Less politically biased search results ...

NightHawkeye

Work-in-progress
Site Supporter
Jul 5, 2010
45,814
10,318
✟803,537.00
Faith
Methodist
Marital Status
Married
Why would the left want to suppress international treaties anyway? We are usually into issues like international law, so I don't see how this sort of search could have anything to do with political bias.
Ah! Bias. The new buzz word of the right. Apparently it only affects liberals though.
Think of it as confirmation bias of the most privileged in society who somehow manage to believe themselves persecuted.
Google's bias has been amply documented ... even some liberal publications picked up on it. Did you miss it?
Trump is right: More than Facebook & Twitter, Google threatens democracy, online freedom | USA Today

Google claims to value free expression and a free and open internet, but there is overwhelming evidence that the Big Tech giant wants the internet to be free and open only to political and social ideas of which it approves.
...
The president is absolutely right.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Google was accused of manipulating search results to favor Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. Also, research at Harvard University found that Google’s search rankings are not objective, and in 2017, the company was fined billions of dollars by the European Union for manipulating search results.

Google also maintains at least nine shadowy blacklists that affect what the public sees when using its search engine.
...
When it’s not manipulating the internet to prevent users from viewing right-wing content, Google is directly attacking that content. A report by The Daily Caller News Foundation revealed that Google’s fact-checking service “fact-checked” only conservative news websites, and that in many cases, these fact-checks were outright wrong. What does it say about the fact-checker when its fact-checking is biased and incorrect?
 
Upvote 0

SimplyMe

Senior Veteran
Jul 19, 2003
9,706
9,430
the Great Basin
✟329,220.00
Country
United States
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Well, sure, if one knows exactly what one is looking for then one should expect an exact result.

Thing is, sometimes when I search I'm actually looking for information ... without knowing the exact form it exists in. Regardless of whether what I was searching for fell victim to Google's political leanings or an algorithmic quirk, it's good to know alternatives to Google exist.

It is really odd, then, that in my YouTube News feed that I get a lot of FoxNews links.
 
Upvote 0

Nithavela

our world is happy and mundane
Apr 14, 2007
28,113
19,544
Comb. Pizza Hut and Taco Bell/Jamaica Avenue.
✟492,557.00
Country
Germany
Faith
Other Religion
Marital Status
Single
Google's bias has been amply documented ... even some liberal publications picked up on it. Did you miss it?
I'm looking forward to you reporting an actual biased search result if you ever encounter one, because in this case, you clearly didn't.
 
Upvote 0

cow451

Standing with Ukraine.
Site Supporter
May 29, 2012
41,108
24,128
Hot and Humid
✟1,120,276.00
Country
United States
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Others
People interested in using some a search engine that is not slanted like Google can check out these:

4Conservative.com

SearchConservative.com

and yippie.com

A problem is that one of these may be best when the issue is one thing, but it's another search engine that has better coverage when it comes to the next issue the user is interested in. Several of these used in conjunction with DuckDuckGo works well.

Note: I do not recommend StartPage.com for this purpose although it is often said to be the best if privacy is the concern.
Well, I’m happy to see you using unbiased search engines like SearchConservative.com. :ebil:
 
Upvote 0

Belk

Senior Member
Site Supporter
Dec 21, 2005
28,338
13,078
Seattle
✟904,976.00
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
Google's bias has been amply documented ... even some liberal publications picked up on it. Did you miss it?
Trump is right: More than Facebook & Twitter, Google threatens democracy, online freedom | USA Today

Google claims to value free expression and a free and open internet, but there is overwhelming evidence that the Big Tech giant wants the internet to be free and open only to political and social ideas of which it approves.
...
The president is absolutely right.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Google was accused of manipulating search results to favor Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. Also, research at Harvard University found that Google’s search rankings are not objective, and in 2017, the company was fined billions of dollars by the European Union for manipulating search results.

Google also maintains at least nine shadowy blacklists that affect what the public sees when using its search engine.
...
When it’s not manipulating the internet to prevent users from viewing right-wing content, Google is directly attacking that content. A report by The Daily Caller News Foundation revealed that Google’s fact-checking service “fact-checked” only conservative news websites, and that in many cases, these fact-checks were outright wrong. What does it say about the fact-checker when its fact-checking is biased and incorrect?

Brad Parscale's opinion is noted. Perhaps you can link to someone other then Trumps digital consultant?
 
Upvote 0

lasthero

Newbie
Jul 30, 2013
11,421
5,793
✟229,457.00
Faith
Seeker
It is really odd, then, that in my YouTube News feed that I get a lot of FoxNews links.
Come to think of it, so have I. In fact, just a few hours ago, I got a clearly pro-Trump ad telling me how Nancy Pelosi needed to be kicked out.

That’s some weird liberal bias.
 
Upvote 0

Nithavela

our world is happy and mundane
Apr 14, 2007
28,113
19,544
Comb. Pizza Hut and Taco Bell/Jamaica Avenue.
✟492,557.00
Country
Germany
Faith
Other Religion
Marital Status
Single
Come to think of it, so have I. In fact, just a few hours ago, I got a clearly pro-Trump ad telling me how Nancy Pelosi needed to be kicked out.

That’s some weird liberal bias.
I have found that if I click any political youtube videos on christian forums, there is a high chance that I get offered a lot of alt-right, anti-feminism and anti-muslim content.

This is the reason I no longer participate in youtube video threads on this forum.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: cow451
Upvote 0

Silmarien

Existentialist
Feb 24, 2017
4,337
5,254
38
New York
✟215,724.00
Country
United States
Faith
Anglican
Marital Status
Single
Politics
US-Democrat
Google's bias has been amply documented ... even some liberal publications picked up on it. Did you miss it?

I wasn't contesting the claim that Google has a bias. I specifically asked how this particular search could have anything to do with political bias. You might as well be complaining about left-wing bias because you can't find a recipe you're looking for--I don't see any sort of connection.
 
Upvote 0

NightHawkeye

Work-in-progress
Site Supporter
Jul 5, 2010
45,814
10,318
✟803,537.00
Faith
Methodist
Marital Status
Married
I wasn't contesting the claim that Google has a bias. I specifically asked how this particular search could have anything to do with political bias. You might as well be complaining about left-wing bias because you can't find a recipe you're looking for--I don't see any sort of connection.
I didn't say there was, only that other search engines got me the desired result immediately. Google didn't. Having alternatives at one's disposal is always good. Some day they might be useful.

I normally use Bing as an alternative when Google results seem lacking, but was especially impressed today with Duckduckgo's results. I'll start using Duckduckgo a little more and see how that works out. It supposedly offers better privacy and, if nothing else, using Duckduckgo might keep a penny or two away from Google when I go searching.
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

childeye 2

Well-Known Member
Aug 18, 2018
4,960
2,885
66
Denver CO
✟202,914.00
Country
United States
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Conservative and liberal search engines? That's some kind of funny. If I may point out, the meanings of many and most terms reverse in connotation and denotation from positive to negative and visa versa in a left/right dichotomy. It's not personal, it's circumstantial. Which means that it necessarily requires seeing both sides to have any objective worthwhile analysis.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Hank77
Upvote 0

iluvatar5150

Well-Known Member
Aug 3, 2012
25,255
24,152
Baltimore
✟556,743.00
Country
United States
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Democrat
Google's bias has been amply documented ... even some liberal publications picked up on it. Did you miss it?
Trump is right: More than Facebook & Twitter, Google threatens democracy, online freedom | USA Today

Google claims to value free expression and a free and open internet, but there is overwhelming evidence that the Big Tech giant wants the internet to be free and open only to political and social ideas of which it approves.
...
The president is absolutely right.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Google was accused of manipulating search results to favor Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. Also, research at Harvard University found that Google’s search rankings are not objective, and in 2017, the company was fined billions of dollars by the European Union for manipulating search results.

Google also maintains at least nine shadowy blacklists that affect what the public sees when using its search engine.
...
When it’s not manipulating the internet to prevent users from viewing right-wing content, Google is directly attacking that content. A report by The Daily Caller News Foundation revealed that Google’s fact-checking service “fact-checked” only conservative news websites, and that in many cases, these fact-checks were outright wrong. What does it say about the fact-checker when its fact-checking is biased and incorrect?

By “liberal publications”, you mean Trump’s campaign manager?
 
Upvote 0

ThatRobGuy

Part of the IT crowd
Site Supporter
Sep 4, 2005
24,706
14,589
Here
✟1,204,856.00
Country
United States
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Single
Politics
US-Others
Google's algorithms for news results have a component to take into consideration historical source accuracy, as well as what people clicked on for a particular set of search results to determine what to bubble up to the top. So, if someone searches for "Story XYZ", and 75% of users all clicked the same link first, the search results for that query will become more and more refined based on that.

Given that the age group that's more likely to use the internet to get their news vs other forms leans younger, that's not totally unexpected (thus the reason that while Fox gets higher TV ratings, CNN gets more site hits)...older people are more like to be conservative and get their news from TV, younger people are more like to hit the web.

The accuracy aspect that I mentioned before also has to be taken into account...and the right wing sources have nobody else but themselves to blame for that and their stuff tends to always get worse independent fact check scores than their left-wing counterparts. Many publish more conspiracy than actual news, so they can't act all shocked and appalled when they do publish something legitimate and it doesn't bubble to the top of the list.

That's where it's important to make the distinction between the two concepts of bias and accuracy. They're not interchangeable concepts, though people commonly make that error when evaluating news sources, and bias doesn't necessarily negate accuracy.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0

ThatRobGuy

Part of the IT crowd
Site Supporter
Sep 4, 2005
24,706
14,589
Here
✟1,204,856.00
Country
United States
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Single
Politics
US-Others
Now, one area where google has recently admitted to artificially altering their results was their recent algorithm update to push alternative medicine results lower in the results than legitimate ones, as that was a response to pressure put on them to do so as a response to this recent rash of anti-vaxxers popping up all over the place.

And you can see that downward trend for them via this handy little tool...
Serpstat — Growth hacking tool for SEO, PPC and content marketing

For instance, you can see where alternative medicine sites have taken a hit (as google even acknowledged that would be the case with their May 2019 algorithm update)

So, as an example, Mercola, peddler of alt-medicine nonsense:
mercola.com - Overview - Domain Analysis

...you can see where their visibility score tanked (similar results for DrAxe and DrBerg - neither are actually doctors)
upload_2019-9-28_18-39-50.png


However, for some right wing news sites, the same is not true.

Breitbart, for instance, shot up after the algorithm update

upload_2019-9-28_18-43-37.png


...same for rush limbaugh's website


(it's a neat tool to use, however, they do limit, by IP address, so they cap your searches at 5 per 24-hour window)

https://suite.searchmetrics.com is another option for looking that stuff up as well.
 
Upvote 0

ToddNotTodd

Iconoclast
Feb 17, 2004
7,724
3,799
✟255,029.00
Faith
Seeker
Marital Status
Married
Why would the left want to suppress international treaties anyway? We are usually into issues like international law, so I don't see how this sort of search could have anything to do with political bias.
If you’re wearing conspiracy-colored glasses, we’ll then...
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

Belk

Senior Member
Site Supporter
Dec 21, 2005
28,338
13,078
Seattle
✟904,976.00
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
Not a conspiracy but a bias so ingrained that those that hold those biases do not even realize how biased they are and only left wing media and giant monopolistic corporations not the whole world, though perhaps they consider themselves to be that as their worldview seems to them to be so self evidently correct that everyone not mentally impaired or malevolently evil would have no choice but to agree.

Very well. How would this ingrained bias manifest when coding a search algorithm in such a way they would not be aware of it? I don't see how that would work.
 
  • Useful
Reactions: Sparagmos
Upvote 0

Hank77

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Jun 26, 2015
26,396
15,479
✟1,106,853.00
Country
United States
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Others
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

Occams Barber

Newbie
Site Supporter
Aug 8, 2012
6,291
7,430
75
Northern NSW
✟988,187.00
Country
Australia
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Divorced
Sorry but if you read it the pain was self inflicted. Stick with things less complicated like "See Spot run. Run Spot run." and you will be fine. I've seen many longer run on sentences than the one I devised and no harm ever befell the reader other than boredom. You must have a weak constitution.


Then again, perhaps you need to increase your supply of commas and full stops. It appears your keyboard has run out of both. ;)
OB
 
Upvote 0