Here's one of today's important headlines and my takes on it. From AP, How Google search results really work.
Those facts are correct and point to exactly the issue the President has spoken out about. While Google maintains there isn’t bias, that’s actually inaccurate based on the criteria that decides “authoritativeness” and the human programmers who create the algorithms. Frankly, it’s intellectually insulting in addition to being dishonest. I do believe, that they aren’t intentionally going out of their way as a company to deliver overtly biased results. However, they live in a world where CNN, the most liberal network in news according to researched findings by the Media Research Center, is the most “authoritative” TV news outlet. Also, the New York Times and the Washington Post are the most “authoritative” newspaper and digital news organizations.
That’s the issue here. It’s been proven that the same piece of content disseminated by CNN and Fox News will prioritize the CNN content ahead of Fox News. Fox News has higher average ratings than CNN, MSNBC and CNBC combined. Therefore, how could the “authoritative” rating be based on anything other the arbitrary and highly flawed criteria?
What’s worse than Google lying to us and assuming we’re stupid, is that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg admitted as much during the mist of the newsfeed scandal they went through. Now, here’s the rub. There’s nothing inherently wrong with Google, a business run for its shareholders, to create a biased product if that’s what they want to do. Just as it’s any liberal digital company’s right to perpetuate whatever it is they what to perpetuate (this side of slander anyway). What’s wrong about this, however, is that Google’s by far the world’s top search platform-built on a false premise of objectivity that they’re indignant about while refuting the truth presented to them.
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