10 you w/10 want) and (roll* w/5 stone*) and lyrics) not ("[that stupid rap band that dominates the search results but I know I don't want]")

                      where w/x = number of words to span, so the first part of the above would require those three words to appear in a ten word span. Westlaw has an especially nice feature which will find words in sentences or paragraphs -- been awhile since I used Westlaw but I think it went like this: (get /s you /s want) for sentences, /p for paragraphs. Anyway, with wildcards, and, or, parens, not, and span limits, you can find the good shit fast.

        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 01 2019, @01:56PM

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday July 01 2019, @01:56PM (#861921) Journal

          Tuned and tweaked from the beginning. They can get worse though.

          --
          [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Monday July 01 2019, @02:02PM

        As I said, I don't trust Google farther than I can kick them. There may very well be some shenanigans going on, but I'm certainly not going to take James O'Keefe's word for it.

        As you pointed out, this isn't good journalism. Your point about it not being a "deep fake" (has anyone made such a claim?) rings pretty hollow given the levels of manipulation that Project Veritas has used in the past, IMHO.

        For example. If you wanted, you could (and correctly, as they did emanate from my keyboard) say that I said:

        I don't trust Google farther than I can kick them...some shenanigans going on...I'm certainly...going to take James O'Keefe's word for it.

        Those words definitely came from me, but they do not reflect the thoughts I expressed, nor to they accurately represent my point of view. As such, the statement that "the words were actually said," doesn't make me think this is accurate reporting.

        No need for a "deep fake." This just seems like Project Veritas' stock-in-trade. Ask a bunch of questions and stitch the answers together to make them say what you want.

        As for your issues with Google Now, I can't speak to that. Nor am I likely to ever be able to do so, as Google isn't a news source for me. If there is something to it, I suggest not using Google Now.

        --
        No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @02:09PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @02:09PM (#861927)

        It must be a Geo lock or something cause here google news return article for the query you gave.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday July 01 2019, @03:14PM (5 children)

        by Thexalon (636) on Monday July 01 2019, @03:14PM (#861973)

        The representative from Google issues a public statement that indicates that their words were selectively edited. Presumably this means that the words were actually said (and that the whole thing isn't a deepfake).

        "I categorically deny that I have ever been in Cancun, nor have I ever had sex with underage boys."
        "I ... have ... been in Cancun. ... I ... had sex with underage boys."

        Or at the very least you can remove any nuance that might be had. For instance, 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, which conveniently is exactly the belief system the Nazis had developed for why they should be in charge of everything and everyone. It wouldn't take a lot of "selective editing" to turn that into "Jordan Peterson is a Nazi".

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (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.

          • (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.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by captain normal on Monday July 01 2019, @04:16PM

        by captain normal (2205) on Monday July 01 2019, @04:16PM (#862011)

        "I am...a...Nazi."
        Those are your words, from your post. So how can you deny that? Now admittedly that is a rather shallowflake rather than a deepflake scam, but maybe you can now get the point.

        --
        When life isn't going right, go left.
      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 01 2019, @04:31PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 01 2019, @04:31PM (#862025) Journal

        My search for "Peterson Nazi" (in quotes) returned numerous results. I don't know what you were doing wrong. Perhaps you were expecting to find some one particular story?

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 01 2019, @04:44PM

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday July 01 2019, @04:44PM (#862037) Journal

        Let me "selectively edit" SunTzu, here, if I may:

        "the Nazi was me" Those words were actually said by SunTzu!

        See how that works?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @11:07PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @11:07PM (#862194)

        "I am convinced. The ... story ... doesn't exist. The ... words were ... edited. [T]his means ... the whole thing is ... a fake."

        Yeah, I included ellipses to show where I edited, but you can literally make anyone say anything with the right editing. And good luck catching it when they don't show you the originals or where they did said edits.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday July 01 2019, @01:42PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 01 2019, @01:42PM (#861914) Journal

      I get that this is meant to spur discussion about "Fake News" and how people are presented with information. But can't we at least have some decent counterexamples

      Peddling bullshit is such a poor way to start a discussion about anything but, mayyybe, the need of sanitation.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Monday July 01 2019, @01:42PM (13 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday July 01 2019, @01:42PM (#861915) Journal

      repeatedly been caught manipulating photos, video and information

      That source seems to have its own bias.

      At the very least, something like the WaPo Roy Moore attempted sting shouldn't be a surprise since that's how the group works. It does show that they misjudge and underestimate some of their targets. Or in the case of the Open Society Foundations sting, made easily avoidable, amateur hour mistakes.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday July 01 2019, @01:53PM (3 children)

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 01 2019, @01:53PM (#861920) Journal

        That source seems to have its own bias.

        Just from curiosity, tak, have you entered in a competition for "the understatement of the year"? 'Cause, believe me, you have a serious contender just here.

        Really? You expect us to accept a behaviour that goes well beyond lying as "Meh, just a bias"?

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by takyon on Monday July 01 2019, @02:01PM (1 child)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday July 01 2019, @02:01PM (#861924) Journal

          Put down the Foster's, nice and slow.

          --
          [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday July 01 2019, @02:23PM

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 01 2019, @02:23PM (#861937) Journal

            I touched it only once, about 15 years ago.
            Haven't repeated that mistake ever again, 'cause I don't drink piss.

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Farkus888 on Monday July 01 2019, @08:15PM

          by Farkus888 (5159) on Monday July 01 2019, @08:15PM (#862139)

          Semi off topic... When announcing their surrender at the end of WWII, the Japanese emporer said, "It has not gone entirely well for us on the eastern front".

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Monday July 01 2019, @03:17PM (8 children)

        How about the other link [wikipedia.org]?

        Is that "biased" as well?

        I'd also point out that, with a few, possibly hyperbolic, adjectival exceptions, https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Project_Veritas [sourcewatch.org] appears to stick to published news reports, court filings and other public records in their descriptions of the activities of Project Veritas.

        As such, I'm not really clear on the point you're trying to make about SourceWatch. Even this hit piece [washingtonexaminer.com] on them and their parent organzation [wikipedia.org] doesn't claim that they are lying or distorting the facts. They merely claim that their funding sources are progressive individuals and groups.

        No one appears to be saying that anything SourceWatch has published is false or manipulated. Rather, the main complaint seems to be that they are "progressive" or "liberal."

        While that may or may not be true (I have no knowledge either way), I have yet to hear anyone say that Sourcewatch is publishing false information or manipulating information to deceive others. Do you have some evidence that this is the case?

        If so, I'd really like to see it.

        tl;dr: Having a political stance doesn't make you a liar any more than putting salt on your food makes you a stooge for the mining industry.

        --
        No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Monday July 01 2019, @03:56PM (5 children)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday July 01 2019, @03:56PM (#861997) Journal

          All I'm saying is that a lot of the controversies listed relate to how they gather the information. Including lying to targets, breaking wiretap laws, acting like assholes, etc. That doesn't necessarily mean that the information they release is misleading. Some other group could adopt the same methods and produce better results. If you don't accept the "sting" as a valid investigation technique, then you are obviously going to have a problem with Veritas.

          It's safe to say that employees at Google and Facebook believe that they need to alter algorithms to help prevent certain information sources from reaching more people, and that search and timeline algorithms could affect election outcomes. These companies also want to be proactive to avoid new government regulations or worse [nytimes.com].

          --
          [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
          • (Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Monday July 01 2019, @04:20PM (2 children)

            Okay. You (as usual) make a bunch of valid points.

            Given that Project Veritas (PV) has been documented not *just* to use stings and undeclared recordings, but to take those recordings and remix them to make others *appear* to be saying stuff that they're not, doesn't impugn their collection methods, but their manipulation of the information collected to smear others.

            I'd note that I didn't call out PV for their collection methods. I called them out on their disingenuous manipulation of recordings.

            But none of that (nor does your comment to which I'm responding right now) addresses your assertion that SourceWatch's article is somehow "biased." Is there any evidence that it is? Is there any evidence that SourceWatch (SW) engages in printing false and misleading information?

            If there is, as I said, I'd really like to hear about it. In the case of SW's article about PV, there doesn't seem to be anything that's factually incorrect or intended to deceive. Whatever you might think about PV and/or their activities, information from *referenced* and easily checkable sources doesn't imply bias. At least not to me.

            As an aside, I chose that particular link as it contained a fairly comprehensive list of controversial PV projects, rather than digging up a long list of articles in individual links. That saved time and effort.

            It's safe to say that employees at Google and Facebook believe that they need to alter algorithms to help prevent certain information sources from reaching more people, and that search and timeline algorithms could affect election outcomes. These companies also want to be proactive to avoid new government regulations or worse [nytimes.com].

            Please note that I never said that such was or wasn't the case. I don't know. I did, however, say that I didn't trust Google.

            --
            No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
            • (Score: 2, Troll) by takyon on Monday July 01 2019, @05:06PM (1 child)

              by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday July 01 2019, @05:06PM (#862067) Journal

              Right off the bat, they call O'Keefe a "right-wing provocateur", whereas Wikipedia calls him an "American conservative political activist". That sets the tone for the article.

              The worst offense is this section:

              James O'Keefe, Who Pled Guilty in Federal Case, Threatens WI AG Schimel into Flip Flop on Project Veritas Video

              In October 2016 James O'Keefe, a widely discredited video attack dog published video through his group Project Veritas

              Here they present O'Keefe's mugshot and trespass conviction from 2010 even though it has little to do with his group's 2016-2017 Wisconsin activities. It seems like that was put there as a bookend to not end the section with a ("threatened") AG "[appreciating] the work" that Project Veritas does.

              The Wikipedia article is better and has more details of deceptive editing by the group.

              --
              [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
              • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday July 01 2019, @05:39PM

                Fair enough.

                I did say that there was some hyperbolic use of adjectives.

                That aside, it's my understanding that from a practical standpoint, O'Keefe *is* Project Veritas, and pretty much everything they undertake is at his direction and behest. That may be incorrect, but I'm not aware of evidence to the contrary.

                As I said, I used the SourceWatch link as it contained most of the controversial stuff about PV. That it also included details about O'Keefe is reasonable IMHO.

                As for the bit you claim to be "the worst offense," once again aside from unflattering adjectives, I don't see anything factually incorrect here:

                On April 27, 2017 O'Keefe released a four-minute video attacking Schimel personally for failing to prosecute and threatening to target the Attorney General himself. "We should investigate you and you should lose your job."[9] The O'Keefe tirade was enough to push Schimel to change his stance writes Bruce Murphy of Urban Milwaukee. "He went on conservative talker Mark Belling’s show and announced that the investigation his office had previously announced was over was actually still continuing. Schimel added that 'I appreciate the work that groups like Project Veritas do to expose corruption and criminal conspiracies,' wrongly suggesting the group’s accusations had actually led to anyone being charged with a crime."[10]

                It does seem a bit speculative to claim that O'Keefe's comment that "We should investigate you and you should lose your job." was the proximate cause of the Wisconsin AG's change in attitude, at least based on the information provided.

                Regardless, AFAICT, the article as a whole is generally factual, if a bit hyperbolic. I do agree that the Wikipedia page is good as well, which is why I included it in my post.

                I suppose that reasonable people may disagree and I respect your position, even if I'm not as annoyed by the hyperbole as you seem to be.

                --
                No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
          • (Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 01 2019, @04:59PM (1 child)

            by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday July 01 2019, @04:59PM (#862056) Journal

            That doesn't necessarily mean that the information they release is misleading.

            Correct, it's the part where they edit that video to make it imply the opposite of reality that makes the information misleading.

            The first parts are merely felonies...

        • (Score: 4, Interesting) by HiThere on Monday July 01 2019, @04:37PM (1 child)

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 01 2019, @04:37PM (#862029) Journal

          Wikipedia is definitely biased. It's biased by whoever last edited the page. (Does Wikipedia still have those "editing wars" where people gain status by making changes to a page, which are then changed by the next person to gain status?)

          NEVER trust Wikipedia. It may provide useful references, but don't trust it. Last I heard it was refusing posts by experts in the field in favor of those who reported on what those experts were doing...and introducing the inherent distortions even when they tried to be accurate.

          --
          Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
          • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday July 01 2019, @05:47PM

            I never said there was no bias on Wikipedia. I asked specifically about the article I linked, not Wikipedia in general.

            There have been, and are, issues with some Wikipedia content.

            However, it doesn't (at least not to me) appear that there's significant bias on the James O'Keefe entry.

            In fact, compare his page with the *only* Project Veritas Wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org] (in German), which is hagiography [cambridge.org] at *best*.

            --
            No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday July 01 2019, @06:07PM (3 children)

      by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday July 01 2019, @06:07PM (#862103) Journal

      But can't we at least have some decent counterexamples?

      No, that's the thing. You can't trust anybody. Did you notice all the trackers that hopefully you blocked? Hardly "decent"... The only safe site on the internet is http://www.slackware.com/ [slackware.com] None of that phony HTTPS crap there.

      --
      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @05:09AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @05:09AM (#862285)

      That link does not say anything about manipulating photos, videos, and information. The worst of what they have done is get double-played such as in this [politico.com] case. Vertias believes they caught a foul actor and lead him on to get more information. The actor, in turn, thinks Veritas is the bad guy and starts leading them on to get more information. Both then report on the activities of the other. Veritas publishing their video, the other calling the police.

      Ironically, that article itself is rather deceptively edited. It claims that: "But O’Keefe was criticized for deceptively editing the videos. Most notably, he filmed himself walking into the offices while wearing a ’70s-style pimp outfit, but actually met with ACORN employees while wearing a suit and tie." Here [projectveritas.com] is the video so you can judge for yourself. In the start of the video it shows him, explaining he was pretending to be a man aiming to run for congress one day, walk into the office wearing a suit and tie and later emphasizes that again. The only "pimp outfit" reference was a clearly comical segue where he goes "Yes, yes, and yes" after getting them to deeply incriminate themselves and shows him walking around with his "prostitute" in a slow-mo stylized video that was clearly distinct from the actual recording. He seems to have taken out anything not directly related to his investigations for future videos - likely to avoid this specific disingenuous smearing.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @11:07AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @11:07AM (#862334)

        I have some lovely beachfront property in the Florida Keys. I'm busy developing other properties and need to raise some cash, so I can give you a really good price, if you're interested.

        PT Barnum would have loved you!

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Nobuddy on Tuesday July 02 2019, @01:55PM (1 child)

        by Nobuddy (1626) on Tuesday July 02 2019, @01:55PM (#862379)

        He was convicted of fraudulently editing his videos to defraud. Not rumor, proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @07:34PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @07:34PM (#862865)

          That's untrue. He's had one misdemeanor conviction of entering a federal building under false pretenses when his team dressed up as phone repair people to get access to a congressman. The only other significant case he had was the one I was talking about above. He was sued for unlawful recording and dissemination of a conversation. He ended up settling it out of court (though it did go to trial) for $100k. You actually made me double check the case and, no, it has absolutely nothing to do with fraud. You can see the settlement (which also provides an overview of the case) here [courtlistener.com].

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Monday July 01 2019, @02:00PM (4 children)

    by looorg (578) on Monday July 01 2019, @02:00PM (#861923)

    Weird that it had to be mentioned in every other sentence or so that things could be faked. Isn't that the case for almost anything these day then? Normal or mainstream media (or whatever the term is these days) are somehow beyond faking news?

    I used to consider news as News, but then it sort of changed. Now it seems most news are still News but they are mixed in with Opinions to a certain degrees and they, the journalists, appear to have a very hard time to distinguish their own beliefs and personal commentary from the actual News. Possibly worse is when News becomes Entertainment.

    That Google News doesn't want to mention a piece of news that is negative about them. Doesn't most organizations hide bad things about themselves if they can?

    What might be scary here then now is that so many people get all their "news" filtered by Google (or Facebook or ....) first. There really is no, or few, independent news sources around. They seem to all have some kind of agenda they want to shove down your throat as they present the news.

    That Google (Facebook or whomever) have already been caught acknowledging that they are filtering according to their own agendas or to fit some values is hardly news by itself anymore. It's just fact. I guess the sad part about it might be that people in general doesn't know or care.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by SunTzuWarmaster on Monday July 01 2019, @02:50PM (2 children)

      by SunTzuWarmaster (3971) on Monday July 01 2019, @02:50PM (#861954)

      SEN Ted Cruz indicates that Google has Section 230 free speech protection because it provides a neutral public forum in the debate*. The above suggests that Google is indeed doctoring search results so as "[not] to mention a piece of news that is negative about them."

      *The EFF doesn't think that S-230 works like that, but SEN Cruz does, so it is a policy debate - but SEN Cruz drafted some of these protections and voted on them, so be aware that he is part of the elite group that can change the rules.

      • (Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @03:31PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @03:31PM (#861982)

        SEN Ted Cruz

        There should be widely accepted law of nature that the moment you take a politician as a source of authority supporting your argument, you automatically lose the debate.

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by SunTzuWarmaster on Monday July 01 2019, @04:29PM

          by SunTzuWarmaster (3971) on Monday July 01 2019, @04:29PM (#862024)
          Fine, I'll bite at the troll, let's reword:

          That Google News doesn't want to mention a piece of news that is negative about them. Doesn't most organizations hide bad things about themselves if they can? ... That Google (Facebook or whomever) have already been caught acknowledging that they are filtering according to their own agendas or to fit some values is hardly news by itself anymore. It's just fact. I guess the sad part about it might be that people in general doesn't know or care.

          The people who make the laws (that they made and can change) believe that the laws give Google a special protection when it comes to the distribution of content. At least 2 of the 535 of them believe that Google has violated this special protection. As such, these 2 called upon Google representatives to testify before a special committee, which, from the camera feeds, appears to have representation of about 100 of the 535 lawmakers, some of which will have dissenting views. This is news, by its nature.

    • (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Tuesday July 02 2019, @01:06AM

      by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 02 2019, @01:06AM (#862236) Journal

      There really is no, or few, independent news sources around.

      This is simply untrue. There are piles of such news sources. However the mainstream approach is to immediately marginalize any such source at each and every opportunity. Understandable as it's war after all. For survival in the market and for ideology both.
       
      For example - mainstream sources (and the fine summary) simply repeat as given the ludicrous statement of someone in Google that an Orthodox Ashkenazi Jew (who runs an independent news site) is a Nazi.

      --
      В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @02:10PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @02:10PM (#861928)

    That way they can be sure it's Fair and Balanced.

    (For the English only crowd, pravda = Russian for truth while veritas = latin for the same...)

    Google is evil, no need to invent any monster stories to prove it.

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 01 2019, @04:41PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 01 2019, @04:41PM (#862034) Journal

      Not really. Pravda means more nearly "the official word" than truth, and is more akin the the ancient Egyptian word "Maat". "Veritas" was supposed to be an objective truth. The words are closely akin, but substantially different.

      (Please note that "supposed to be". I'm not asserting that that's actually how it was used.)

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @02:58PM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @02:58PM (#861961)

    It's one thing, if you are linking to false information, to simply disclaim that: "This is fake news, presented only as an example, and no confusion is intended." It's another to decry something as "scummy" or litter your writing with "ugh" just because the information presented isn't something you want to believe. If you had any actual evidence to the contrary, you'd just present it, rather than try to attack the initial reporting emotionally. As presented, this submission is just a blog post, and not a very good one.

    I have no idea whether Project Veritas is reliable or not. Even if it's not, that doesn't mean that this is fake. It might be, but the more technical the content, the harder it is to fake. Of course I haven't looked at the technical content to see if it's actually real. Full disclosure there.

    Not everything you read on the Drudge Report is true either, but some of it is. Facts are not determined by who reports them.

    Personally - if Veritas wants to do this 'reporting' then it needs to *report* - and not produce material that is illegally obtained or fake.

    Conflating "illegally obtained" material with fake tells a lot about this writer. A very large amount of valuable journalism is, quote unquote, illegally obtained. That is why sources remain anonymous. This writer believes that the only material that should be allowed is that which has been approved by the Powers That Be. After all, if it were true, surely they would approve it! And, even if it is, it's clearly just not in society's best interest to publish it. Could upset the social order, possibly even threaten the Party itself. No, comrade, best suppress that unfortunate story, for the good of the People!

    But then it goes on to say that the fact that this information is suppressed is good reason to switch news providers. What? If simply reporting this should mean a ban from the internet, then shouldn't it be fine to suppress it in searches? Is the last paragraph written by a different person? I have no idea what is going on. But I am confused.

    • (Score: 2) by ilPapa on Monday July 01 2019, @03:00PM

      by ilPapa (2366) on Monday July 01 2019, @03:00PM (#861964) Journal

      I have no idea whether Project Veritas is reliable or not.

      Have you been living in a cave?

      --
      You are still welcome on my lawn.
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @04:06PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @04:06PM (#862003)

      Conflating "illegally obtained" material with fake tells a lot about this writer. A very large amount of valuable journalism is, quote unquote, illegally obtained.

      Yea, its obviously someone driven into a frenzy with TDS. We don't need to use the heuristic of asking who the source is if there is actual evidence available. And limiting it to "legally attained" is just going to let the state run rampant.

      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 01 2019, @04:47PM (1 child)

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 01 2019, @04:47PM (#862040) Journal

        I've *GOT* to disagree here. The world is huge and full of lots of things. We only have time and attention to see some of it. So we've got to depend, for most purposes, on what others report. And it's very significant whether those others are reliable or not. If the evidence is available in public then we could *in principle* check it ourselves. But nobody's got that much time. I check a few things, but generally I *must* rely on my idea of how reliable the source is.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @04:54PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @04:54PM (#862050)

          I said you don't need to rely on that heuristic. Personally I don't care enough to check or even attempt parsing that rant in the summary. However, as a principle I would assume google and the other big tech corporations are going to try using their influence to get more money/power and cover up any negative news about themselves.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by SunTzuWarmaster on Monday July 01 2019, @05:42PM (4 children)

      by SunTzuWarmaster (3971) on Monday July 01 2019, @05:42PM (#862091)

      Okay, fine, let's declare it all step-by-step:

      PROVABLE FACT - I was given a report about Google reporting Jordan Peterson as a Nazi from my Google Now feed. Google gave me this content.

      PROVABLE FACT - This report does not appear in a Google News search unless you jump through quite a few hoops when searching for it, which is strange when you consider that Google Now served me this content originally (https://www.google.com/search?q=jordan+peterson+nazi&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjP87SbopTjAhVPJt8KHWhHBYQQ_AUIECgB&biw=1080&bih=1809).

      PROVABLE FACT - This report is easily found using both Bing News (the first 5 results, https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=jordan+peterson+nazi&FORM=HDRSC6) [bing.com] and DuckDuckGo News (all of the results; only 3, https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jordan+peterson+nazi&t=h_&iar=news&ia=news). [duckduckgo.com]

      PROVABLE FACT - The "Jordan B Peterson is Nazi" claim comes from a series of "leaked internal E-mails" dragged up from shoddy-and-or-dodgy-and-or-illegal-and-or-fake reporting practices from Project Veritas.

      PROVABLE FACT - Project Veritas is a group of scumbags.

      PROVABLE FACT - The E-mails and Project Veritas reporting have prompted 1 Senator and 1 Representative, both from Texas, to question Google representatives on the nature of the content they serve readers. Both the Sen/Rep seem to believe that Section 230 gives Google special legal immunity because they provide unbiased aggregation of news, rather than being a publisher. They pulled their questions directly from materials provided by Project Veritas. This includes - and I kid you not - blowing up the Project Veritas items into a giant posterboard and displaying them to a Google representative ( https://youtu.be/q1YENAvOveE?t=284 [youtu.be] ).

      SUSPECT FACT - SEN Ted Cruz and REP Dan Crenshaw, both from Texas, were provided this information from Project Veritas directly. PV claims this - no reason not to believe it, really.

      PROVABLE FACT - Other Representatives have issued statements against Google, brought to light from some combination of this information ( https://gohmert.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=399712 [house.gov] ).

      EDITORIAL NOTE - at this point, the story is "news for nerds". I'm not inclined to post conspiracy theories (this is my first posting), but when multiple congressional representatives are taking action on information that indicates Google is biasing results - it is news - even if that information is later proven to be false.

      PROVABLE FACT - The Google Employee who was interviewed has issued a statement indicated that she, indeed, said the words presented in the video ( https://medium.com/@gennai.jen/this-is-not-how-i-expected-monday-to-go-e92771c7aa82 [medium.com] ). This is not a DeepFake. She does not re-state her positions (wisely). It is possible that she was drunk when being interviewed (she looks drunk to me, and there is a wine glass in front of her).

      PROVABLE FACT - Project Veritas is a group of scumbags. The Google employee indicates that she was tricked to coming to dinner with them. They have tricked other people in the same way in the past. The video recordings that Project Veritas took were illegal in the place where they were taken.

      EDITORIAL NOTE - There is little reason to trust information from Project Veritas. I do not trust anything Project Veritas says. As the old internet saying goes "information is proof of ability to produce information".

      CURRENT FACT - The E-mails related to this "leak" have not been released to any organization other than Project Veritas.

      EDITORIAL OPINION - The "insider" presents compelling technical arguments on how you would algorithmically bias search results. I am a technical expert in this area and found his description compelling and chilling. If I were in charge of doing it - this is how I would do it. The number of people with enough technical expertise in this area to perform an algorithmic bias of this nature is in the 1,000s-10,000s in this country, but this would show a level of technical reporting not seen elsewhere by Project Veritas. With regard to the internal leak - it is either a) a real leak/person, or b) Project Veritas really did their homework on this piece and put in hundreds of hours of technical understanding for less than 60 seconds of their total report. I suspect the leaker is a real person.

      SUSPECT CLAIM - Project Veritas claims that Google deliberately doctors their results with political bias. They claim this with "evidence" from internal memos (that they won't release), an interview illegally taped (banned wherever it was found), and an "insider" who can't be named. Even if the insider presents compelling arguments, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. There is not reliable evidence to this claim.

      PROVABLE FACT - Google Trends and Google Search Autocomplete present different information on politically sensitive topics. As an example, consider the autocomplete for "men are" and the trends for "men are". The Autocomplete indicates that it is Mars/Venus, Waffles, Bluetooth, Visual, while trends indicates Mars/Venus, Visual, Bluetooth, Waffles across all time periods ( https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%201-m&geo=US&q=men%20are%20from%20mars%20women%20are%20from%20venus,men%20are%20like%20waffles,men%20are%20like%20bluetooth,men%20are%20visual [google.com] ). "Men are Visual" appears lower in autocomplete than people who search for it. A test like this (but not this test) was recommended to be performed by the expert in the Project Veritas video. He mentioned that "googles own products show their bias" when mentioning that the Google Trends and Google Autocomplete show a mismatch. The only reason that I can think of for this mismatch is some sort of non-random algorithmic reordering. Given the discrepancy of Autocomplete results, there is reason to believe some frequently-queried items are being removed from Autocomplete.

      Final opinion and notes - This is news and worthy of being posted - the involvement from lawmakers sees to that. That said, Project Veritas are scum and there isn't a compelling reason to believe anything they say without checking. I saw effects in both Search/News on the Peterson-Nazi subject, bias in the Autocomplete/Trends data for "men are". I am a technical expert in this area, and saw a reasonable explanation of how they go about biasing results (it would work in theory). Given an *observed* bias in Search, News, and Autocomplete, I am convinced that Google is doctoring results to push a political narrative, and I have changed my search engine on all devices to discontinue its use.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @05:48PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @05:48PM (#862094)

        Project Veritas claims that Google deliberately doctors their results with political bias... extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

        It is "extraordinary" to you that a corporation would use their influence to gain more money/power? I would assume this is going on with no evidence at all.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @10:48PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @10:48PM (#862192)

          It is "extraordinary" to you that a corporation would use their influence to gain more money/power? I would assume this is going on with no evidence at all.

          Are you referring to Project Veritas or Google? Or both?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @11:58PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @11:58PM (#862214)

            Does your mom know you are either a liar or an idiot, if not both?

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @05:58AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @05:58AM (#862295)

        Two major counter-points here. Most media today is deeply dependent upon Google for revenue. This comes both in the form of ads, which are delivered by Google in some cases, and by directing users to their sites for which Google plays a tremendous role. This alone makes it highly unlikely to see significant investigative or otherwise 'aggressive' reporting against Google from most major media outlets. This is not to say they remain entirely deferential, but rather that they are going to be unlikely to engage in any behavior beyond the minimum standard to fulfill their basic journalistic obligations. The point here is that when you see somebody going beyond the norm to expose bad behaviors by Google, it's unlikely to come from established sources - because those established sources have immense amounts to risk and little to gain by engaging in such.

        The second is media bias. Most media today leans left to far left. The New York Times, for instance, has gradually morphed from a completely balanced and authoritative source to one that now is full of partisan ranting and unabashed ideological endorsement and evangelism. This is certainly, in part, playing to their audience for the sake of revenue generation - but I also think that these media outlets tend to be full of people that do genuinely endorse these ideologies and are increasingly deciding it is their role to try to nudge (or hammer blow as it may be) society in that direction. A problem here is that Google's bias also is aligned with a far left ideology. So now we have yet another confounding factor. Not only are we unlikely to find established sites going beyond to norm to expose or report on such issues, we're also less likely to find partisan left sites reporting on such.

        This two biases alone leave you with the reality that truly and deeply informative news is unlikely to come from the sites we'd like it to come from, unless it's on a topic such as Trump - where you can find their vetting of sources tends to be [drum roll] quite liberal. And for some reason we also tend to hold smaller sites to a higher standard that large sites. For instance the media we wanted to believe ran widespread stories on Nathan Phillips and 'The Catholic Schoolboys Harassing Him.' It was completely and absolutely fake with the boys being the ones who were being approached and "harassed" by numerous actors, including Phillips. Another example would be these same sites claiming Trump's son received an email from Wikileaks offering him access to hacked DNC emails before the documents were made available to the public. Before being key, and fake. The sites all accidentally got the date wrong, somehow. The email was sent after the archives were already publicly available for all. You could list countless incidents of misleading and fake stories from these sites just in the past couple of years, yet we pretend that these sites are authoritative and reputable. By contrast if we can find any sliver of bad behavior on a smaller site, we'll use it to smear them to no end. Quite bizarre behavior.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by EvilSS on Monday July 01 2019, @04:18PM (1 child)

    by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 01 2019, @04:18PM (#862012)

    This story has an interesting viewpoint given the proliferation of "Deep Fake" videos

    Ugh. This is going to become the new "fake news!" and "biased journalism!" isn't it? People are just going to start dismissing video as a "obvious deep fake" when they don't agree with it.* And I'm sure there will be just enough of it actually happening that people can point to to justify claiming ANYTHING they don't like or can't accept as being faked, proof be damned.

    To be clear, I'm not speaking to the events in the summary. Just seeing that called out made me think about how this is going to be abused going forward.

    • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 01 2019, @05:04PM

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday July 01 2019, @05:04PM (#862062) Journal

      Perhaps...

      But remember, you can blame Veritas for people net believing their bullshit because they've been CAUGHT faking videos before.

  • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by Captival on Monday July 01 2019, @04:24PM (6 children)

    by Captival (6866) on Monday July 01 2019, @04:24PM (#862022)

    For example, did you know Kamala Harris spent years sucking the dick of a married politician twice her age? In return, she got put on a public board and $100,000+/year for 2 hours a week with no qualifications. You certainly wouldn't know that if you get your news from the MSM, since crazy sex and corruption rumors are acceptable when they're anonymous accusations against Trump, but when they're VERIFIED FACTS on a Democrat, it doesn't count. (The politician in question admits it openly)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @04:33PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @04:33PM (#862027)

      The MSM peddles fake news, everyone capable of knowing this already does.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @04:42PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @04:42PM (#862035)
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @06:10PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @06:10PM (#862104)

      I'm oh-so-interested to hear how you handle all the actual verified Trump crimes. Defrauding investors and workers? Sexual assault accusations for daaaays and not just since he became "precedent"? His very own words?

      Is it all fake news when it is your golden/orange boy?

      So far I've seen multiple Dems go down for their sexual misconduct, yet so so soooo many Republicans get a pass on drug use, infidelity, and JFC PEDOPHILIA!

      If "your" side wasn't totally morally bankrupt I might be bothered to listen to your accusations about Democrats getting the VIP treatment. At least dems are held accountable some of the time unlike your "it's a liberal witch hunt" GOPers.

    • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday July 01 2019, @06:23PM (1 child)

      by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday July 01 2019, @06:23PM (#862114) Journal

      Yeah, but she's got spunk.

      I hate spunk! [youtube.com]

      --
      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @06:31PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @06:31PM (#862116)

        Yeah, but she's got spunked.

        There. FTFY.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by nobu_the_bard on Monday July 01 2019, @04:39PM

    by nobu_the_bard (6373) on Monday July 01 2019, @04:39PM (#862032)

    Project Veritas is crazy. They've been known to deceive people with false pretenses to get statements they could publish out of context to attempt make their point. For the Planned Parenthood thing a while back, they had to fish around for a long time to get find someone to perform the way they wanted to support the narrative they were writing (that Planned Parenthood sells fetuses, I believe, was the narrative). It took awhile for the actual methods they'd used to become public, well after the news cycle had moved on. Probably the same thing will happen here.

    While I'm willing to believe it's possible Google may be not be as fair as I'd like, and that the emails could be real, unfortunately Project Veritas has no credibility with me to spend. Whoever was working with them should have picked someone less scummy. It wouldn't surprise me if whatever "proof" they dug up was manipulated by them to get the answers they wanted to publish.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday July 01 2019, @04:45PM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Monday July 01 2019, @04:45PM (#862039) Journal

    I think reasonable people would say, at a minimum, posting illegally-obtained material to the internet warrants a ban.

    The Pentagon Papers. Clinton's emails. Iraq war cables.

    I think it is reasonable to say that truthful information about those in power is fair fucking game.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday July 01 2019, @04:47PM (3 children)

    by hemocyanin (186) on Monday July 01 2019, @04:47PM (#862041) Journal

    That was the Worst The Fucking Summary I've ever read here. I hope it is not a harbinger of things to come.

    • (Score: 2) by Spamalope on Monday July 01 2019, @05:04PM

      by Spamalope (5233) on Monday July 01 2019, @05:04PM (#862065) Homepage

      It looked like an 'I think this is a shitshow but also newsworthy' summary. Which isn't wrong.
      Hypothetical: What do you do if Veritas sensationalized (aka fake on its face) coverage to support claims that Google et. al. are lying about their censorship - and those claims are accurate. aka, if the Veritas video amounts to fakery but the allegations are literally true, what now? How do you cover that once everyone is poo flinging based on tribalism?

    • (Score: 2) by SunTzuWarmaster on Monday July 01 2019, @05:57PM (1 child)

      by SunTzuWarmaster (3971) on Monday July 01 2019, @05:57PM (#862099)

      I'm the original author, and I'm sorry. Please accept the following as the actual reporting:
      https://soylentnews.org/politics/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=32394&page=1&cid=862091#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]

      A summary might be "Project Veritas, who are normally a bunch of liars, claim to have obtained an illegally-recorded video with an ex-member of the Google Ethics team, leaked E-mails, and an insider interview which point to Google systematically biasing search results. All of that could have been made up relatively easily by the known-liars. This story was forwarded to lawmakers, who have called Google employees to testify before Congress. It is unknown whether PV successfully trolled lawmakers, whether the materials where fabricated in-part-or-wholesale, or whether all of the claims are accurate. The leaked interview presents relatively compelling information on exactly *how* Google biases results."

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by exaeta on Monday July 01 2019, @11:25PM

        by exaeta (6957) on Monday July 01 2019, @11:25PM (#862200) Homepage Journal
        Sorry but this is wishful thinking. I have been comparing results from "other" news sources, and Google, and the bias is pretty evident. It's pretty clearly reflected in the way responses to certain queries have changed.
        --
        The Government is a Bird
  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday July 01 2019, @05:55PM

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday July 01 2019, @05:55PM (#862098) Journal

    Yes, you have to do that now, to avoid now found "liability" issues.

    Whatever, I'm being redundant, but I was always told to not believe anything I hear and only half of what I see. Heh, and now it's true. Even the brain deceives and inverts the truth. Down really is up! Or maybe the sensors are defective.

    The cliches are true, "Everything you know is wrong" and "we are all bozos on this bus"

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
  • (Score: 2) by exaeta on Monday July 01 2019, @11:08PM (1 child)

    by exaeta (6957) on Monday July 01 2019, @11:08PM (#862195) Homepage Journal
    Our first means of rebellion against Google is to determine that any school or municipality that requires students to use Google should be sued and enjoined from forcing students to use Google. E.g. mandatory Google accounts, or publically owned youtube accounts, etc.
    --
    The Government is a Bird
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @11:40PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @11:40PM (#862208)

      Google should be sued

      You are just asking for your appeal to be denied with no justification, exaeta, again.

  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @01:22AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 02 2019, @01:22AM (#862242)

    This is blatantly obvious to anyone who has followed Peterson. DISCLAIMER: I am not his "fan" and I think a lot of his "fans" are just as immature as aristarchus.

    The google chrome in my android phone is constantly suggesting me 'balanced' articles which have clickbaity photoshopped pictures of the professor's face and blatant lies written by some loony lefty that are not just easily refuted but are actual lies. But no matter how much I listen to actual leftists, I am never shown a Breitbart article "for balance".

    Apparently, Google's middle ground is far-left.

    If you think that is something to be celebrated just remember this is neither stable nor equilibrium.

    • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Tuesday July 02 2019, @03:21AM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday July 02 2019, @03:21AM (#862262) Journal

      I think a lot of his "fans" are just as immature as aristarchus.

      Hey! My fans are ancient, and if they are still immature, it is not from lack of opportunity.

  • (Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Tuesday July 02 2019, @01:50PM

    by Nobuddy (1626) on Tuesday July 02 2019, @01:50PM (#862377)

    They could claim the sun will rise tomorrow and I would immediately try to find out why the sun will not rise tomorrow.
    They will lie when the truth would serve them better.

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