Interesting People mailing list archives
Google Bombs Are Our New Normal
From: "Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2017 06:12:57 -0400
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From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com> Date: October 13, 2017 at 11:01:07 PM EDT To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Google Bombs Are Our New Normal Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com [Note: This item comes from friend Judi Clark. DLH] Google Bombs Are Our New Normal By Karen Wickre Oct 11 2017 <https://www.wired.com/story/google-bombs-are-our-new-normal/> Google had a problem. Beginning in 2003, a group of users had figured out how to game the site’s search results. This phenomenon was known as a “Google bomb”— a trick played by toying with Google’s algorithm. If users clicked on a site, it registered as popular and might rise in ranking results. The cons were often elaborate, like when a search for “miserable failure” turned up links to information about then-president George W. Bush. It seemed like the query represented Google’s editorial viewpoint; instead, it was a prank. By early 2007, Google had all but vanquished the problem with the usual triage. A phalanx of technology and product people would huddle with the PR team to uncover the technical issue causing the bad outcome. They would work on a fix, or a workaround, and issue an apologetic explanation. The engineers might tackle a long-term adjustment to the algorithm addressing the root cause. Then it was back to business as usual. These problems—often caused by hackers or pranksters, and occasionally triggered by people with truly bad intentions—weren’t everyday situations. They were edge cases. But now, we have a new normal. Manipulating search results today seems more like an invasion than a joke. As the October 1 massacre in Las Vegas unfolded, Google displayed “news” results from rumor mills like 4Chan, and Facebook promulgated rumors and conspiracy theories, sullying the service on which, according to Pew Research, 45 percent of American adults get their news. Meanwhile, the rapid-fire nature of Twitter led users to pass along false information about missing people in the aftermath. All of these cases signify the central place a number of digital services have staked out in our lives. We trust our devices: We trust them to surface the correct sources in our information feeds, we trust them to deliver our news, and we trust them to surface the opinions of our friends. So the biggest and most influential platforms falling prey to manipulations upsets that trust—and the order of things. It’s hard to square the global power, reach, and ubiquity of these massive platforms with their youth: Google just turned 19. Facebook is 13. Twitter is 11 and a half. (None, in other words, out of their teens!) Until recently, widespread digital malfeasance was relatively rare on these young platforms. But in a world that increasingly seems dystopian, we now expect security breaches, hacks, purposeful fakery— all of it more or less constantly across the online services and tools we use. Whether the aim is financial, political, or even just hacking for hacking’s sake, the fact that so many of us live and work online means we are, collectively, an attractive and very large target. If the companies providing the services we rely on want to keep or regain our trust, this new normal warrants a good deal more of their attention. When a problem occurs, the explanations, as I’ve written, have to reach us quickly and be as forthright. And for the technological fixes, a short-lived war room and an apologetic statement no longer do the trick. Now that we seem to be in a never-ending arms race with miscreants ranging from lone rangers to state-run disinformation machines, we’re going to need more than an army of brilliant engineers patching holes and building workarounds. Companies need to build an ongoing approach—something like a Federation, through which the massive platforms and services we rely on routinely communicate and coordinate, despite the fact that they are also competitors. [snip] Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp
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- Google Bombs Are Our New Normal Dave Farber (Oct 14)