Google Seeks To Defuse Row With Russia Over Website Rankings (reuters.com) 71
An anonymous reader shares a report: Google does not change its search algorithm to re-rank individual websites, it said in a letter to Russia's communications watchdog, after Moscow expressed concerns the search engine might discriminate against Russian media. The Roskomnadzor watchdog said earlier this month it would seek clarification from Google over whether it intentionally placed articles from Russian news websites Sputnik and Russia Today lower in search results. Responding to a question about Sputnik articles at a conference earlier in November, Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said Google was working to give less prominence to "those kinds of websites" as opposed to delisting them.
More Russian evil! (Score:1)
I'm soooo glad Google is standing up to Russia!
RUSSIA BAD...... (Score:1)
But we want your money and data please......
The law of unintended consequences. (Score:3, Insightful)
Moscow expressed concerns the search engine might discriminate against Russian media.
This should be filed under the "things to consider before you inject yourself into US politics" department.
Re:The law of unintended consequences. (Score:5, Insightful)
Google should downlist American media too, because they also "inject themselves into US politics". In fact, even some private citizens have been caught expressing opinions on politics, and attempting to sway the votes of their friends and neighbors. Google needs to put a stop to that. We can't just have people going around saying whatever they want. Thank God that we have the corporate elite to protect us and tell us what to think.
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Google should downlist American media too, because they also "inject themselves into US politics". In fact, even some private citizens have been caught expressing opinions on politics, and attempting to sway the votes of their friends and neighbors. Google needs to put a stop to that. We can't just have people going around saying whatever they want. Thank God that we have the corporate elite to protect us and tell us what to think.
Ya! And Russia is best at curtailing freedom of speech (well, technically in top 20%), so Google should actually increase the rank of their state-sponsored views!
https://freedomhouse.org/repor... [freedomhouse.org]
https://freedomhouse.org/repor... [freedomhouse.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
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Google should downlist American media too, because they also "inject themselves into US politics".
But Google already did that!!!! Alternet [alternet.org], Counterpunch, Democracy Now and many other independent media outlet were heavily downlisted. [twitter.com]
Re:The law of unintended consequences. (Score:4, Insightful)
Google should downlist American media too, because they also "inject themselves into US politics"
Bugger off with your straw man arguments. Russia is a hostile country waging an aggressive information war against the west with an army of internet trolls and fake news intended to spread FUD. It is financing right-wing groups in Europe, an invasion of eastern Ukraine to prevent it from joining the EU and NATO and is just generally causing trouble all over the world. Protecting a dictator who used chemical weapons against his own people, providing separatists with an anti-aircraft missile launcher that was used to down a civilian airplane over Ukraine, all the while always denying all involvement. Meanwhile in the interior the country is cracking down an all independent media.
Russia is a rogue actor these days.
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Just be careful you're not on the wrong side, my friend.
You should be aware of propaganda from all sides. Especially those who are the most powerful in media.
Use scientific principles and the methods of logic and reasoning. None of what you say can be confirmed using that. It is okay to not have an opinion before proof has been presented. I don't judge before I have proof, but I tend to sympathize with those who are the most quiet. I do feel very much alone with thinking like that, as everyone else seems to
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Swiftboating bullshit. All of it.
You have just as much evidence for that assertion as the Chem Trailing whackjobs do that the government is putting mind-control gas into jet fuel. There was one person who was corrupt AF in swinging an election last year, and her name wasn't Putin or Trump.
It's the CIA and the State Department funding literal Neo-Nazis
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More "Russia" stories than Linux or programming! (Score:1)
It's pretty sad that we're now getting more "Russia narrative" submissions on the front page here at Slashdot than we are getting submissions about relevant stuff like Linux, programming, or sci-fi.
If we do a Slashdot search for "russia" [slashdot.org], the earliest story on the first page of results is from October 30, 2017.
If we do a Slashdot search for "linux" [slashdot.org], the earliest story on the first page of results is from October 21, 2017!
So that means we get subjected to significantly more stories about this "Russia narrati
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It's difficult to avoid conflicts of interest when there's... well... conflicts of interest.
I guess everybody did notice that Google don't use their famous original motto "Do no evil" anymore.
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This should be filed under the "things to consider before you inject yourself into US politics" department.
Good advice for Google as well. If these Silicon Valley companies weren't so completely myopic in their Valley Values group-think they might have some influence in Washington today. It's not really surprising that Comcast wins at every turn; the telecoms — unlike Google, Facebook, etc. — don't go out of their way to alienate the majority party.
Other things to consider: (Score:1)
You Russiaphobes has as much evidence as the anti-vaxxers or Chem Trailers do to back up their bullshit. You fell for one piss-poor psyop with the Iraq War, and now you're doing it again. If only Powell knew he could have skipped that presenting-faked-evidence-to-the-UN thing, and just made a bunch of anonymous claims in the CIA-funded WaPo.
Because people would just eat that shit up. With a spoon.
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Illuminists-Luciferian-Masonic-Satanists as Harold Wallace Rosenthal admits in this interview.
That interview never happened, and the "proof" of it was provided by Nazis after his execution by the Nazis (now operating under the name PLO).
Everyone hates the Jews. I've still never figured that one out. The only global conspiracy is the Capitalists, trying to install fascism/communism to take over the world.
Yes, communism is capitalism. Look at Cuba. "communist", but everything was not owned by a democratic government, but by a single man. Everything owned by a single man is capitalism. And that
Russia: okay to sell Uranium to... (Score:2, Funny)
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Re:Russia: okay to sell Uranium to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny how net neutrality is in the news while at the same time Google is using it's own corporate influence to block other nation's access to the free flow of information.
Congratulations on winning the "I don't know what net neutrality is" award!
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Oh, they know. It's argumentum ad obfuscatum. Why bother to make valid points when you can simply muddy the water?
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Congratulations on winning the "I don't know what net neutrality is" award!
Pretty sure you're the one getting that award. Net neutrality is just a way of saying "don't make the major users of bandwidth like YouTube pay more for the service." The internet has been the wild west for a long time, regulations ALWAYS favor the people lobbying for them, which are the people with enough money to do so. Nobody is going to pay outright for a YouTube subscription and nobody is going to watch it at 14.4kb/s, so that means Google will be shelling out money to cover it, they will still make
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Silicon Valley shooting itself in the feet (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole reason Silicon Valley can afford to pay huge salaries and create cutting edge work is because what they create is scalable. The money is spent once but can be sold to consumers all over the world at a very low marginal cost of production. Whether that is Operating Systems or Electric Cars.
People all over the wold buy from the Microsofts and the Googles because they are considered apolitical. If these companies are seen as partisan and Patriotic than consumers and govts all over the world will pull a China and prop up local alternatives. Once the cheap marginal market goes away and its only the US Market you have left to sell too many ideas become non economic to execute . Once you cannot execute new ideas in Silicon Valley due to the cost, people with ideas will go away to cheaper locales to execute and you go into a downward spiral - fewer new ideas->fewer profitable IPOs -> fewer Angel funders ->Even fewer funding for new ideas-> fewer people moving to the Valley to execute->EVEN FEWER NEW IDEAS and so on.
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If these companies are seen as partisan and Patriotic than consumers and govts all over the world will pull a China and prop up local alternatives.
Actually, all other nations are also fighting Russia's meddling, so it's more likely that they would approve of these countermeasures. The mistake you are making is believing that the US is a one-off situation.
Yeah, sure... (Score:1)
Exact words (Score:2)
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Hubris (Score:1)
Seems like Google is feeling invincible. Their only real revenue source is online advertising, so if coin mining replaces ads as a source of payment for content creators, they're going to have problems. Seems like Google power is peaking, sort of like Rockefeller right before oil pipelines made controlling railroad shipping irrelevant.
Shutoff BOTH ads & mining scripts (+ more) via (Score:1)
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Seems like Google power is peaking
In all likelihood Google is about to find itself negotiating with Comcast et al. to stay in the "fast lane." I'm pretty damn sure that if Google occupied some apex of Rockefeller-like power they wouldn't be letting that happen.
The anon troll army is out in force! (Score:3)
Russia is one of the few topics that brings out the anon troll army. The other topics I've noticed have this effect are net neutrality and systemd. It's almost as if some powerful people don't want some topics discussed.
Individual Websites (Score:1)
Google does not change its search algorithm to re-rank individual websites
Of course not, they just make their algorithms include the material they want omitted, that way they also catch similar material.
SJW have a list of sites too? (Score:1)
No negative movie reviews around the time of a new movie release?
Blasphemy?
No news about illegal immigration?
No negative comments about Communist leadership?
Some books and authors have ideas and plots that need to be re-ranked?
Some movies need to be re-ranked?
Most of history needs to be hidden.
Images and movies of political leaders not officially issued by their party?
Comments ab