RSSSo Much for Google Searches being Based on Unimpeachable Objectivity Algorithm … staff will pick and choose search results
After all the time, search engine giant GOOGLE now says that its searches are not apparently unimpeachable objectivity, but instead subjective. Who needs google bombing when it would seem the GOOGLE does it themselves as a patter of practice. We were told that GOOGLE searches were a result of a computer program algorithm and unimpeachable objectivity; however, like everything in the media these days that seems to not be the case. In an age that no one has much confidence in the old stream media because of its bias, do we really need to follow that same failed method of operation for the web? Subjectivity and bias has palyed a large role in the downfall of old style media as newspapers and magazine publications find themselves becoming extinct.
Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It’s a historic statement – and nobody has yet grasped its significance.
Not so very long ago, Google disclaimed responsibility for its search results by explaining that these were chosen by a computer algorithm. The disclaimer lives on at Google News, where we are assured that:
The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program.
A few years ago, Google’s apparently unimpeachable objectivity got some people very excited, and technology utopians began to herald Google as the conduit for a new form of democracy. Google was only too pleased to encourage this view. It explained that its algorithm “relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. “
That Google was impartial was one of the articles of faith. For if Google was ever to be found to be applying subjective human judgment directly on the process, it would be akin to the voting machines being rigged.
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8 Responses to “So Much for Google Searches being Based on Unimpeachable Objectivity Algorithm … staff will pick and choose search results”
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This doesn’t surprise me. I remember deep in the Natalee Holloway investigation, there were numerous things that would be on the web one day and off the next. I was under the impression that someone very powerful in Aruba was destroying information, deleting articles about their ministers and so on. It wasn’t until later that I discovered that others had this same problem so they were sure to save their research on their hard drives.
Is Big Brother censoring us, as well as, watching?
P.S. Is there another search scheduled for Aruba?
Mind control begins with controlling the
mass dissemination of information. Let’s
assume for a minute that the bulk of the media
(news,broadcast/cable tv, etc.) pumps out liberal thought
and/or spin on everything. Where else can
an opposing opinion be found? Hmmmm.
(in church?, on the net? in a bar?, at work?
at school or liberal college?, other?)
If you chose the net, and the search engines
are corrupted by the companies that own them
because they can, it is easy to see how even
history can be subtly rewritten and spun over
time. Google is suspect right now!
this is a very dangerous development.
Big brother is watching, thats why it is free and uncensored.
People with acumen in financial affairs say that the proper way to read a company’s annual report is, literally, to begin at the back.
Why? Because the ‘real’ news is, as often as not, buried in some footnote on page 273 or whatever.
So now we’ll know to do the same with Google: when you’re searching for something, jump down to the results on page 17 or so, and start there.
By the way … I may be an old diehard, but Yahoo is still good enough for me.
yahoo….thought they went belly-up
Richard,
I coud not agree more! I just changed my Desktop search icon from Google to Yahoo.
In a few recent Google searches, it said something like “the search results were stored on my PC from previous similar searches.” Then I tried clicking on its results and got nothing but frustrated. After reading all this, I have no regrets.
And I was a huge Google enthusiast in the not so distant past!