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Google Search's New Highly Cited Label Helps You Get To the Source of a Story (theverge.com) 61

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Google is adding a new "highly cited" label to search results frequently sourced by other publications, the company is announcing today. From a report: Anything from local news stories, to interviews, announcements, and even press releases will be eligible for the new label being added to the search result's preview image, so long as other websites are linking to it. More info is also being added to Search's "rapidly evolving topics" and "About this Result" notices. The search giant's hope is that its highly cited label will help highlight original reporting, which can include important context that's stripped out when a story gets picked up more widely. But it should also be helpful to find press releases, where you can get information directly from companies themselves. Google says it hopes the label will help readers find "the most helpful or relevant information for a news story." It'll launch "soon" in the US on mobile for English-speaking users, and will start appearing globally "in the coming weeks."
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Google Search's New Highly Cited Label Helps You Get To the Source of a Story More

Google Search's New Highly Cited Label Helps You Get To the Source of a Story

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  • Something tells me that being "highly cited" isn't the only criteria for this. More like "highly cited in a way that aligns with the ideological preferences of the people at Google who tell that how to happen." Which is fine. It's their thing. But they should have the intellectual honesty to proclaim that, proudly.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kick6 ( 1081615 )
      Even if it's JUST "highly cited" all "highly cited" means is "echo chamber approved." And that doesn't matter what side of any issue you fall on.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by g01d4 ( 888748 )

        all "highly cited" means is "echo chamber approved."

        The headline states it "helps you get to the source of the story" which I assume helps you filter the echo. It sent me back to the late '70s when I read of a few instances where the original source that kicked off the echo (which was mostly towards the left back then) was traced back to something highly dubious. So it was the NYT citing the WPo citing the Des Moines Register citing some politician citing some academic study that never got published. But it

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by taustin ( 171655 )

        Given the nature of the internet today, "highly cited" is actually just an indication that it's trending, meme-like, and that, in turn, is an indication that it's bullshit propaganda.

        This tag is, literally, an indication that the link isn't worth following.

    • Sorry kiddo but Google doesn't give a shit. The citation is a simple count from news articles. If your article shows up in Google News and links to another shown in Google News it counts as a cite.

      Can you please go back to telling us how 9/11 was a CIA inside operation and the moon landing was faked? Those conspiracies are at least fun.

    • "highly cited" is bogus, but finding the original source of any story, and publication date, is helpful.

    • What evidence do you have that Google imposes ideological preferences in their rankings?

      Yes, they do rank based on complex algorithms, but to accuse them of basing the algorithms on ideology requires some evidence.

  • It's how truth turned into truthiness. If enough people believe it, it's gotta be so.

  • Great,

    Another well-meant (or is it?) initiative that will very quickly be corrupted to serve western propaganda, like 'fact-checkers" and "independent investigative sites", like Bellington.

  • When Google first started, ranking by how many other sites reference you was how search results were listed.
    What was old, is brand new to solve a problem?

    Both Google and sites gamed the system to push their favorites to the top of the list, especially if you paid money

    • Sort of. That was more at the domain level. A web site that is referenced and linked to a lot gets a lot of weight. Then anything it references gets weight through that.

      This definitely seems related but down at the individual article level. Since all major news sites have a relatively high ranking, drilling down the citation tree would get you closer to the source than whoever has the highest ranked domain.

  • The irony of running a story talking about being able to find the source of articles more easily and then posting coverage from The Verge instead of ... the actual frigging announcement from Google [blog.google] is so thick you not only can cut it with a knife, you absolutely need that damn knife.

    Seriously editors can you please remove Slashdot filters for a moment so I can post a giant ASCII art facepalm?
    Screw it I'll link to one: https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/i... [kym-cdn.com]

  • There's seldom such a thing as an original source in modern journalism. It's just a loop of citations. Someone invents something claiming they have "an anonymous source familiar with the public figure's thinking" and it happens to be exactly what people want to hear. The single blip of a story, like a single photon in a photomulitplier tube, is then amplified millions of times as it just turns into a circlejerk of people citing people citing other people who cite other people. Then if anyone who wishes to c

  • Someone changed the name of a German politician on his Wikipedia article.

    A German news paper, relying on this wikipedia article, printed the erroneous name.

    A citation needed flag was added to the name change on the Wikipedia article.

    The wikipedia article cited the news paper.

    • Citogenesis! [xkcd.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by taustin ( 171655 )

      Wikipedia has a well documented, published (and confirmed) policy that their content is, in fact, a popularity contest for memes. Primary sources are not allowed, and they have consciously confirmed that secondary sources that are proven to be false are preferable to actual facts.

      If you are famous enough to have your own Wikipedia page, and somebody publishes a story about that gets your date of birth wrong, that is an acceptable source for Wikipedia, where your birth certificate is not.

      Why anyone takes Wik

    • "Someone changed the name of a German politician on his Wikipedia article" ...to Adolf Hitler, right?

  • Now that population catching on that 'fact checking' is in reality tech giants asking themselves to check their own work, this latest attempt is rebranding the same scam.

  • I have a better proposal for the name of the label, instead of "Highest Cited" it should be "Loudest Echo" in he chamber.

  • I thought I was on Slashdot, not OANN.

  • Is searching for a new relevance to keep the cash cow alive.
  • It will be helpful to users since there are many suspicious sources all over the web. Further, freelancers like me will have credible sources for our online research tasks. - https://marianvirtualservice.w... [wixsite.com]

  • A lot of Slashdot posts cite stories that are paywalled or from secondary sources. This label might help to find better sources.

    • The paywalled sources are often original journalism; the result of someone going to the trouble of discovering the facts, checking them, and writing about them. Who would be the "better source" for the Watergate scandal, other than the Washington Post? I am as irritated as anybody else when I hit a paywall, but who is going to pay for proper journalism otherwise?

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