Google News Will Purge Sites Masking Their Country of Origin (bloomberg.com) 151
An anonymous reader quotes Bloomberg:
Google moved to strip from its news search results publications that mask their country of origin or intentionally mislead readers, a further step to curb the spread of fake news that has plagued internet companies this year. To appear in Google News results, websites must meet broad criteria set out by the company, including accurately representing their owners or primary purposes. In an update to its guidelines released Friday, the search giant added language stipulating that publications not "engage in coordinated activity to mislead users."
Additionally the new rules read: "This includes, but isn't limited to, sites that misrepresent or conceal their country of origin or are directed at users in another country under false premises." A popular tactic for misinformation campaigns is to pose as a credible U.S. news outlet. Russian Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-backed organization, used that technique to reach an audience of nearly 500,000 people, spread primarily through Twitter accounts, Bloomberg reported earlier.
Additionally the new rules read: "This includes, but isn't limited to, sites that misrepresent or conceal their country of origin or are directed at users in another country under false premises." A popular tactic for misinformation campaigns is to pose as a credible U.S. news outlet. Russian Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-backed organization, used that technique to reach an audience of nearly 500,000 people, spread primarily through Twitter accounts, Bloomberg reported earlier.
Just include in the byline (Score:2)
Ah, another failed attempt at being Vulcan (Score:1)
No, it doesn't. Homosexuality indicates that they enjoy sexual activity with the same sex. It doesn't mean they can't procreate, or that they won't. Nor does it mean that the homosexual cannot, or will not, adopt. If they are prevented from adopting, that's a social issue — not a sexual one.
Turn in your Vulcan card as you leave the building, thanks for playing. There's a helpful novitia
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Actually, I believe that homosexual males are less likely to procreate themselves, but are more likely to have older brothers who are not homosexual. I could have read the statistics slightly wrong, as I wasn't that interested. It's from the current issue of New Scientist, but they were referring to a study somebody (I don't remember who) did. So if you're interested follow it up there.
OTOH, there's a lot of cultural influence. During the classical period most male citizens of Sparta were homosexuals, a
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You know it's a slow night when I'm responding to an OT AC, but just anecdotally speaking most of the gay people I know have kids.
Re: Just include in the byline (Score:1)
not new though.
Google started dropping user generated content from all its services around the time google+ flopped.
even a search for âoebeforeitsnews.comâ often returns links to CNN ffs. (although not at the moment it seems).
then they crippled search suggestions by removing the most searched for words (like âstar wars torrentâ)
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The idea of clinging to your state government is a function of nationalism. This is what drove Brexit. To some degree, this also drives the idea of Federalism. We want to be distinct enough to control our own destiny and not be subject to the whims of idiots we don't agree with.
You will whine about Russian meddling and then happily meddle in someone else's election in another state (like Alabama).
That's not enough... (Score:1, Troll)
"This includes, but isn't limited to, sites that misrepresent or conceal their country of origin or are directed at users in another country under false premises." A popular tactic for misinformation campaigns is to pose as a credible U.S. news outlet.
How about 'home grown" internet sites that actually manufacture fake news? One such site was mentioned by our president recently.
Now, to be fair, listen to this clip [youtu.be] at the 1:38 mark.
Then you wonder why the ordinary folk fee the way they do, about our media.
A new age of internet (Score:3, Insightful)
It's even worse than that.
There are actual published papers, such as this one [uiowa.edu], that can't tell the difference between fake and real.
The cited paper specifically calls out the infamous spirit cooking [infowars.com] article from InfoWars.
The problem is, although that article sparked a torrent of fake claims, everything actually presented in that article was verified. None of the "fakeness" came from the article, only by people repeating the information and adding hyperbole. John Podesta did get an invite, it was a spirit co
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That's not that new an age. I grew up being assured of many things that were based on "fake news"...and that was over 50 years ago.
Re: A new age of internet (Score:2, Redundant)
I suspect you have a very funny definition of the word "verified".
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None of the "fakeness" came from the article, only by people repeating the information and adding hyperbole.
Or it could be the other way around, the article isn't fake because it's actually repeating accurately the fake hyperboles and the tenuous associations made by others.
For instance, take a look at this paragraph:
Some are even linking the spirit cooking revelation to claims that the Podesta emails contain “code for child sex trafficking” that is hidden behind mentions of types of food.
Is it false? Probably not. No doubt, some anonymous wacko on some right-wing bulletin board does believe this.
Or what about this?
Reports that FBI agents see Hillary Clinton as “the antichrist personified” now make a lot more sense.
It even links to another article here: https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
But when you dig into that second article, the sources are:
Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record...
Which isn't to say that anonymous sources
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How about 'home grown" internet sites that actually manufacture fake news?
That would mean the Fox [cnn.com] tabloid [cnn.com] and the white supremacist web site Breitbart [dailykos.com] wouldn't get listings. Won't someone think of the children!
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It's an interesting idea. May I remind you that the Egyptian goddess Maat, normally called the goddess of truth, was actually the goddess of the officially accepted belief. And would you consider the meaning of the Russian word "Pravda", which is, I believe, translated as "the official truth".
I'm not real thrilled with corporate "truths", but they may be superior to political ones.
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Who do you trust to determine that something is a lie?
It's quite reasonable for someone handing you a link to say "by the way, *I* wouldn't trust that" (or "*I* would"). That lets you decide how much you trust their evaluation. To just hide the data, however, marks *you* as untrustworthy even if the data *was* untrustworthy.
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That's nice when you can manage it, but often there is only one original source for certain information. In that case, multiple sources pointing to the same original source don't help. And multiple sources editorializing about it, but not pointing to it are all untrustworthy.
If you're a search engine, just give me the link, and if you want to tell me you don't trust it at the same time, that's fine. If I trust you, maybe I'll consider your opinion.
Re: That's not enough... (Score:1)
How about, let's not support Google's censorship of the internet.
ask me if I care about Google News . (Score:2)
Let them do what they want- I won't be using Google News as long as they waste my screen space and my time. Why do they need three columns, two of which are mostly empty, for their presentation? Why do they need, in addition to the three columns, a header and a footer? Why do I only get 4 headlines per page-down, on a page 4 feet long?
Yes Slashdot and many other sites are also guilty. But you might expect Google to be more thoughtful; to offer some design leadership.
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So much wasted space on this newest version of the google news site, the previous version was tolerable but this new version is stupid. I still look at it every so often to see if they pulled their head out of their ass but no not yet.
The whitespace 'craze' is very overdone now, people didn't seem to catch the part where its a good technique to promote something special and have it stick out but to use it everywhere is dumb.
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I had finally enough of google news and went to Bing news [bing.com]. Even though I hate Microsoft... this Google arrogance is really getting to me. Bing news format is a lot better, it presents a lot more articles, and it has a politics section, which is about the only thing I read these days.
Google translate (Score:5, Insightful)
I entered the OP text into "Google Translate", here's what I got:
We're making a bunch of private rules which are ill-defined, fuzzy, and overly broad. We're going to couple these with selective enforcement backed by AI algorithms using a high false-positive rate, and use it to remove sites without warning or identifying what specific sections are in violation or what rules are violated.
In that way, Google will strip out all fake news, ensuring that only true and correct news remains.
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What is your alternative solution, or are you suggesting that they do nothing?
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Doing nothing heavily favours the far right and general political instability, because that's the angle most of the fake news is pushing.
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The far right is a disease. Diseases infect opportunistically. In a healthy democracy, the press is the immune system to such a disease. The flaws in our heavily consolidated media, with very strong pro-corporate values, have failed to function because they've prioritized access to politicians over their duty to hold politicians responsible. Congress has unbelievably low approval ratings, because they are accurately perceived as bought-off scumbags. And the media rarely bothers to press politicians to a
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It's not about whether or not we should stop/fight the far-right. AmiMoJo already established that as something necessary. My point was that, if you think it's necessary to stop them, you should use methods that will actually work.
Also, my solution is the very opposite of purging. I'm saying the way to stop alt-right false propaganda is with ACTUAL GODDAMN JOURNALISM. If CNN hadn't been complete horseshit for over a decade, we wouldn't be in this mess.
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What's with the hate for this measure?
Where I come from, virtually every product you can buy is required, by law, to be labelled with its country of origin. If you buy French cheese or German beer or Spanish olives, you can be confident that they really were produced in those countries.
There's no restriction to freedom of speech involved here. If you want to produce a news page about events in, say, Egypt from the USA, you can do that. Or if you want to comment on US news from Moldavia, there's nothing to s
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Sure it is. You've never heard the globalist organizations whine about how it's "discrimination" to put country of origin labels on food?
As far as culture goes: Your hysterical ranting won't alter the fact that the US dominates global culture.
More of the same (Score:2, Insightful)
They already exclude anything to the right of Trotsky.
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You should get the Blinkers [wikipedia.org] browser extension. You tell it whether you're a Republican or Democrat and it filters out any sites that might cause you unpleasant cognitive dissonance and only shows you stuff you'll agree with.
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so they're gonna block foxnews, infowars and breitbart? sweet. so i can use google news again. that's great!
Google. Helping you build your liberal echo chamber since 1998, one biased filter at a time.
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You guys bitch when Google doesn't do anything about the fake news and political hacking, and then bitch more about when they do. I'm beginning to think you just like bitching about things.
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You guys bitch when Google doesn't do anything about the fake news and political hacking
This has never happened. You're the one posting fake news.
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Speaking of which, they haven't blocked Fox or Brietbart either, that was just the paranoid ranting of a /. AC. You reacted like it had already happened.
Fake news indeed.
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Who needs a scapegoat? The responsibility for Trump's election is obvious. A faulty electoral system and an entrenched partisan division that would lead to a pair of space aliens being the leading contenders if they had the proper letter across from their names.
There's no desperation, except by those who are frenetically in denial that their standard-bearer is a corrupt, lying, fraudulent, pompous, charade of a man, and the fact is, we have needed help to sort through the lies, that's why dozens of websi
Re: not engage in coordinated activity to mislea (Score:1)
What explains this fetish for the working class? What is the working class?
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> You guys bitch when Google doesn't do anything about the fake news and political hacking, and then bitch more about when they do. I'm beginning to think you just like bitching about things.
You are conflating two entirely different groups with two entirely different ideas about how to deal with contrary viewpoints.
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so they're gonna block foxnews, infowars and breitbart? sweet. so i can use google news again. that's great!
Google. Helping you build your liberal echo chamber since 1998, one biased filter at a time.
Thanks for your opinion, Ivan.
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China owns Pakistan 3 times over
pick and mix (Score:2)
Stupid answer: in Soviet Russia, country of origin masks YOU!
Slightly less stupid answer: it won't work. They'll find some flaw, bodge, frig or loophole.
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In Soviet Russia, flaw loopholes you!
I hope they coordinate with other sites. (Score:2)
This is a very reasonable form of defense (this is information warfare after all) but I hope they coordinate with other sites too. Sure they know a bunch of Twitter accounts point to false/misleading news but will they then automatically alert Twitter so that they can investigate and possibly take down rings of accounts created to mislead or halt the links made by fooled bystanders?
I know this is a dangerous technology because it can be misused but the same could be said about the internet but we still hav
Re:I hope they coordinate with other sites. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a very reasonable form of defense
Defense against what? Hackers that leak emails proving that the mainstream media is in bed with the DNC? Controversial trolls that force people to question the political dogmas? I think we need more of those, not less.
In any event, Google can apply their biased filters as much as they want to promote their social agenda, all it will achieve is that people will realize that they are as dishonest and misleading as CNN. They're driving themselves into irrelevance.
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Re:I hope they coordinate with other sites. (Score:4, Insightful)
I never heard anyone telling people to question dogma, only to switch from one dogma to the other.
the birth of of nation (Score:2)
I never heard anyone telling people to question dogma, only to switch from one dogma to the other.
That's how America worked since the Mason-Dixon line. But recently a few big tech companies and the mainstream media have decided that one of the dogmas didn't deserve to be discussed anymore, discarding the fact that 49% of the population thinks otherwise, and they have used their power to push their agenda.
We need (at least) two points of view. But real ones. You know what I want for Christmas? Politicians who actually represent the values of their party and who go head to head on real issues, instead of
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That's how America worked since the Mason-Dixon line. But recently a few big tech companies and the mainstream media have decided that one of the dogmas didn't deserve to be discussed anymore
Sure thing, let us pretend mccarthy never happened.
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That's how America worked since the Mason-Dixon line. But recently a few big tech companies and the mainstream media have decided that one of the dogmas didn't deserve to be discussed anymore
Sure thing, let us pretend mccarthy never happened.
Do you know these people?
Edward J. Hart
John Stephens Wood
Francis E. Walter
Edwin E. Willis
Those are Democrats who were chairmen of the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era.
Re: I hope they coordinate with other sites. (Score:3)
Defense against what?
Liars and frauds. If you're pretending to be a large American company when you're a single guy in a basement in Minsk, we've already established that you're a liar. No need to give you any free publicity.
Re:I hope they coordinate with other sites. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a very reasonable form of defense
Defense against what? Hackers that leak emails proving that the mainstream media is in bed with the DNC? Controversial trolls that force people to question the political dogmas?
No, defense against propaganda that is intended to intensify the divisions within out nation. What they do does not make people question their politics but rather harden people in their viewpoints. I'm all for exposing corruption but their goal is simply to cause civil unrest and promote political extremism to fuel that agenda.
I very much want to what you are claiming they do but the fact is that they are making people more extreme in their viewpoints and normalizing that extremism.
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No, defense against propaganda that is intended to intensify the divisions within out nation. What they do does not make people question their politics but rather harden people in their viewpoints
Take a chill pill, then look at what you're saying. It is absurd. In terms of paranoia and conspiracy theory, it's getting closer and closer to the level of David Icke and his lizard overlords.
You are merely repeating a narrative that has been cooked up to keep you distracted from the DNC leaked emails and that somehow turned into a shitstorm because clickbaiting has replaced journalism. It's not a conspiracy, it's a perfect storm of political meddling, opportunism, greed and short-term thinking. It's Wag t
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You are merely repeating a narrative that has been cooked up to keep you distracted from the DNC leaked emails
So they cooked up Russian interference that was being investigated before the election? Let me guess, the "deep state" is now protecting the DNC? No conspiracy though, right?
Stop listening to that bullshit and stop repeating it.
Since when did factual information count as "bullshit"? I think you should start examining the facts before discounting the conclusions.
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Let's be clear, you are talking about random blogs and fake news that you feel should be more prominent because you believe them for some reason.
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Do you have examples of this?
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I had a look but couldn't see any evidence in those cases, even an serious allegations. In fact it seems like all of them benefitted greatly from exposure through Google services like YouTube.
Do you mean the recent YouTube monetisation issues?
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The Humanist Report isn't a news source, though; it is a podcast. "TYT" (The Young Turks) is a youtube (google) channel that is also on some cable networks. David Pakman is a TV and internet video commentator.
None of that is crap that would be on Google News. The Google News format is that of an aggregator of internet newspapers. They then also link videos related to the story. The videos linked are generally news videos, not commentary.
I understand, you only watch and listen, you don't read. But still, yo
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I didn't say "news source," I said "independent left media." All of those are independent left media. I didn't say that those particular people would be hit by this, but that the niche of "left-wing media that doesn't constantly suck off corporations" would probably be collateral damage under this change, just like they were under the adpocalypse.
No, we don't have an example of how censorship would play out here, because they haven't done this kind of censorship yet. But because I'm not naive, I reali
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No, things that are not news are not part of news aggregation will not be "collateral damage" under these changes. Is that actually hard? Are you sure that you're not naive? I mean, imagine how embarrassingly credulous you would have to be for it to be all that, with no contribution from naivete! You're not doing yourself any favors with that argument.
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If you can't tell what censorship is, then it should be no surprise at all that some of things you falsely regard as "censorship" do not affect people in the ways that real censorship is believed to. Duh.
For example, if a person thought that removing wrong answers from math tables was censorship, and they started talking about the effects of removing those wrong answers, they might be very surprised to learn that nobody else can perceive anything but positive results from the change! Even though all the sam
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If you had a real argument, you wouldn't need to be such a condescending cunt. You have the same kind of undeserved hubris that managed to lose a general election to a moron with no frontal lobe inhibition. You could have reasonably accuse me of being overly paranoid, but then it would point out the idiocy of your previous naivety claims, since I have the cynicism high ground, by far.
So now, you've got to claim that I don't read, with the only evidence being that I brought up Youtube users over Youtube'
get real (Score:2)
Google, Facebook, Twitter are actively engaged in pro-liberal agendas. CNN, The New York Times and the Washington Post as well.
There is a reason why over the last century or so the first thing that leaders of military coups used to do was to take control of national radio, newspapers and later tv stations. It's because when you control information, you control people.
Yes, there's breitbart and fox news and a few others, but they're a drop in the bucket compared to the giant liberal players. I don't know ho
Re: Otlychnaya novosti! ;)) (Score:1)
Ãzà verÃur Ãtrýmt. JÃrÃin verÃur aà vera hreinsuÃ. allir Ãvinir verÃa eytt.
"intentionally misleading readers" (Score:2)
Presumably Google AI is now able to read the minds of people posting articles to know their intention they harbor in their hearts with over 98% accuracy. Sometimes even when even the said people are completely unaware of it!
Translation (Score:1)
Google will stretch forth its will to censor and arbitrate discourse supported by brainless illiberal leftists
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Red Scare is the new Racism.
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Well, if people don't like it, they'll switch to some other search engine. Like Bing.
If you believe in the free market, this isn't something you should complain about, and if you believe in monopolies this isn't something you should complain about. It's only reasonable to complain if you believe that the government should micromanage the economy.
Oddly enough, despite the preceding paragraph it does bother me. I *want* them to post "informational decals" on the web page searches, like "we judge this site
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There is a difference between believing in the free market as a concept and believing that the western economy is a free market. It is not. It's a corporate welfare state. The government is identical with publicly traded companies and it does micromanage the economy. What is the Federal Reserve Bank?
We have been invaded and the vast majority of people who have stood up against the invaders since the Civil War (English or American, either is applicable) have been demonized and everyone who falls for the narr
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It is only reasonable to disagree if you believe something absurd, so agree with me I demand it
No, actually, that is totally whack and you're full of shit. What news is on which aggregator has nothing to do with the gubermint, and nothing to do with "managing the economy."
No surprise that you then want people to re-post propaganda they know is propaganda. There is nothing odd about it at all, just look at the rest of your statement. But they're not going to do that for you; that would be stupid. For them. And not because of complicated things like lizard people controlling the gubermint. Because it i
faux news is still safe... (Score:1)
i don't care about clinton (Score:3)
Mislead users? (Score:2)
How about going back to been a search engine and not just adding more SJW guidelines.
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If you ever learn to read, check back and consider: this isn't about search results.
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How innovative that would be to get real news results that have not been altered by SJW...
No deranking, no censorship, no removal of news. Let the user find what they want with a new search engine that works as it should
Not sure that's what they intended by that... (Score:1)
the search giant added language stipulating that publications not "engage in coordinated activity to mislead users."
That would get rid of most mainstream media, no?
Corporate Censorship vs State Censorship (Score:1)
LOL, and Google has the nerve... (Score:1)
...to support net neutrality. Now that Google is editing the internet it's time to swing the anti trust hammer.
Not the answer (Score:2)
Censorship is rarely if ever the answer. The fact that a giant alt left company is doing it does not make it better. The solution to propaganda and disinformation is more accurate, factual information, and historical perspective.
The reason we are in this mess to begin with is the news media degenerated from it's original goal of reporting "Just the facts, mam." to actively shilling for the alt left and the Democrats, often using he said/she said with no underlying facts or background on the parties invol
Go Ogle thinks I'm French, Polish and Norwegian... (Score:1)
For the love of Pete ... (Score:2)
For the love of Pete ... we didn't need Russian "fake news" to not want to vote for Hillary. (Nor did most of use even see any, but whatever.)
No, really, we didn't. It's a great story to tell yourself, but we didn't. She was no-votable all by herself. With stuff she really did and said. Really.
Cognitive biases (Score:1)
I don't think so.