Google's NOT AT ALL BIASED fact check service

Discussion in 'West Mall' started by ProdigalHorn, Jan 9, 2018.

  1. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    Search the following in Google:

    The Daily Caller
    The Daily Wire
    Gateway Pundit
    Breitbart

    Then search:

    Vox.com
    ThinkProgress
    Talking Points Memo
    Mother Jones
    Slate
    Jezebel
    Daily Kos

    Notice a difference? (To be fair... not all conservative websites are getting the same treatment.) And no, I don't have an issue with saying that the listed conservative sites have used hyperbole and exaggeration and (more in Breitbart's case) basically just trying to create news. But come on... are we really going to argue that the liberal sites listed aren't doing the same or worse??

    Plus, they cherry pick the "False claims" and front load them, and (in a couple of cases) will allow one "true" verdict at the end after you've scrolled through. And in many cases the fact-checkers' claims themselves need to be fact-checked.

    Nothing to see here, though...
     
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  2. OUBubba

    OUBubba 5,000+ Posts

    I would concede on TPM, Daily Kos and partially mother jones. Vox and Slate are biased but not to the point of writing false things. They're more like Foxnews.
     
  3. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    There's no question there's a gradation of "spin" that goes on, and some are higher on the scale than others. I don't really follow Daily Caller that much largely because they do tend to hyperventilate about everything. They have some good stuff and some that is definitely a stretch.
     
  4. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    Looking at only the top 2 sites you list (Daily Caller and Vox) I'm not sure what the issue is. Based on the search, it appears The Daily Caller is the one making a claim of Google bias. What are they claiming?

    Daily Caller.PNG Vox.PNG
     
  5. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    Re-read my post, then look closer at what you just posted. Pay attention to the info boxes on the right.
     
  6. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    Sorry, I didn't notice that. Could it be that they haven't completed setting up all the sites? Other conservative sites (i.e. Townhall, Infowars) also haven't been setup to be reviewed.
     
  7. ShAArk92

    ShAArk92 1,000+ Posts

    BWHAHAHAHAHA... RICH.

    Yeah, I'm sure that's the problem.

    Add Drudge in that first list, @ProdigalHorn .... he was internet news before Al Gore told CNN he invented the internet ... and then decided they might ought to have a website.
     
  8. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    I guess we'll see, right? I guess it just happened by fluke luck that the Google team started with conservative sites? Not to mention that apparently they were able to roll these sites out together, but only any of the others.

    I'm happy to be corrected on this. Google isn't going away and I doubt there's much people can do about it. So if they want to basically undermine and sensor anything that they don't like, there's a good chance they can do it. So I'd really much rather I be wrong.
     
  9. ShAArk92

    ShAArk92 1,000+ Posts

    OK ... I'm dense ... off the fly schedule ... on drugs ... sleep schedule inverted ... tell me again how y'all are uploading these files into the post ....

    I see the "upload a file" on this text entry, but it turns out like my previous effort ... show a file to be clicked ... it's not embedded in the post.
     
  10. ShAArk92

    ShAArk92 1,000+ Posts

    what I noticed is non of the leftist based sites are characterized as "far-left" or "clinton-supporter" as breitbart is characterized as "far right" and Gateway Pundit is also "far-right" and "Trump supporter."

    I wasn't aware WaPo had purchased Slate from MSN. Interesting. MSN was my first internet service and I recall the home page even now ... the racket that modem made when dialing/connecting.

    TPM doesn't even get a characterization of left/right ... so they must be 100% objective?
     

    Attached Files:

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  11. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    Upload the file and click "full image" rather than thumbnail.
     
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  12. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    I don't think Google is creating those descriptions as much as using Wikipedia and other sources. I could be wrong though.
     
  13. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    The move in technology is to deploy a capability as quickly as possible, even if it's not finished. This way you begin gathering feedback to incorporate into future iterations. Google, Amazon and Facebook do this in spades. Maybe Google thinks they'll get more valuable feedback from conservatives? :idk:

    My point is that they clearly have not fully deployed the solution given they haven't hit some major right-wing sites (i.e. Infowars). If it truly was a "we only fact-check right wing sites" MO then don't you think they'd cover one of the biggest and easiest conservative sites to fact check?
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2018
  14. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    Certainly possible, but it's also possible that Alex Jones is so fringe that no one cares. It's also possible that Google's algorithm is looking at sharing volume and site traffic, and it targeted specific sites as more "high risk".

    We'll see, but given Google's track record, its affinity for progressive causes, its clear internal bias against conservatives, and the fact that it's still ticked about buying all those politicians only to lose on Net Neutrality, I don't expect this to change unless there's a massive uproar about it.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  15. ShAArk92

    ShAArk92 1,000+ Posts

    ah ... after comparing the wiki entries to these, I think you are right. So wiki is now revealed to be less than objective. wonderful.
     
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  16. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    That would likely be the case. Typically any of Google's Local Search boxes are populated automatically from varying sources. They don't have people going in and actually building those profiles from scratch.

    What I would find VERY interesting is how they determine which "claims" are being featured. Some of them are inaccurate (i.e. this website stated this, and it's false, except that's not actually what the site said... not to mention that the actual fact check might be flawed, biased, inconsistent, or inaccurate.), and in all the cases I saw, the "false" claims all showed up first. I only say one example of one that was considered "true" and it was shown at the very end of the scroll.

    Frankly fact check websites have become something of a joke. For something that's supposed to be "factual" they tend to be very arbitrary in terms of how they rate a statement, how they check it, and more to the point, what facts they actually check.
     
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  17. UTChE96

    UTChE96 2,500+ Posts

    Legal brief for James Damore's law suit. Curious what some of the board's lawyers think of the merits.

     
  18. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    Nearly all the fact checking sites have a date associated with the article. It would be pretty easy to use that as your base from selecting which claims have been reviewed. Not sure if that is the case but it would be the least controversial and most relevant.

    Can someone point me to a Snopes article that is factually incorrect?
     
  19. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    Sure...

    Here's a good example from Medium:

     
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  20. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    That's just one... for some reason having a lot of trouble posting the others. The bottom line is their primary political fact checker is a progressive, they cherry pick what they will and will not fact check, they rarely if ever actually go back and talk to the people who wrote what they're fact-checking, and at least in the case of Planned Parenthood, they will always go by the company's response as "proven truth."

    Ultimately they're trying to apply objective responses to subjective issues with an extremely subjective grading system. So that's the executive summary.
     
    • Like Like x 3
  21. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    Wow... apparently that killed this thread real fast...
     
    • Like Like x 1
  22. ShAArk92

    ShAArk92 1,000+ Posts

    game, set, match as they say
     
  23. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    Not sure that's a good example. The author of that article is essentially saying "believe Zeifman (sp?) because the Snopes author is biased and Zeifman said he fired Hillary". The article doesn't remotely break apart what appears to be a fairly well sourced article. That snopes article uses Zeifman's own statements in which his story continuously changed over the years to the point that in the later years he was directly contradicting what he had said in the earlier years.

    Unless you can show that the actual evidence cited in the Snopes article is falsified I'd wager any professor would take the Snopes article over the Medium article in a debate over which is more credible.
     
  24. ShAArk92

    ShAArk92 1,000+ Posts

    OH .... now we're moving the goalposts because "Nick" proved he could nail that 50 yarder! LOL
     
  25. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    No, he's not - he gives specific reasons why he believes the claim is true, but he's providing context as to why those reasons were completely ignored. He does make that point, and if you were talking about a conservative site you'd be on it like a dog on a bone. "You're using Ben Shapiro as a fact-checker??? Come on!" It is beyond question that Snopes is fact-checking from a liberal bias, and if you're going to deny that, then there's no point in even having this conversation because you're not interested in actually being fair about it.

    So basically the rule is that what he said first, regardless of the context, has to be accepted as truth? Are you sure you want to stick to that principle? The guy never denied that the original article was written or that Zeifman said what he said. That's no in question. So of course he doesn't debunk it.

    I'd say the article very clearly lines out that later comments clarified (not necessarily contradicted) his first statement. But you seem to be making the argument that those later statements are under question, but then you seem to admit that they aren't, and it's just about whether you think he was lying later or earlier. Or it could be that they're both essentially true.

    Of course, in all this you're missing that this article perfectly exhibits my point. This is CLEARLY a statement that can reasonably be made based on this man's comments. To judge it "false" is to make the assumption that the quote YOU LIKE is correct, and the ONE YOU DON'T is incorrect.

    How is that fact-checking again? Honestly, you had like three days, and that's all you came up with? There are plenty more, but clearly there's no point in posting more because you're going to use the same logic that Snopes uses, which is to use your preference to decide that something is true or false.
     
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  26. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    I'd never say that any site gets it right all the time. The best you can expect is an attempt to be non-partisan in their fact checking.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  27. Statalyzer

    Statalyzer 10,000+ Posts

    A lot of people probably would. The left tends to see itself as not just the center but as nearly the entire reasonable spectrum, where any decent normal human being would be. This is why, for example, Oprah has been mentioned quite a bit lately but was never called anything like "the liberal talk show host" or "the left-wing media mogul".
     
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  28. ShAArk92

    ShAArk92 1,000+ Posts

    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

    BOOM

    Shack, Stat!
     
  29. Joe Fan

    Joe Fan 10,000+ Posts

    The Monopoly Game guy has been spotted at the current Google hearing

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
    • Funny Funny x 1
  30. Joe Fan

    Joe Fan 10,000+ Posts

    I watched some of the hearing
    Our political people are not well-equipped to deal with Big Tech
    It's embarrassing


     

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