It seems like the alt right network of sites that are gaming the results should be pretty easily discoverable and their weighting adjusted downwards until legitimate sites are at the top.
Algorithms like PageRank are indiscriminate and if the Atl-right network of sites is as big as the author claims then it should be pretty obvious why those results appear.
Right or wrong, good or bad, there isn't any foul play or exploitation occurring. These sites are playing by the rules Google established.
I think the problem is that groups that would challenge the Atl-right could do so using their own network of sites but instead want to just change the rules to shut them down instead.
The thing that's really disturbing is that rather than combat this problem on a level playing field, people are proposing changing the rules because they can't be bothered to play the game the way the rules are setup.
Once we have a system in place where we can shut down any disagreeable idea, who decides when and how to use it?
Even knowing this specific case is very clear to all of us, cherry picking which side is true and which one is false on ideological matters can be tricky. The line between truth and censorship is very thin.
Why don't just all of us learn to put everything in doubt? We've passed from "this is true because it's written on a book" to "this is truth because some jerk wrote it on Facebook"
You should be skeptical of people who questions widely agreed historical facts as well.
We all might have been saying things like "it's a good thing we killed all of those fucking jews, it definitely saved humanity from being tainted" without anyone flinching.
This is the kind of stuff you still hear in neo-nazi circles. But imagine -- if we all thought that.
It sure is poetic how little of a choice we have in our opinions and world views, yet how passionate we are about them. Most people reading this right now would never think themselves capable of thinking such a thing.
If things turned out differently, the accepted world-view might be that certain lineages are tainted and that they reduce the pureness of people -- it may have been punishable to even dispute this.
Anyways, perspective.