Yes I had a family member in a right wing conspiracy area. It was infuriating because his friends would tell him their nonsense and he would be skeptical and google it, only for google to seemingly support what they were saying.
I couldn’t replicate his results at all and it would take a lot of searching to even find what he was talking about so I could debunk it for him.
I suppose it’s invalid in the context of showing you what you exactly searched for. But it’s pretty valid in the context of showing you what you’re looking for. For example, someone with a disdain for science when searching for the terms “big bang” or “evolution” is probably not looking for scientific articles detailing the rigor of the prevalent theories. If the point of a search engine is to find what you’re looking for, it’s pretty effective by that measure. It just so happens that what you’re looking is biased in its own ways.
I understand what you mean, I agree with you that search engines should be simpler tools and in general tools are better when they just do what I tell them rather than trying to guess and do more things. But I think we’re in the minority there. It’s difficult enough to get people to care about Google watching them across the internet, much less when it actually proves useful like suggesting restaurants or businesses near you.
Removed by mod
Yes I had a family member in a right wing conspiracy area. It was infuriating because his friends would tell him their nonsense and he would be skeptical and google it, only for google to seemingly support what they were saying.
I couldn’t replicate his results at all and it would take a lot of searching to even find what he was talking about so I could debunk it for him.
Removed by mod
I suppose it’s invalid in the context of showing you what you exactly searched for. But it’s pretty valid in the context of showing you what you’re looking for. For example, someone with a disdain for science when searching for the terms “big bang” or “evolution” is probably not looking for scientific articles detailing the rigor of the prevalent theories. If the point of a search engine is to find what you’re looking for, it’s pretty effective by that measure. It just so happens that what you’re looking is biased in its own ways.
Similarly, but from a good view, if a programmer searches “how to kill child” they probably don’t want a tutorial of how to kill human children.
Removed by mod
I understand what you mean, I agree with you that search engines should be simpler tools and in general tools are better when they just do what I tell them rather than trying to guess and do more things. But I think we’re in the minority there. It’s difficult enough to get people to care about Google watching them across the internet, much less when it actually proves useful like suggesting restaurants or businesses near you.
Removed by mod