Google starts adding “no reliable sources” tag to some search engine results | Hacker News Reader

Google starts adding “no reliable sources” tag to some search engine results

reclaimthenet.org

29 pointsURfejk15 comments

Same information, minus the hit piece angle:

https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/6/24/22549157/google-unrelia...

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-reliable-sources-...

https://mashable.com/article/google-search-results-changing-...

This is a very weird article. The text itself seems focused on factual information, but it’s surrounded with opinionated statements which I assume leans towards the site operator’s politics.

Google has been making search results opinionated for years. At least as far back as discounting results that have a lot off link farm hits. I think the thing that is upsetting people is the idea that they don’t have control over the narrative like they once might have.

HN is the only place where I see "reclaimthenet.org" pop up (and with strange frequency), and honestly the site itself pretty much seems like some kind of propaganda outlet.

there's intentionally misleading stuff in most articles and I honestly wonder who operates that site.

ReclaimTheNet is notoriously critical of big tech, so like with any article it's good to seek similar articles from other sources to have a better idea of the overall picture.

Definitely not a fan of this new wave of whatever you might call it... even-more-direct opinion management than the media already gives us, i guess. Whether it be Facebook partnering with the Atlantic Council, sites like Snopes, Google ranking down independent news or demonetizing peoples stuff, or this... seems like i'm only supposed to have CIA-approved opinions.

While some people's opinions aren't influenced by such measures, a lot of people are just waiting to have their opinion managed. They'll do literally anything they're told to do if managed correctly. This presents a danger if they're managed by bad actors. It's important for those opinions to be managed for good.

I wonder how you would react if you discovered that your information diet was being curated to ensure you were not exposed to information contradictory to what someone else believes is in your best interest. If it's not okay to impose on you,it's probably not okay to impose it on others.

I would react badly unless I understood the reasons for it at the same time.

I could be wrong but isn’t this prioritizing content that cites sources? that seems like it could be valuable, we’re being crushed under waves of information that is utterly unreliable (which is a method of disinfo, intentional or not) and there are too many people that believe the first thing they read.

Orwell 1984: There will be a Ministry of Truth [0] that will make it obsolete for you to think for yourself.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministries_of_Nineteen_Eight...

Note that the message is shown for certain search terms, not the individual links of the result as the title might imply.

In theory this is useful, but the devil is in how this is determined; an algorithm will be gamed, and I doubt Google is putting humans into curating the quality or reliability of sources.

And of course, everything Google does with search lives in deep secrecy.

What could possibly go wrong?

Will we see the dawn of a shadow industry of "reliable sourcing" providers?

We used to call those "newspapers."

my javascript blocker indicate me that reclaim the net website use ajax.googleapis.com and static.cloudflareinsight.com... a bit ironic.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com