How Fake and False News Distort Google and Others
https://lauren.vortex.com/2016/11/25/how-fake-and-false-news-distort-google-and-others
With all of the current discussions regarding the false and fake news
glut on the Internet -- often racist in nature, some purely domestic
in origin, some now believed to be instigated by Putin's Russia --
it's obvious that the status quo for dealing with such materials is
increasingly untenable.
But what to do about all this?
As I have previously discussed, my general view is that more
information -- not less -- is the best solution to these distortions
that may have easily turned the 2016 election on its head.
( https://lauren.vortex.com/2016/11/16/crushing-the-internet-liars )
Labeling, tagging, and downranking of clearly false or fake posts is
an approach that can help to reduce the tendency for outright lies to
be treated equivalently with truth in social media and search engines.
These techniques also avoid invoking the actual removal of lying items
themselves and the "censorship" issues that then may come into play
(though private firms quite appropriately are indeed free to determine
what materials they wish to permit and host -- the First Amendment
only applies to governmental restraints on speech in the USA).
How effective might such labeling be? Think about the labeling of
"fake news" in the same sort of vein as the health warnings on
cigarette packs. We haven't banned cigarettes. Some people ignore the
health warnings, and many people still smoke in the USA. But the
number of people smoking has dropped dramatically, and studies show
that those health warnings have played a major role in that decrease.
Labeling fake and false news to indicate that status -- and there's a
vast array of such materials where no reasonable arguments that they
are not untrue can reasonably exist -- could have a dramatic positive
impact. Controversial? Yep. Difficult? Sure. But I believe that this
can be approached gradually, starting with top trending stories and
top search results.
A cure-all? No, just as cigarette health warnings haven't been
cure-alls. But many lives have still been saved. And the same applies
to dealing with fake news and similar lies masquerading as truthful
posts.
Naysayers suggest that it's impossible to determine what's true or
isn't true on the Internet, so any attempts to designate anything
that's posted as really true or false must fail. This is nonsense. And
while I've previously noted some examples (Man landing on the moon,
Obama born in Hawaii) it's not hard to find all manner of
politically-motivated lies that are also easy to ferret out as well.
For example, if you currently do a Google search (at least in the USA)
for:
southern poverty law center
You will likely find an item on the first page of results (even before
some of the SPLC's own links) from online Alt-Right racist rag
Breitbart -- whose traditional overlord Steve Bannon has now been
given a senior role in the upcoming Trump administration.
The link says:
FBI Dumps Southern Poverty Law Center as Hate Crimes Resource
Actually, this is a false story, dating back to 2014. It's an item
that was also picked up from Breitbart and republished by an array of
other racist sites who hate the good work of the SPLC fighting both
racism and hate speech.
Now, look elsewhere on that page of Google search results -- then on
the next few pages. No mention of the fact that the original story is
false, that even the FBI itself issued a statement noting that they
were still working with the SPLC on an unchanged basis.
Instead of anything to indicate that the original link is promoting a
false story, what you'll mostly find on succeeding pages is more
anti-SPLC right-wing propaganda.
This situation isn't strictly Google's fault. I don't know the innards
of Google's search ranking algorithms, but I think it's a fair bet
that "truth" is not a major signal in and of itself. More likely
there's an implicit assumption -- which no longer appears to
necessarily hold true -- that truthful items will tend to rise to the
top of search results via other signals that form inputs to the
ranking mechanisms.
In this case, we know with absolute certainly that the original story
on page one of those results is a continuing lie, and the FBI has
confirmed this (in fact, anyone can look at the appropriate FBI pages
themselves and categorically confirm this fact as well).
Truth matters. There is no equivalency between truth and lies, or
otherwise false or faked information.
In my view, Google should be dedicated to the promulgation of widely
accepted truths whenever possible. (Ironic side note: The horrible EU
"Right To Be Forgotten" -- RTBF -- that has been imposed on Google, is
itself specifically dedicated to actually hiding truths!)
As I've suggested, the promotion of truth over lies could be
accomplished both by downranking of clearly false items, and/or by
labeling such items as (for example) "DEEMED FALSE" -- perhaps along
with a link to a page that provides specific evidence supporting that
label (in the SPLC example under discussion, the relevant page of the
FBI site would be an obvious link candidate).
None of this is simple. The limitations, dynamics, logistics, and all
other aspects of moving toward promoting truth over lies in social
media and search results will be an enormous ongoing effort -- but a
critically crucial one.
The fake news, filter bubbles, echo chambers, and hate speech issues
that are now drowning the Internet are of such a degree that we need
to call a major summit of social media and search firms, experts, and
other concerned parties on a multidisciplinary basis to begin
hammering out practical industry-wide solutions. Associated working
groups should be established forthwith.
If we don't act soon, we will be utterly inundated by the false
"realities" that are being created by evil players in our Internet
ecosystems, who have become adept at leveraging our technology against
us -- and against truth.
There is definitely no time to waste.
--Lauren--
CRUSHING the Internet Liars: https://vortex.com/crush-net-liars
STOP President Trump: https://vortex.com/stop-president-trump
- - -
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): https://www.vortex.com/lauren
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: https://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Google+: https://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
I have consulted to Google, but I am not currently
doing so -- my opinions expressed here are mine alone.
- - -
The correct term is "Internet" NOT "internet" -- please don't
fall into the trap of using the latter. It's just plain wrong!
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