This is a surprising claim. How often are you outraged by the results of a Google search? I mean, other than by all the low-quality SEO-optimized pages that we see nowadays? They are spam, but not...
The search engine is literally optimised for outrage.
This is a surprising claim. How often are you outraged by the results of a Google search? I mean, other than by all the low-quality SEO-optimized pages that we see nowadays? They are spam, but not usually controversial.
It's backed by a bogus argument. The link goes to an article where Eric Schmidt is quoted saying that "social media companies are designed to 'maximize outrage' in pursuit of revenue." This is a common observation many people throw around. It's unclear if Schmidt thinks Google is a "social media company." Even if he were including Google, there are other Google properties that are more obviously social media (like YouTube).
A more interesting question is whether YouTube recommendations are "optimized" in this way. Some people have made this claim, but YouTube denies it. (I have it trained pretty well to only recommend music and electronics stuff, but other peoples' experiences may differ.)
YouTube comments used to be really crappy, but these days tend to be downright respectful, at least for the music videos I see. I don't know that's due to Google's algorithms or due to the channel owners deleting the bad comments, though.
So i was watching some alan watts and other spiritual stuff and youtube started recommending this after skool channel, which is jordan peterson adjacent. But it eases you in, after skool, with...
So i was watching some alan watts and other spiritual stuff and youtube started recommending this after skool channel, which is jordan peterson adjacent. But it eases you in, after skool, with some nifty animation and old watts recordings. After a couple, it was like all thatbwas in my recs, and it was jordan peterson, agw denialism and racial purity stuff. And it stayed in my rec stream long after i had stopped watching and started watching stuff about cars and bicycle repair.
You make a very good point, and I've removed the sentence from the post entirely. Rereading the article, Schmidt is not saying that Google is designed for outrage, but that most media is...
How often are you outraged by the results of a Google search?
You make a very good point, and I've removed the sentence from the post entirely. Rereading the article, Schmidt is not saying that Google is designed for outrage, but that most media is...
My guess is that it's optimized for outrage, in the sense that no other alternative can come close to providing accurate search results, even when the search engine is borderline unusable without...
My guess is that it's optimized for outrage, in the sense that no other alternative can come close to providing accurate search results, even when the search engine is borderline unusable without an adblocker. Or the idea of "googling" something has become so ingrained in our culture that removing Google from our lives is going to be worse than shaking a heroin addiction.
I live with an elderly dad who is easily influenced by shit he sees on the internet. He's the kind of guy that watches Ancient Alien documentaries and eats it up as scientific fact. The amount of times I've told him not to trust a random antivirus he's installed because he saw at the top of a Google search result or on an in-browser push notification that he's enabled that it's "secure" and "trusted" is baffling...
I think an alternative can dethrone Google if it:
Is far more curated, giving the best search results possible for a search term.
Doesn't recommend harmful content. Bing had a frightening tendency to link to clearweb child sexual abuse material in its earlier days. In fact, its tendency to recommend harmful content in general earned it meme status. It should also be anti-piracy from the get-go to remain in strong legal standing and not piss off the copyleft crowd.
Isn't plastered with intrusive ads. If the first few search results are advertisements or promoted links, you've failed as a search engine.
Loads very fast. Google doesn't.
YouTube comments used to be really crappy, but these days tend to be downright respectful, at least for the music videos I see. I don't know that's due to Google's algorithms or due to the channel owners deleting the bad comments, though.
I still remember when a few YouTubers stumbled upon a paedophile wormhole in YouTube where if you viewed videos with a specific auto-generated title for webcam stuff, you'd be recommended nothing but loads of innocent-looking videos of prepubescent girls doing suggestive-at-best stuff like gymnastics or playing in a pool, then loads of sick comments accompanying them. Don't be fooled. COPPA wasn't the reason why YouTube disabled comments on anything deemed 'for children', it was their way of automating a response to a scandal. Some channels like Milperthusky that were well-moderated had to fight for years with nonexistent YouTube customer support to get comments re-enabled on their channel, just because they featured kids in their videos.
Still find it funny how bad this algorithm is. To exemplify how broken it is, I remember once seeing a clip from Beetlejuice where the titular character screamed "NICE FUCKIN' MODEL" and honked his crotch - which was flagged for YouTube Kids and had comments disabled...
That sounds less like "optimized for outrage" and more like "not optimized enough at saving people from themselves when exposed to the Internet,' which seems like a different complaint? Despite...
That sounds less like "optimized for outrage" and more like "not optimized enough at saving people from themselves when exposed to the Internet,' which seems like a different complaint? Despite Google's efforts with things like "SafeSearch" (which keeps porn out of search results), the Internet is really not safe.
YouTube seems like a different story since they also host the content. The Kids version in particular should be heavily curated.
Besides the kids stuff, I am wondering what a heavily-curated Internet search engine for other people who are... easily led... would be like, and how it could be marketed so they'd actually want to use it. I'm reminded of those late-night commercials for gadgets that might seem ridiculous but are actually for people who have mobility issues.
This is a surprising claim. How often are you outraged by the results of a Google search? I mean, other than by all the low-quality SEO-optimized pages that we see nowadays? They are spam, but not usually controversial.
It's backed by a bogus argument. The link goes to an article where Eric Schmidt is quoted saying that "social media companies are designed to 'maximize outrage' in pursuit of revenue." This is a common observation many people throw around. It's unclear if Schmidt thinks Google is a "social media company." Even if he were including Google, there are other Google properties that are more obviously social media (like YouTube).
A more interesting question is whether YouTube recommendations are "optimized" in this way. Some people have made this claim, but YouTube denies it. (I have it trained pretty well to only recommend music and electronics stuff, but other peoples' experiences may differ.)
YouTube comments used to be really crappy, but these days tend to be downright respectful, at least for the music videos I see. I don't know that's due to Google's algorithms or due to the channel owners deleting the bad comments, though.
So i was watching some alan watts and other spiritual stuff and youtube started recommending this after skool channel, which is jordan peterson adjacent. But it eases you in, after skool, with some nifty animation and old watts recordings. After a couple, it was like all thatbwas in my recs, and it was jordan peterson, agw denialism and racial purity stuff. And it stayed in my rec stream long after i had stopped watching and started watching stuff about cars and bicycle repair.
You make a very good point, and I've removed the sentence from the post entirely. Rereading the article, Schmidt is not saying that Google is designed for outrage, but that most media is...
My guess is that it's optimized for outrage, in the sense that no other alternative can come close to providing accurate search results, even when the search engine is borderline unusable without an adblocker. Or the idea of "googling" something has become so ingrained in our culture that removing Google from our lives is going to be worse than shaking a heroin addiction.
I live with an elderly dad who is easily influenced by shit he sees on the internet. He's the kind of guy that watches Ancient Alien documentaries and eats it up as scientific fact. The amount of times I've told him not to trust a random antivirus he's installed because he saw at the top of a Google search result or on an in-browser push notification that he's enabled that it's "secure" and "trusted" is baffling...
I think an alternative can dethrone Google if it:
I still remember when a few YouTubers stumbled upon a paedophile wormhole in YouTube where if you viewed videos with a specific auto-generated title for webcam stuff, you'd be recommended nothing but loads of innocent-looking videos of prepubescent girls doing suggestive-at-best stuff like gymnastics or playing in a pool, then loads of sick comments accompanying them. Don't be fooled. COPPA wasn't the reason why YouTube disabled comments on anything deemed 'for children', it was their way of automating a response to a scandal. Some channels like Milperthusky that were well-moderated had to fight for years with nonexistent YouTube customer support to get comments re-enabled on their channel, just because they featured kids in their videos.
Still find it funny how bad this algorithm is. To exemplify how broken it is, I remember once seeing a clip from Beetlejuice where the titular character screamed "NICE FUCKIN' MODEL" and honked his crotch - which was flagged for YouTube Kids and had comments disabled...
That sounds less like "optimized for outrage" and more like "not optimized enough at saving people from themselves when exposed to the Internet,' which seems like a different complaint? Despite Google's efforts with things like "SafeSearch" (which keeps porn out of search results), the Internet is really not safe.
YouTube seems like a different story since they also host the content. The Kids version in particular should be heavily curated.
Besides the kids stuff, I am wondering what a heavily-curated Internet search engine for other people who are... easily led... would be like, and how it could be marketed so they'd actually want to use it. I'm reminded of those late-night commercials for gadgets that might seem ridiculous but are actually for people who have mobility issues.