Current Events > Google could face hearings if anti-conservative bias continues

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just days after Google inadvertently listed Nazism as one of the ideologies of the California Republican party, Rep. Devin Nunes (R.-Calif) warned that the search giant and other tech heavyweights could face hearings over alleged anti-conservative bias.

The House Intelligence Committee Chairman said that anti-GOP bias is widespread. I think what the American people need to understand is there is bias against conservatives and Republicans all across this country and now as you see things, its always been there with newspapers and television, but now as you see it getting into the internet it's one of the challenges we have with millennials.

Google was slammed last week after the Nazism listing appeared in the search giants Knowledge Panel.

The Knowledge Panel, which accompanies search results, pulls in data from a host of sources across the Web, including Wikipedia. Google scrambled to fix the issue, which it said was the result of vandalism on one of its sources.

A Wikimedia spokesperson confirmed to Fox News that the vandalism Google was pulling "was not visible to Wikipedia readers in the text of the article, and has been removed by volunteer editors."

"The success of Wikipedia relies on everyone being able to contribute, and that includes correcting information, Anyone can edit Wikipedia based on our core principles of neutrality and reliable sourcing, and hundreds of thousands of volunteers do this every month. This process is critical to Wikipedias constantly-evolving record of the worlds knowledge. Wikipedia editors, often using monitoring tools to support their work, catch and revert most vandalism made to Wikipedia within minutes."

Nonetheless, the incident sparked outrage at a time when big tech is firmly in the political spotlight. Silicon Valley has repeatedly faced allegations that it suppresses conservative voices

Nunes explained that Congress could take action to stop online censorship of conservative ideas. "I would hope that they just don't get involved in politics and don't censor conservatives and Republicans, but if they continue to do it then we have to move obviously to hearings on these issues

The best thing would be is for there to be a new search engine that actually doesn't censor conservatives. I think there's a free market solution here if somebody can compete with Google, If they can't, then ultimately we're looking at monopolies and then that, you know, brings in a whole other set of circumstances.

Are these companies - Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple, et cetera, are they monopolies and should they be reined in? I would hope we don't have to go there.

Google has also come under fire after search results for North Carolina Republican lawmaker Trudy Wade yielded her photo accompanied by the word bigot. Google apologized for the search result. Images that appear in the Knowledge Panel are either selected by verified users or are automatically sourced from sites across the web, it tweeted Friday. In this instance, the image was hosted on a student news blog. Upon being alerted to this issue, we immediately removed it from the Knowledge Panel.

The state senator, however, said that Googles apology rang a bit hollow. When Wade learned about the image on Friday, an aide requested Google take it down

She was told to find and contact the original author of the photo, and the post stayed up, she added. Even when the Insiders Colin Campbell broke the story in Raleigh, the image remained. Only after Drudge Report posted it to a national audience and it began to go viral on social media did Google do the right thing.

Full Article: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2018/06/04/google-and-other-tech-giants-could-face-hearings-if-anti-conservative-bias-continues-lawmaker-warns.html



You can censor the people in power? That's impressive.
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So Trump cultist bias is a bad thing, but bias against gay people is perfectly fine? Silly Nunes
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reminder obama was anti gay until his reelection and hillary was anti gay until 2015

Is it not enough that these people run all levels of government everywhere? What kind of party that wields such legislative power would waste time on this bullshit?
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YerAMeanOneTFS posted...

reminder obama was anti gay until his reelection and hillary was anti gay until 2015

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Just makes me think of the Masahiro Sakurai meme.
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UInstinctMawile posted...

YerAMeanOneTFS posted...

reminder obama was anti gay until his reelection and hillary was anti gay until 2015

But OBAMA!
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So Cedric the Entertainer and Kevin James are making a buddy cop movie!?
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UInstinctMawile posted...

YerAMeanOneTFS posted...

reminder obama was anti gay until his reelection and hillary was anti gay until 2015

Reminder, no one gives a fuck about whataboutism.
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Is Google actually listing Republicans as nazis? That's fucking insane. Screw the hearings. They need to be sued into oblivion
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Good for them, the conservatives and republicans, no room for any bias shenanigans in this country. Kinda seems like that would be something everyone could agree on.
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I support it and would support it if it went against liberals too. You should never censor opposing viewpoints.
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Semi devil's advocating here, but why can't google do what it wants since it's its own website?
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"Waaaaaaahhhh google say mean things about us and hurt our feelings D: ;_;" - conservatives
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Funny how the same people whining about this are the ones against having to serve gay people


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glitteringfairy posted...

Is Google actually listing Republicans as nazis?

Not actively. They source the information from Wikipedia and at the time Wikipedia was vandalized.

Muffinz0rz posted...

Semi devil's advocating here, but why can't google do what it wants since it's its own website?

Libel.
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TheUsualSuspect posted...

Funny how the same people whining about this are the ones against having to serve gay people

those bakeries are small businesses that aren't being subsidized by the government, that's the difference

if google were refusing to serve gays, however they could manage that, then yes it would and should be ilegal
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Webmaster4531 posted...

glitteringfairy posted...

Is Google actually listing Republicans as nazis?

Not actively. They source the information from Wikipedia and at the time Wikipedia was vandalized.

Muffinz0rz posted...

Semi devil's advocating here, but why can't google do what it wants since it's its own website?

Libel.

Well that's not nearly as bad. Sounds like an accident
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UInstinctMawile posted...

TheUsualSuspect posted...

Funny how the same people whining about this are the ones against having to serve gay people

those bakeries are small businesses that aren't being subsidized by the government, that's the difference

if google were refusing to serve gays, however they could manage that, then yes it would and should be ilegal

And "conservative" or "Trump supporter" aren't protected classes
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Aww what special snowflakes
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Free speech only matters when it supports your side eh?
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Google is screwed. The internet is too large to police, but as long as algorithms are used to automate some of the steps, people will be able to abuse it to do things like this. More and more nations are demanding that Google fix things faster, but there just aren't enough people in the industry to do it.
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TheUsualSuspect posted...

UInstinctMawile posted...

TheUsualSuspect posted...

Funny how the same people whining about this are the ones against having to serve gay people

those bakeries are small businesses that aren't being subsidized by the government, that's the difference

if google were refusing to serve gays, however they could manage that, then yes it would and should be ilegal

And "conservative" or "Trump supporter" aren't protected classes

my reaction would be the same if google were doing this to liberals

i'm not on either side of this
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Malcrasternus posted...

Free speech only matters when it supports your side eh?

Yeah, I though conservatives liked it when corporations could do whatever they wanted?
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UnfairRepresent posted...

Google was slammed last week after the Nazism listing appeared in the search giants Knowledge Panel.

The Knowledge Panel, which accompanies search results, pulls in data from a host of sources across the Web, including Wikipedia. Google scrambled to fix the issue, which it said was the result of vandalism on one of its sources.

A Wikimedia spokesperson confirmed to Fox News that the vandalism Google was pulling "was not visible to Wikipedia readers in the text of the article, and has been removed by volunteer editors."

"The success of Wikipedia relies on everyone being able to contribute, and that includes correcting information, Anyone can edit Wikipedia based on our core principles of neutrality and reliable sourcing, and hundreds of thousands of volunteers do this every month. This process is critical to Wikipedias constantly-evolving record of the worlds knowledge. Wikipedia editors, often using monitoring tools to support their work, catch and revert most vandalism made to Wikipedia within minutes."

That makes sense and it's certainly being blown way out of proportion. With that said, as a liberal myself, there is definitely a bias against republican/conservative ideas in our tech and entertainment business.
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UnfairRepresent posted...

The best thing would be is for there to be a new search engine that actually doesn't censor conservatives.

If we just make a new search engine, surely everyone will use it instead of the one that is the single largest force on the internet or the hundreds of others nobody has have heard of.
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Republican politicians truly are the most discriminated class in America in 2018.
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Webmaster4531 posted...

Reminder, no one gives a fuck about whataboutism.

People care about hypocrisy and fairness.

Good. They need to be reigned in.
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I mean, it is true. It's just a search engine (well a search engine that provides other services) so there's no need for it to have any bias.
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glitteringfairy posted...

Webmaster4531 posted...

glitteringfairy posted...

Is Google actually listing Republicans as nazis?

Not actively. They source the information from Wikipedia and at the time Wikipedia was vandalized.

Muffinz0rz posted...

Semi devil's advocating here, but why can't google do what it wants since it's its own website?

Libel.

Well that's not nearly as bad. Sounds like an accident

"accident" yeah, that's why they changed their definition of fascism to make it sound like Republicans.

It's all about indoctrinating the people with their ideology, just as Eric Holder said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BJIcQH5iTQ" data-time="
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Banjo2553 posted...

I mean, it is true. It's just a search engine (well a search engine that provides other services) so there's no need for it to have any bias.

The problem, especially with regard to Google (Facebook is a different case entirely) is that there ISN'T clear evidence of bias. It's just the algorithms. Someone vandalized wikipedia, google queries wikipedia for related information, and the result was 2 things that didn't belong next to each other being there. It's the same issue as the "AdPocalypse" on Youtube, or when people memed on Ted Cruz by having his face appear as a result when you looked up the Zodiac Killer.

This is why I said google is screwed. At least with regard to their search engine, they AREN'T applying bias, but using algorithms that can be abused. It's not physically possible to replace those algorithms with human oversight, so Google is in the unenviable position of either having to dumb down their search engine or face a literal endless stream of litigation as more people find cases like this and claim Google is at fault.
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It sounds like they should quit using sources with "open edit" policies, for there knowledge panel.

s0nicfan posted...

Banjo2553 posted...

I mean, it is true. It's just a search engine (well a search engine that provides other services) so there's no need for it to have any bias.

The problem, especially with regard to Google (Facebook is a different case entirely) is that there ISN'T clear evidence of bias. It's just the algorithms. Someone vandalized wikipedia, google queries wikipedia for related information, and the result was 2 things that didn't belong next to each other being there. It's the same issue as the "AdPocalypse" on Youtube, or when people memed on Ted Cruz by having his face appear as a result when you looked up the Zodiac Killer.

This is why I said google is screwed. At least with regard to their search engine, they AREN'T applying bias, but using algorithms that can be abused. It's not physically possible to replace those algorithms with human oversight, so Google is in the unenviable position of either having to dumb down their search engine or face a literal endless stream of litigation as more people find cases like this and claim Google is at fault.

Eesh. I didn't realize.
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JE19426 posted...

It sounds like they should quit using sources with "open edit" policies, for there knowledge panel.

On paper yes that would help but there will always be ways to abuse the system. An added part of the problem is that ALSO on paper Wikipedia's "open edit" policy should prevent abuse, but if you've ever looked at the revision history of a contentious topic you'd quickly realize that the vast majority of active wiki editors lean left which means attempts to correct a biased page are often bombed by revisions to revert them. I've seen pages where someone will obsessively "re-edit" a page to have some specific ideological sentence included for YEARS (for reference, this is specific gods as referenced in the Mahabharata) every time it's removed due to lack of source.
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But you know

Hater vocabulary is pretty small, so it would be a pretty simple thing to just blacklist the top 20 or so pejoratives when reading from wikipedia.
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DevsBro posted...

But you know

Hater vocabulary is pretty small, so it would be a pretty simple thing to just blacklist the top 20 or so pejoratives when reading from wikipedia.

But now Google is maintaining a list of banned words, which not only starts to put them at risk for first amendment violations, but ALSO puts them at risk for less free countries demanding that THEIR banned words get included as well, and ALSO means that an individual (or a few) have direct control over what information people globally are allowed to see and what associations they're allowed to make, and that's straight up dystopian.

EDIT: Basically, this is an extremely complicated problem with a lot of destructive "quick fixes" that requires a lot more care to prevent either straight up abuse or the end of the free internet as we know it.
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Devin Nunes is such a piece of shit. I can't wait for him to get shaped for his inevitable obstruction case
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Maybe they should use bing instead.
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Tmaster148 posted...

Maybe they should use bing instead.

This is what I'm thinking

Why don't these free market Republicans just use a different search engine if Google bugs them so much?
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Doom_Art posted...

Tmaster148 posted...

Maybe they should use bing instead.

This is what I'm thinking

Why don't these free market Republicans just use a different search engine if Google bugs them so much?

For the same reason that the socialist EU keeps fining the crap out of Google for not bending to their rules: everyone smells blood in the water and people in government across the first world are making a power grab against the single biggest source of data and influence on the planet.
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Wait, are those against net-neutrality suddenly complaining about unfair treatment on the internet?
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loafy013 posted...

Wait, are those against net-neutrality suddenly complaining about unfair treatment on the internet?

I don't think I've seen a single person (outside of troll accounts) on CE, both right AND left leaning, actually argue against net-neutrality. Take your strawman back to oz.
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s0nicfan posted...

actually argue against net-neutrality

the right does when they need to defend trump's opposition to it
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s0nicfan posted...

actually argue against net-neutrality

Wait, you've never done that?
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Webmaster4531 posted...

s0nicfan posted...

actually argue against net-neutrality

Wait, you've never done that?

Never. Net Neutrality is super important.
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s0nicfan posted...

Webmaster4531 posted...

s0nicfan posted...

actually argue against net-neutrality

Wait, you've never done that?

Never. Net Neutrality is super important.

What's going to protect Net Neutrality now that Title 2 classification is going away?
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Webmaster4531 posted...

s0nicfan posted...

Webmaster4531 posted...

s0nicfan posted...

actually argue against net-neutrality

Wait, you've never done that?

Never. Net Neutrality is super important.

What's going to protect Net Neutrality now that Title 2 classification is going away?

A Republican Majority
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fenderbender321 posted...

Leave Google alone. Let them display whatever search results they want. Don't like them? Don't use them.

This is a naive way of thinking, especially since they are in charge of the largest search engine in the world.
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