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Do you think Google's attempts at ideological sculpting are effective, neutral, or counter-productive? Why are they doing this?
Search for any social topic or event that a conservative cares about, and Google will list progressive news sources and fact checkers denying its validity or, if this is impossible, condemning political weaponization of the facts. Google's information sculpting seemed to reached its apex mid-2022, when PM of Hungary Viktor Orban made a speech with inflammatory takes on European history and EU policy, and Google would not give a link to the speech. Trying all sorts of keywords, one could find page after page of thinkpieces with two-word scare quotes about what a horrible Nazi speech Orban had made, but it was impossible to read what he actually said. (Yandex gave an English transcript as the second result.)
Putting aside the morality or fairness of this: Do you think Google's efforts prevent people from being radicalized? Do they increase political capital for the establishment left? The recent Gemini AI debacle shows a hilarious tin ear for the company; no one could fail to see the tight ideological corset around the image generation squeezing the AI's intestines out its throat. And personally — though I am not normal — the information sculpting I get from search results doesn't make me accept the sources as presented; it just makes me angry.
The three broad explanations I see for Google's approach are:
Is there a way to tell which of these is true?
Like with most things of this nature, most of the politically centric who would lament this development would otherwise celebrate its birth. I.e. The end of holocaust denial being the top result relating to the holocaust.
There was a big media storm surrounding the topic in 2016. I'm pretty sure Google had already been working on something before this. (Though that might have just been a concentrated effort of extremist jews trying to skew the results through very radical 'manual click farms', wish I could find those forum posts again.) As this matter had the added controversy of the site in question being Stormfront, a well known media boogey monster. The matter was closed in the same year as Google expunged holocaust skepticism from its top results.
It's hard to say what exactly a gray/centrist would change about the past to make the present a better place. I'm sure most of them on this website are far outside the norm when it comes to tolerating 'unsanctioned' holocaust revision and would just not press the censorship button. Or at least that's what they would say when faced with a hypothetical. However, when they actually have the button... well, then things can get messy.
I'd expect the typical reasoning of 'Only do it to the smallest of outgroups', but given how demonstrable it is now that such reasoning does not hold when we are trying to uphold broad principles for big populations... Where to? Can we at least stop using that argument?
I'm surprised that you think "only do it to the smallest of outgroups" would be a useful description even when that's sort of what Google did.
Search is at least partly supposed to be a popularity contest. If the group that says something is small, what they say should be underemphasized. If the group that thinks it's true is small, that's another reason to underemphasize it because if there's 99% agreement that it isn't true, Google should be treating it as false and people don't want to search and find false information.
There are plenty of conservatives out there, and the truth of conservative beliefs is an active dispute, not something 99% of people take the same side on. But Holocaust denial? There are few Holocaust deniers, and no truth to Holocaust denial. Not returning results because Holocaust deniers are the "smallest of outgroups" is the proper thing to do here.
Yes, that's the centrist position. What I don't understand is how you can stand by it whilst refuting it in your own post.
Holocaust denial got the most clicks. But centrists don't like that so they want it banned. So screw any principle or fairness, I should just have my way because 'reasons'.
Funnily enough, that's how the people banning 'conservative' stuff think. They see a tiny portion of the population. A minority in their own communities and a minority globally. They see these 'people' denying obvious truths about global warming, racism, transphobia, the J6 insurrection, Trump the racist fascist, the truth of the election result, trans children and hormones, Immigration... I mean, have these 'conservatives' just considered not being factually wrong on everything? 99% of people don't agree with them. No one wants to go on google and be bombarded with false information. There are few conservatives, and no truth in conservatism.
No really, it's so easy to justify against the outgroup, as you artfully show. How can't centrists figure out that other people can do that as well?
Right now Google is infested by SEO spam and SEO spam, of course, gets the most clicks. By your reasoning, Google should be sending people to the SEO spam and should not try to get rid of it in search results. It "gets the most clicks" because Google promotes it, you cannot use the clicks as a reason to say why Google should promote it--that's circular reasoning.
Holocaust denial is neither something that many people want (since they want truthful things and it's false) nor something that many people produce (since it comes from an extreme minority). So Google should in fact be not showing it prominently in search results that don't specifically ask for it.
"It's a tiny percentage" is false for conservatives and true for Holocaust deniers. That's a big difference; being true or false actually matters.
Are you playing antagonistic defense for some particular reason?
This is what you said. How is Stormfront comparable to SEO spam? Yes, I think Google should remove predatory sites that, for instance, try to put malware on your system. Everyone does. That's kind of obvious, no?
It won out the algorithm. The people looking up the holocaust and related stuff obviously clicked on it. You saying that people don't want that kind of stuff is just you saying it. Actual reality is different. Wanting to play veto by your feelings is not a good or fair. Don't think so? Don't lament progressives banning your 'conservative' conspiracy theory hogwash. They're just playing by your rules.
It's not false. It's true. That's the difference you need to understand. You might think you can prove it but you wont receive the platform or information to do so. Those are the rules you follow when dealing with the holocaust and they are the exact same for wingnut nonsense. How can you complain? The situation could not be any more symmetrical. You decide truth for the holocaust and ban it. Progressives decide truth for 'conservatives' and ban it.
Because it was on top of Google. You are trying to justify putting it on top of Google by saying that people clicked on it, but people only clicked on it because it was on top of Google. That's circular reasoning.
Oh come on now. Holocaust deniers really are a tiny, tiny, minority. Conservatives aren't.
No, the world does. Holocaust deniers are a tiny minority, and they state false things.
Are you seriously suggesting that we should pay no attention to truth because someone might think false things are true?
And why was it on top of Google? Do the people clicking the link need your protection? They can't read something on their own? Why not? What might happen? They might believe something you don't personally approve of?
I am not saying that anyone should put it on top of Google. I am saying it should not have been removed if we are trying to uphold any sort of liberal/centrist fairness across the board. It was a website doing exactly as advertised. 'Top 10 Reasons Why the Holocaust Didn't Happen'. That was the link, that was what people clicked. It wasn't predatory, it didn't have malware. It did exactly as advertised. It was only removed because a certain minority of people didn't like it there. There was no mass movement, no popular sentiment. Just a few journalists and philosemites leveraging power.
You keep oscillating between 'true/false' and 'minority', it's annoying but still besides the point. It doesn't matter how many programmers use C++ vs C#, you can't ban one from the results because you feel like most people, in your particular context, which you arbitrarily decide to favor your argument, don't use one or the other. The people using Google click those links. They get bumped to the top. As soon as you have an arbiter above that process that can decide what is and isn't true you are bound by their will. That's the precedent you set. Stop complaining about it. The fact you surround yourself with the opinion of a bunch of idiots from the US doesn't change what's actually true for the global majority.
No, I'm seriously suggesting you start reading what I write instead of cutting it into bites you can twist out of context and lie about. What I am suggesting is that you can't even have a discussion on whether or not something is true or not if you ban it. If you do that you've already decided what is true and what is false. Not just for you but for everyone else who is deprived of information they might otherwise have used to find out. Case in point being Dachau.
Why does every folly of censorship have to be trotted out to people like you? You want to ban your outgroup. So do progressives. You don't have an argument. You're just mad your false beliefs get banned. Want to prove they're true? Try Google. Oh wait...
As the unintentional effect of stupid algorithms. Again, by your reasoning since a lot of people click on spam, they want to read spam.
It's both.
It's not banned. It's just not shown to people who want something else. People who actually want will still get it if they search for it. You're acting as if Google won't return Holocaust denial no matter what you do. They're not doing that. They're not even making it difficult to find.
Besides, there is no "discussion" except among a tiny minority.
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