General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Google bots are back. What are we going to do about it?
So I'm on twitter and I read that Susan Rice is under a full blown investigation for "misuse of intelligence" and I think, "That sounds rediculous and I type her name into Google.
So here is what you get when you type Susan Rice's name into Google. The first articles to pop up are Fox news - "Susan Rice is a liar, even the liberal media is starting to admit it
Washington free beacon - House intel committee person, "This is now a full blown investigation"
Washington times - "Graham compares Rice investigation scandal to Benghazi lies"
There are ways to get something to the top of a Google search and obviously nefarious people are using them to spread propaganda, (remember the effort to get people to search for "Santorum"? I guess it is the number of hits a website gets that makes a difference.....not quite sure)
But I know that however they are doing this we must find a way to counter it or our elections are going to continue to be lost. If the biggest search engine shows up RW bullshit when you enter an important name people are going to just know RW bullshit. We know that this was a big tactic used during the last election so why is it still happening?
Maybe Russia has superior computer technique but I think this does not require that much technique. So why is it still happening?
https://www.google.com/search?q=susan+rice&oq=susan+rice&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.2319j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
calimary
(81,440 posts)But you're right, we MUST find a way to counter it, or our elections are dead. From here on.
IthinkThereforeIAM
(3,076 posts)... and play with those bot numbers: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/04/susan-rice-did-nothing-wrong-part-millionth
WhiteTara
(29,721 posts)eI just scanned their headlines and didn't click on their link. But it did seem like a not credible story.
That Guy 888
(1,214 posts)I like that site and this one, but they both have problems.
That one: Alex Jones fans and possible Russian Trolls.
This one: people re-fighting the primary and John Birch Society reenactors on a perpetual "commie hunt".
rogue emissary
(3,148 posts)Google Top story for me is displayed as follows.
Fox News · 4 days ago
House Intel Committee Member on Susan Rice Probe: This Is Now a Full-Blown Investigation
Washington Free Beacon · 1 day ago
Susan Rice did nothing wrong, part the millionth
Mother Jones · 1 day ago
msongs
(67,434 posts)wildeyed
(11,243 posts)So I cut and pasted Susan Rice Did Nothing Wrong into the search box and found a bunch of articles that said that too. My little contribution to the Resistance, lol....
Maraya1969
(22,494 posts)the real words?
Can you explain what you know to the class please?
wildeyed
(11,243 posts)If enough people search terms, then Google anticipates them. So if enough people search "Susan Rice did nothing wrong", then when people type Susan Rice into the box, that will be one of the auto-predict options. Remember when Dan Savage Google-bombed Rick Santorum with that anal froth association? That was funny.
Um, I think if you share stories on social networks, that also helps their visibility on other platforms. I retweeted a few. And followed Susan Rice on Twitter.
I also know that people spend a great deal of money gaming the system now, so not sure if human people have much power against the bots now.
Interestingly, the Mother Jones article is now gone from my top three choices. Maybe we made the bots mad
docgee
(870 posts)and click on the correct stories. We should have a fake news section to fight yhis crap.
calimary
(81,440 posts)For those of us who have a little more time on their hands, like me (the retiree), we could really go to town on something like that.
ESPECIALLY on a day like today. My husband has a bad leg - problems really flared up in the past few days. Which means any dog duty or errands or prescriptions to pick up falls to me. That's why I'm not downtown at the Tax March right now. I have time on my hands. I could do stuff like this - even with the minimal online-manipulation "knowledge" I have.
Maraya1969
(22,494 posts)It's all bullshit except biography.com and Wikipedia and twitter and then the article fighting the newest bullshit accusations about her
IthinkThereforeIAM
(3,076 posts)... I had posted previously to click on MJ, before scrolling down to these posts. I hope this helps folks understand it better.
unc70
(6,117 posts)I have posted here for over 10 years about various techniques to boost rankings in Google and to make pages almost disappear from search results. The biggest changes over the last two decades is the increasing complexity of the forces involved.
Early on with web searches, the same search yielded the same result list for each of us doing the search at the same time. Now, the results are highly personalized by Google to use your search history, browser history, location, consumer profile, and more. This micro targeting is so pervasive that the version of the Internet we see and use is unique to each of us. All reality is virtual.
This personalization includes things like ads shown on TV. I suppose it could be expanded to show different segments segments within the supposedly same TV show. Sort of like the Fox News effect, but not so obvious.
Wish I had some magic solution, but I don't see one.
wildeyed
(11,243 posts)For a while, Facebook was serving me black hair product ads (I'm not black), lesbian dating service ads (I'm not a lesbian) and western wear clothing ads (I live in a major city). I get some real filth on Twitter since I read a bunch of white supremacist crap there. But at least I am outside a bubble a little bit now.
When Sessions was being confirmed, I notice that it was nearly impossible to find anything negative about his past via Google search. All of the racists stuff went poof.
Maraya1969
(22,494 posts)Maybe the advertising is targeted but the search?
Why does the search so often propagate the fake news?
I think one thing that we need to do, (or someone as this is not my alley) is set up a bunch more real news websites fashioned after their fake news one. This is how so many of them show up when you do a search
Right after the election all the hate Hillary sites seemed to go away but the minute Susan Rice called for a recount I checked and they were all popped up on the top again
wildeyed
(11,243 posts)Just keep pulling them, but they always come back.
Cernovich 'broke' the Rice story, right? Crazy-ass conspiracy theory Pizzagate CERNOVICH! The one who is ranting about how he will show burn down the GOP if Bannon gets fired (fine with me, BTW). And now the nasty troll-bots are spreading his filth around again.
I heard he suffered from mental illness in his 20s. His rich and sucessful wife divorced him. That's where he got his money. In the divorce settlement. And he injects himself with testosterone which makes his balls shrink. I read it on the interwebs, so it must be true.
https://idledillettante.com/tag/mike-cernovich/
Now I am watching his "Alpha Male Body Language Exercises" on youtube. Spoiler: It's just a bunch of deadlifts.
We should not be getting beat by this guy. Really. Someone on our team needs to fix this.
seta1950
(933 posts)Do not use google, use search engines that do not propagate fake news. They are out there
IthinkThereforeIAM
(3,076 posts)... http://www.qwant.com It is a European search engine that does not track you
Maraya1969
(22,494 posts)It's that Google is the main search out there and this practice costs us Dems a lot. Most people just type in a name to check things out and they don't know the names of the fake news from the real news.
calimary
(81,440 posts)Like what, for example? I'm one who doesn't have a lot of fluency in these things. I wouldn't know where to look for such search engines. And I'm certain that I'm not alone in that. Got some suggestions?
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)The company's assertion is that it doesn't track your searches.
FormerOstrich
(2,703 posts)But I liked the results when I googled:
both Republican and Democratic lawmakers and aides have so far found no evidence that Obama administration officials did anything unusual or illegal
BobTheSubgenius
(11,564 posts)However, there are companies, and probably individuals, who can be hired to achieve a desired result. It's far, far easier if the site you want to influence is one to which you have admin access, which is all I'm at all familiar with.
I know this because of once being employed by a total douche who, for example, bought Guiliani T-shirts for all of his staff (except me, because he knew I would tell him to do something unnatural)...and we live in Canada. This is to prepare you for some shocking news: he is a totally unscrupulous "businessman" who uses a guise of religion. As such, his "business" was smeared MOST unfairly - by citing examples of exactly how he treated people.
This led to the hiring of a company that could sink these 'undesirable' pages to the third or fourth page of Google results, and concomitantly raising the profile of totally bogus pages extolling his venture.
Thankfully, this was all quite a time after I left that hellhole. It did lend some insight into how this process works, in a basic way. I'm sure a hypothetical hostile foreign power, to offer a preposterous example, would have the resources and expertise to do this quite expertly.
WePurrsevere
(24,259 posts)May I suggest writing to them via their Feedback link (at the bottom of your search results) and suggest that they do more... because the fact is... they can and, IMO, should otherwise they're complicit in helping to spread fake news.
FWIW here's just a snippet of what I just wrote. It's nothing fancy and done before coffee but hopefully it will get my point across to them w/o too many errors.
Please further help stop the spread fake news by 1) not allowing bots and paid orgs to manipulate your search results so the fake news they want spread is at the top of the search results for specific keywords entered and 2) perhaps allowing searchers to report fake news perhaps with a trigger so it's pulled if over so many real people, not bots, report it..
If you choose to write them as well I suggest short and sweet is more likely to get read and forwarded to the proper departments for consideration and action. You can send them a screenshot of what you're talking about too if you feel you want to be specific.
Another way to help fight fake news is to set up your own blog, learn about how to do SEO (search engine optimization) and then network with other Democratic bloggers, sharing their links etc. There may be an existing circle out there to join but we DUers could band together to do the same. I haven't done so yet but I used to own/run a non-political forum and have been considering how I can translate what I learned to what I can do to help fight against the R agenda (being disabled I'm rather limited on physical activism ATM).
Maraya1969
(22,494 posts)I keep forgetting that we actually have a forum of people wanting to do things on site.
calimary
(81,440 posts)With details and actual how-to steps for those of us who don't "get" most of this - but have time on their hands.
Maraya1969
(22,494 posts)Maraya1969
(22,494 posts)MineralMan
(146,325 posts)in that search, now, is that it is on Fox News. Because of that, it has been linked to by many, many people on many, many sites. Since Google's ranking algorithms depend, in part on the number of backlinks out there, and since Fox News is a very popular venue, stories on that website often have high rankings.
Here's the thing: While it is not so difficult to use SEO techniques to improve a website's results rankings, where there is a site with enormous traffic, it's almost impossible to bump that site out of a high position for simple searches. That's part of the business I'm in, so I work with SEO all the time. As long as Fox News gets the millions of visits it does, stories in it will rise to the top. It's inevitable.
There is nobody at Google who is watching the results of individual searches. Nobody. It's all automated. The actual people there are working on the algorithms, not watching Google search results pages.
Maraya1969
(22,494 posts)It would get more attention with Twitter, FB and other social media