Google's aim in recent changes is to promote quality, reputable content rather than tabloid, 'fake news'/propaganda and content farms.
If we take a quick look over at DailyMail.co.uk, one can quickly identify where the problem might be located.
If we take a quick look over at DailyMail.co.uk, one can quickly identify where the problem might be located.
https://sparktoro.com/blog/as-the-antitrust-case-against-goo...
As a monopolist, they need to meet much higher standards of accountability, transparency, and fairness.
Would we tolerate it if the electric monopoly cut off power to the Daily Mail? Or the water monopoly?
When you're not a monopoly, you don't have to care about any of these things. You're in it to win it.
As a society, we cannot have a monopoly willy nilly censoring sites with no accountability or means of redress. It is an intolerable situation. A monopoly must be demonstrably fair to everyone.
I think most of us would encourage it. The paper and it's online counterpart are a detriment to society...
But I get your broader point.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/08/wikipedia...
> The editors described the arguments for a ban as “centred on the Daily Mail’s reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism and flat-out fabrication”.
I'm surprised it took Google 2 years to get around to the same viewpoint.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, surely if there's anyone who knows which sources are worth using, it would be the editors of the world's biggest encyclopedia?
As you say, it is a primary source here. The question isn't what's on the Daily Mail's anyone-can-edit Wikipedia page, it's what a closed group of encyclopedia overseers have decided constitutes an acceptable source. What's more, the closest competitor, Britannica, relies on finding expert contributors instead of listing specific reputable sources, so its editors wouldn't be nearly as relevant here!
Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia is a point here, it's a crowdsourced publication that purports to be a neutral source, despite well documented conflicts among the editors.
Even a cursory glance at how wikipedia is actually structured vs how early 2000s news media and schools portrayed it will lead you to the conclusion that it's a significantly better primary source than any other encyclopedia currently available.
The sort of stuff in wikipedia that traditionally might be slightly biased (current events, very new political stuff) doesn't even appear in other encyclopedias until a decade later, so that has to be worth something as well.
The number of eyes actively vetting and checking and re-checking every change on a moderately trafficked wikipedia page probably dwarfs the total number of editorial staff for even the largest of encyclopedias. The average accuracy is just going to be higher in a situation like that, even with people occasionally defacing pages.
You have got to be kidding me, how can you say that with a straight face? https://www.vox.com/2015/9/17/9345487/wikipedia-lamest-edit-...
I think a fair assessment wouldn't pin 100% of the cause to Google's ideological bias. However, a fair assessment of the situation would also acknowledge the existence of Google's ideological bias.
"The production process was simple. During a day shift—8 a.m. to about 6 p.m—four news editors stationed together near Clarke's desk assigned stories to reporters from a continually updated list of other publications' articles, to which I did not have access. Throughout the day, they would monitor the website's traffic to determine what was getting clicked on and what to remove from the homepage."
from: My Year Ripping Off the Web With the Daily Mail Online @ http://tktk.gawker.com/my-year-ripping-off-the-web-with-the-...
https://www.ithenticate.com/plagiarism-detection-blog/daily-...
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jun/09/news-corp-accu...
https://www.ipso.co.uk/rulings-and-resolution-statements/rul... - "The publication had failed to handle publication sensitively"
https://www.ipso.co.uk/rulings-and-resolution-statements/rul... - "Publishing photographs of the complainants taken in such circumstances represented an intrusion; the publication had not sought to justify the publication of the images in the public interest."
https://www.ipso.co.uk/rulings-and-resolution-statements/rul... - accuracy ("This gave rise to a misleading impression of the effects of GDPR legislation")
https://www.ipso.co.uk/rulings-and-resolution-statements/rul... - accuracy ("This article was a report of an inquest, in which the deceased had been inaccurately identified. This was a fundamental and damaging error on a basic point of fact. [...T]he correct position was readily available, [so] there had been a failure on the part of the agency providing the story to take care over its accuracy.")
https://www.ipso.co.uk/rulings-and-resolution-statements/rul... - accuracy ("The repetition of these serious allegations against the man, with no indication they had been disproven, seriously misrepresented the judgment")
amongst others.
The elephant in the newsroom, is that declining subscribers and outdated business models are pulling down the whole of legacy media towards the level of unpleasant sensationalist tabloid and further. The lack of fact checking we saw in the wake of the Covington Kids debacle stands in stark contrast to the level of journalistic integrity Dan Rather was held to on his fall from grace.
Legacy media can't compete with the Internet, and its quality is declining as it's circling the drain.
Give me an example that proves otherwise instead of downvoting?