Speaking of conspiracy theories

[Mountain Man]

So you're saying you only (or mostly) clicked on pro-Trump and anti-Hillary links and still got "anti-Trump" and "pro-Hillary" links?

Something like that. In general, I just found it increasingly difficult to find news and sources that promoted a conservative perspective. I mean, when you do a search for anything political, and sources like Wikipedia, Snopes, and Politifact prominently appear at the very top of the page then you know something suspicious is happening behind the scenes.

[lilpixieofterror]

[rogue06]

That could be because of TDS. The Left-Leaning MSM show up more because Trump is all they write about, especially CNN, so they have more Trump news articles than the right-wing news does, which probably spends more page space talking about the liberals and congress.

Entirely possible. Maybe what's needed is an examination of issues rather than Trump.

Source: Study: Google bias in search results; 40% lean left or liberal

gun controlabortionTPPBlack Lives Matter than they were pages from the right. Moreover, 16% of political keywords contained no right-leaning pages at all within the first page of results.

Our analysis of the algorithmic metrics underpinning those rankings suggests that factors within the Google algorithm itself may make it easier for sites with a left-leaning or centrist viewpoint to rank higher in Google search results compared to sites with a politically conservative viewpoint.

Why Web Search Matters to Democracyonline search is the resource that 87% of the population turns to firstShould Search Engines Be Required to Give Equal Time?39%Republican platform

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minimum wageabortionNAFTAIraq warcampaign finance reformglobal warmingmarijuana legalizationtppHillary Clinton seizuresHillary Clinton sickleft-leaning bias increased for top ranking results, which typically receive the majority of clicks. For example, we found that search results denoted as demonstrating a left or far left slant received 40% more exposure in the top 3 ranking spots than search results considered to have a right or far right political slant.

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Content with a left or far left viewpoint receives even more exposure in the top five search results. Searchers are 65% more likely to encounter liberal search results than they are conservative search results if they look at the first five returns to their query. Assuming typical click distributions, that means only 1 out of 10 searchers would end up clicking on a result with a conservative viewpoint.

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Google considers about 200 major ranking factors in their algorithm to determine which results to serve a user in response to a search query. In order to calculate accurate keyword difficulty scores, our software collects and analyzes many of those same factors, allowing us to gain some insight into why certain pages rank where they do. Of these many factors, Google has identified links (i.e., the number and quality of links pointing to a page) and content (i.e., relevancy and comprehensiveness) to be the two most important ranking factors.

Average number of external links

Based on previously documented correlations between specific ranking factor metrics analyzed by CanIRank and actual search rankings, we would expect top ranked search results to have more external links compared to lower ranked search results.

Instead, pages demonstrating a left or far left political slant made it into the top results with significantly fewer external links compared to pages rated balanced. Pages with a right-leaning slant needed significantly more links to make it into the top results.

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Median content length

Content length is another metric that tends to correlate with higher rankings, as it indicates a greater depth of information on a subject. For example, small businesses and startups are often able to rank well despite having fewer links, if they provide more comprehensive content on a specific topic.

Among our sample list of search results, right-leaning pages had a higher median number of words across all 40 results compared to both neutral and left-leaning pages. Despite this, neutral and left-leaning pages represented a greater proportion of top search results.

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Conclusion

In addition to external links and content length, we analyzed a host of other ranking factors including:
Source

© Copyright Original Source

All emphases are in the original, numerous hyperlinks are not included nor is the section on methodology. Sorry if first images doesn't embiggen

[oxmixmudd]

Entirely possible. Maybe what's needed is an examination of issues rather than Trump.

Source: Study: Google bias in search results; 40% lean left or liberal

gun controlabortionTPPBlack Lives Matter than they were pages from the right. Moreover, 16% of political keywords contained no right-leaning pages at all within the first page of results.

Our analysis of the algorithmic metrics underpinning those rankings suggests that factors within the Google algorithm itself may make it easier for sites with a left-leaning or centrist viewpoint to rank higher in Google search results compared to sites with a politically conservative viewpoint.

Why Web Search Matters to Democracyonline search is the resource that 87% of the population turns to firstShould Search Engines Be Required to Give Equal Time?39%Republican platform

[ATTACH=CONFIG]30400[/ATTACH]

minimum wageabortionNAFTAIraq warcampaign finance reformglobal warmingmarijuana legalizationtppHillary Clinton seizuresHillary Clinton sickleft-leaning bias increased for top ranking results, which typically receive the majority of clicks. For example, we found that search results denoted as demonstrating a left or far left slant received 40% more exposure in the top 3 ranking spots than search results considered to have a right or far right political slant.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]30399[/ATTACH]

Content with a left or far left viewpoint receives even more exposure in the top five search results. Searchers are 65% more likely to encounter liberal search results than they are conservative search results if they look at the first five returns to their query. Assuming typical click distributions, that means only 1 out of 10 searchers would end up clicking on a result with a conservative viewpoint.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]30401[/ATTACH]

Google considers about 200 major ranking factors in their algorithm to determine which results to serve a user in response to a search query. In order to calculate accurate keyword difficulty scores, our software collects and analyzes many of those same factors, allowing us to gain some insight into why certain pages rank where they do. Of these many factors, Google has identified links (i.e., the number and quality of links pointing to a page) and content (i.e., relevancy and comprehensiveness) to be the two most important ranking factors.

Average number of external links

Based on previously documented correlations between specific ranking factor metrics analyzed by CanIRank and actual search rankings, we would expect top ranked search results to have more external links compared to lower ranked search results.

Instead, pages demonstrating a left or far left political slant made it into the top results with significantly fewer external links compared to pages rated balanced. Pages with a right-leaning slant needed significantly more links to make it into the top results.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]30402[/ATTACH]

Median content length

Content length is another metric that tends to correlate with higher rankings, as it indicates a greater depth of information on a subject. For example, small businesses and startups are often able to rank well despite having fewer links, if they provide more comprehensive content on a specific topic.

Among our sample list of search results, right-leaning pages had a higher median number of words across all 40 results compared to both neutral and left-leaning pages. Despite this, neutral and left-leaning pages represented a greater proportion of top search results.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]30403[/ATTACH]

Conclusion

In addition to external links and content length, we analyzed a host of other ranking factors including:
Source

© Copyright Original Source

All emphases are in the original, numerous hyperlinks are not included nor is the section on methodology. Sorry if first images doesn't embiggen

Thanks rogue, good find.



But consider the conclusion:



There are over 200 factors that are used in determining what results the search engine will put on the first page. Assuming their locally produced evaluations are accurate and their implementation of the search criteria comparable to google's own, the article looks at a very small subset of those factors and then compares what the results would look like if only those factors are used against what the results actually are. And that comparison shows a bias. That is, those factors don't result in the actual google results. So why did the author write his conclusion in light of that?

Source: Matt Bently

My personal opinion is that there are factors inherent in the nature of biased content that makes it more likely to rank higher, such as a propensity for people to share and link to content that aligns with their personal views.

© Copyright Original Source

IOW, Assuming there are no 'hidden variables' as it were (no 'other' criteria secretly factored in that influence the results), What the study really says is that this subset of criteria can't be used to predict the entire algorithms results. That the subset of factors analyzed, when applied to left and right leaning pages, produce results that differ from what the entire algorithm produces. So what the article does then is show that even if these are the most important single elements, they are not overwhelmingly important. That the other 190+ elements of the algorithm shape the results differently that just these three elements do on their own.

To find out why, one would need to look at which elements are shifting the results away from what this subset would produce.

Going back to the author's comment, it is indeed quite possible that 'left leaning' and 'right leaning' articles have other inherent properties that cause the algorithm to on average sort 'left leaning' content above 'right leaning' content.

Here is a list of the 200 elements

https://backlinko.com/google-ranking-factors

Some of these factors are things like depth of coverage, domain age, duplicate content, recency and so on. It would be an interesting study to tease out what it is about the 'right leaning' sites that produces the study's results. I tend to think it would be wise for those sites to invest a little money in exactly such a study, in the end the payoff in terms of readership would be to their benefit. And, alternately, they would be able to, assuming they could not replicate the google search results and could point precisely to where the algorithms diverge, have a stronger case for some sort of 'hidden variable' that google uses under the covers.

My guess is what they would find is there are characteristics related to how they structure their articles, how they run their websits, and how people use their websites that are producing the studies results. And finding them, they can correct them.


In the end, we are a long way from showing inherent political bias in the Google search engine. But this study might be useful, if we react intelligently and wisely to it, in helping site owners in general understand what they need to do to make their actual content (as opposed to the manipulation of metadata parameters) more likely to be sorted early in the results google presents to its users.



Jim

[Sparko]

Or there is a possible alternative explanation. Google's algorithm factors in your clicks as well as the Internet. So if you regularly clicked on stories favorable to Hillary, or stories denigrating Trump, the subsequent searches would factor that in. This is especially true of their news feed. It is why I make sure to click widely across the political spectrum, and avoid a single media source.

I ran an experiment for a week, and only clicked on Brietbart articles. By the end of the week, I had a solid diet of right-leaning news outlets in my feed. The following week I only clicked on Mother Jones links (had to go WAY down to find them at first). By the end of the week, my feed was pretty solidly filled with left-leaning sources.

The worst thing about google, IMO, is that they encourage people to stay in their bubbles.

Then why do my searches keep coming up with mostly liberal sources like CNN? Are you saying I am a closet liberal!!?

[Sparko]

Of course they adjust them. Do they adjust them to try to control politics is the accusation. And it is in this case being characterized by the Donald as "Google is purposefully making only bad stories about ME come up in its search". Which is absurd. There are more stories about how bad trump is because ... well because Trump is bad. But Donald thinks this should be illegal and is trying to send the law after them.

And of course, the reason I'm putting this out there is that I'm being accused of being a conspiracy theorist because I'm convinced by some rather obvious tells Trump is in bed with the Russians. While all the while Donald Trump and friends are palling around with QAnon and the 'Deep State' folks, and now he's thinking google is out to get him.

It's just all hilarious from my perspective that the Trump supporters think its the 'other side' that is all hopped up on 'conspiracy theories', given their attachment to the Conspiracy Theorist in Chief.


Jim

Well we do know that youtube and the other social media outlets just basically banned Infowars - so to claim they have no political agenda is not true. Not that I care for infowars, they are a complete rightwing wacko source, but I think banning them is a purely political move. They tried to couch it as breaking their rules or something, but there are a lot worse stuff still on their respective sites.

[MaxVel]

Well we do know that youtube and the other social media outlets just basically banned Infowars - so to claim they have no political agenda is not true. Not that I care for infowars, they are a complete rightwing wacko source, but I think banning them is a purely political move. They tried to couch it as breaking their rules or something, but there are a lot worse stuff still on their respective sites.

He was banned from Facebook, Youtube, Spotify and Apple in very short order.

For the sarcastically impaired the following is said in jest

Of course there was no way there could have been any prior agreement by those competitors to work together to deplatform him.

[carpedm9587]

Something like that. In general, I just found it increasingly difficult to find news and sources that promoted a conservative perspective. I mean, when you do a search for anything political, and sources like Wikipedia, Snopes, and Politifact prominently appear at the very top of the page then you know something suspicious is happening behind the scenes.

So I am at a loss for explaining why your experience is the opposite of mine. I found that my initial searches were pretty varied, but I could affect the search by my click-through selections. When I primarily clicked on pro-trump/anti-clinton, the results increasingly skewed in that direction. When I primarily clicked on anti-trump/pro-clinton, the results increasingly skewed in THAT direction.

Interesting that you were mostly clicking on pro-trump and anti-clinton articles...

[carpedm9587]

Then why do my searches keep coming up with mostly liberal sources like CNN? Are you saying I am a closet liberal!!?

[Charles]

Interesting that you were mostly clicking on pro-trump and anti-clinton articles...

[Sparko]

He was banned from Facebook, Youtube, Spotify and Apple in very short order.

For the sarcastically impaired the following is said in jest

Of course there was no way there could have been any prior agreement by those competitors to work together to deplatform him.

I don't think it was any prior agreement. It was just virtue signalling. Once one platform did it, the others followed suit because it was the "right" thing to do as a progressive company that is against hate groups. - any platform that did not follow would be shamed. Like facebook was when they refused to ban him at first.

[oxmixmudd]

Well we do know that youtube and the other social media outlets just basically banned Infowars - so to claim they have no political agenda is not true. Not that I care for infowars, they are a complete rightwing wacko source, but I think banning them is a purely political move. They tried to couch it as breaking their rules or something, but there are a lot worse stuff still on their respective sites.

That doesn't imply they have a political agenda if infowars did something that would be universally against the rules of their site, and in the case of the simultaneous banning on multiple outlets, they are going to have similar standards and if what infowars did violated all their standards, they would all ban them at one time.

The last few years have seen an uptick in both the call for responsibility of the hosting websites to not host destructive material and just the amount of destructive material. Who gets banned still is to a large extent who gets caught. The more well known and frequented the site, the more likely they are to get caught. As far as I know, there is still no AI bot that can just go out and crawl through all the sites a given outlet hosts and determine if there has been a rules violation, so a lot can still slip under the radar, especially sites that tend to be unknown except to those that follow them directly.

In the specific case of infowars - he is both well known and incredibly destructive with his content:

Source: nytimes

Mr. Jones and Infowars have used social media for years to spread dark and bizarre theories, such as that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax and that Democrats run a global child-sex ring. Apple made its move on Sunday and the others followed on Monday.

© Copyright Original Source

And I disagree. No, you can't host idiots that proclaim against all the real evidence that Sandy Hook was staged and the apparent witnesses were paid actors.

I'm not sure what the 'worse' stuff is you are referring to, but if it is truly worse, then it needs to be gone too.

And if that represents 'right wing' censorship, God help us all. That is just common decency to pull something like that.


Jim

[Sparko]

That doesn't imply they have a political agenda if infowars did something that would be universally against the rules of their site, and in the case of the simultaneous banning on multiple outlets, they are going to have similar standards and if what infowars did violated all their standards, they would all ban them at one time.

The last few years have seen an uptick in both the call for responsibility of the hosting websites to not host destructive material and just the amount of destructive material. Who gets banned still is to a large extent who gets caught. The more well known and frequented the site, the more likely they are to get caught. As far as I know, there is still no AI bot that can just go out and crawl through all the sites a given outlet hosts and determine if there has been a rules violation, so a lot can still slip under the radar, especially sites that tend to be unknown except to those that follow them directly.

In the specific case of infowars - he is both well known and incredibly destructive with his content:

Source: nytimes

Mr. Jones and Infowars have used social media for years to spread dark and bizarre theories, such as that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax and that Democrats run a global child-sex ring. Apple made its move on Sunday and the others followed on Monday.

© Copyright Original Source

And I disagree. No, you can't host idiots that proclaim against all the real evidence that Sandy Hook was staged and the apparent witnesses were paid actors.

I'm not sure what the 'worse' stuff is you are referring to, but if it is truly worse, then it needs to be gone too.

And if that represents 'right wing' censorship, God help us all. That is just common decency to pull something like that.


Jim

Just because the guy is a conspiracy nut who doesn't believe Sandy Hook happened is not a reason to ban him. We allow nuts on Tweb who spout worse things than that.

Youtube is allowed to ban anyone they wish however. As are the other sites. But to claim it is not political is to bury your head in the sand.

You can find actual holocaust deniers on youtube if you search. Flat earthers, People who think UFOs are controlling world leaders, or that world leaders ARE aliens. Videos of ISIS beheading people. Promoting ISIS. If I can find such videos easily on youtube, the excuse "Who gets banned still is to a large extent who gets caught" is not a very good one. Apparently they aren't looking*.

And that every single social media platform just happened to notice that Infowars was "breaking their rules" at the same time? Really? They even SAID the reason they were banning him was because of his speech and views.

*you and I know that with the state of the art in AI "deep thought" and various other recognition techniques they can easily scan videos for disallowed content. They sure find copyright violations pretty quick.

[Mountain Man]

Interesting that you were mostly clicking on pro-trump and anti-clinton articles...

What's interesting is that your jibe missed its mark because of your ignorance of my browsing habits and the fact that I never went through Google as a jumping off point for news. I also aggressively protect my privacy and use various tools to block elements of websites that create user profiles.

All I can say for certain is that Google started skewing increasingly to the left while other search engines would present more balanced results. Like I said, when a left-wing rag like Politifact is highlighted with its own special box at the top of search results, you know something funny is going on.

[Mountain Man]

That doesn't imply they have a political agenda if infowars did something that would be universally against the rules of their site, and in the case of the simultaneous banning on multiple outlets, they are going to have similar standards and if what infowars did violated all their standards, they would all ban them at one time.

The last few years have seen an uptick in both the call for responsibility of the hosting websites to not host destructive material and just the amount of destructive material. Who gets banned still is to a large extent who gets caught. The more well known and frequented the site, the more likely they are to get caught. As far as I know, there is still no AI bot that can just go out and crawl through all the sites a given outlet hosts and determine if there has been a rules violation, so a lot can still slip under the radar, especially sites that tend to be unknown except to those that follow them directly.

In the specific case of infowars - he is both well known and incredibly destructive with his content:

Source: nytimes

Mr. Jones and Infowars have used social media for years to spread dark and bizarre theories, such as that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax and that Democrats run a global child-sex ring. Apple made its move on Sunday and the others followed on Monday.

© Copyright Original Source

And I disagree. No, you can't host idiots that proclaim against all the real evidence that Sandy Hook was staged and the apparent witnesses were paid actors.

I'm not sure what the 'worse' stuff is you are referring to, but if it is truly worse, then it needs to be gone too.

And if that represents 'right wing' censorship, God help us all. That is just common decency to pull something like that.


Jim

You might have an argument if the censorship went both ways and didn't exclusively target those with a traditionally conservative point of view.