Google News Now Prominently Featuring Polymarket Bets (futurism.com) 17
Futurism found that Google News is surfacing Polymarket betting pages alongside traditional news sources. "The bets often appear in the 'For you' section of Google News, which is tailored to a user's personal interests," the publication reports. "In one instance, it was even the very top result, as with this bet on the price of Bitcoin." From the report: In our testing, Polymarket bets are also showing up on the Google News home page. But links from the prediction market can pop up all over Google News, including in searches. In further tests, looking up "will ships transit the strait," referring to the Strait of Hormuz, returned numerous credible sources like Financial Times, The Guardian, and Reuters. Just below them, however, was a Polymarket bet on the number of ships that would be allowed to pass through the critical oil passageway.
This doesn't appear to be an accident. When searching "Polymarket" in its search bar, Google News now allows users to choose it as a "source," directing them to a page that aggregates other Polymarket hits. It's not the only non-news site that's selectable as a source -- looking up "Reddit" and "X" offers the option, too -- but searching for "Kalshi," another prediction market and Polymarket's main competitor, doesn't give the option to use it as a source. [...] In light of all this, Polymarket appearing in Google News is a major victory for the prediction platform -- rubber-stamping its image as an authority on developing real-world events right alongside genuine real publishers of journalism.
This doesn't appear to be an accident. When searching "Polymarket" in its search bar, Google News now allows users to choose it as a "source," directing them to a page that aggregates other Polymarket hits. It's not the only non-news site that's selectable as a source -- looking up "Reddit" and "X" offers the option, too -- but searching for "Kalshi," another prediction market and Polymarket's main competitor, doesn't give the option to use it as a source. [...] In light of all this, Polymarket appearing in Google News is a major victory for the prediction platform -- rubber-stamping its image as an authority on developing real-world events right alongside genuine real publishers of journalism.
Publishers Can List Themselves (Score:2)
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Given that publishers can add themselves to Google News
citation needed
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Just use Duck Duck Go (Score:4, Informative)
I end up doing about 15% of my searches on Google, because DDG has some serious deficiencies. But DDG doesn't feed me polymarket crap, and it even provides a URL which dispenses with the AI bullshit altogether.
It's long past time for people to start punishing Google for all their anti-society crap by just not using their services. At this point the world would be better off if Google just died.
Re: Just use Duck Duck Go (Score:2)
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Re: Just use Duck Duck Go (Score:2)
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Have you considered Startpage [startpage.com]?
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Thanks for the reminder. I used to use Startpage but stopped for reasons I don't remember. Time to try it again.
Alternatives to Google News (Score:2)
I've been looking for a good news aggrigator that is customizable as an alternative to google news for many years. Google news seems a little abandoned by google, and, I'm pretty certain, the button that says "Fewer stories like this" doesn't actually do anything at all.
The profile it builds on you can be very annoying. For example it somehow got the idea that I was very very interested in news about Kanye West, despite never searching for him or clicking on articles about him and ignoring my fewer stories
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Isn't he the right winger who refuses to bathe and had roaches crawling on himself during a livestream?
Ah, yes, Polymarket bets (Score:1)
A thing made by losers for losers.
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"Friday" (Score:3)
I'm reminded of an old Heinlein novel, "Friday". One chapter describes an environment of immersive gambling in all walks of life.
A quick setup with shameless copypasta from the usual source:
"Friday is a 1982 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It is the story of a female "artificial person", the eponymous Friday, genetically engineered to be stronger, faster, smarter, and generally better than normal humans. Artificial humans are widely resented, and much of the story deals with Friday's struggle both against prejudice and to conceal her enhanced attributes from other humans. The story is set in a Balkanized 21st century, in which the nations of the North American continent have been split up into a number of smaller states."
Friday is a ""combat courier in a quasi-military organization", traveling across the globe and to some of the near-Earth space colonies."..."Friday travels through the California Confederacy, the Lone Star Republic...and the Chicago Imperium as she attempts to reach her headquarters."
Well, ol' Bob had a lot of fun describing a California Republic, er, Confederacy of the future (no, he didn't go there--it was just a name). The Governor is some old guy who wore a war bonnet, f'rinstance, and "Lottery Day" is a national holiday. People roll dice with cops to see if they're really going to get that traffic ticket. It was one of the lighter chapters in the book, and Heinlein played it for laughs. I enjoyed it and imagine people not from California would enjoy it even more. Anyways, Friday happens to win the big jackpot on Lottery Day (a lot of Heinlein's books work best when the protagonists are independently wealthy). It's a big scene and the entire population breathlessly awaits the televised results. When she wins she gets the great honor of being presented with the winnings by the Governor in front of the cameras (contraindicated for a combat courier). Shenanigans ensue. More stuff like that, then the story moves along.
Ok, so that's the relevant bit. I'll close with this: The book got several awards nods and was a fun read. One critical viewer had this to say, "Heinlein's ability to write a sentence that makes you want to read the next sentence remains unparalleled...Every sentence and every paragraph and page and chapter lead on to the next, but it's just one thing after another, there's no real connection going on. It has no plot, it's a set of incidents that look as if they're going somewhere and don't ever resolve, just stop." Frankly that's one of the things I liked about it. While not a stream of consciousness work like perhaps Vonnegut would do (which would have the same criticisms), it was an adventure story dealing with the random hits of an impersonal universe whose only "plot" is to eventually kill you.
I expect better from Slashdot (Score:2)
Why are there so many comments against this?
This is not gambling advertising. This is actually useful information, often more useful than the news articles themselves.
If you think Polymarket odds are wrong, what is it? Are you the smartest person in the world? Otherwise, why has nobody else decided to outsmart the market and bet in accordance with how they are wrong? Of course not. That is silly.