[Verv]

An interesting although unsurprising report:

The days following two tragic mass shootings in Dayton, OH and El Paso, TX were extremely active for newsrooms nationwide. But readers who used Google to learn about the shootings may have seen an overwhelming majority of news from left-leaning media sources — CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post in particular — rather than a mix of news sources from the left, center, and right, according to a new audit by AllSides.

The audit was reviewed by a multipartisan team of individuals from the left and right. AllSides uses a multi-partisan, balanced, patented system for measuring bias.

AllSides assessed 522 news articles that were featured as one of the top three results in Google’s “Top Stories” section for 10 shooting-related queries over three days.

The audit found:

70% of results were from outlets that have an AllSides Media Bias Rating of Lean Left or Left.
18% of stories were from outlets that have a Center media bias.
4% of stories were from Lean Right or Right biased outlets.
8% of results came from outlets not rated by AllSides.

AllSides

It would make sense that Google and other news curators would take more hands on control on specific topics to advance a more specific narrative, and then simply allow less important stories to pop up a variety of sources.

As to how this is occurring, I am not sure. It could be that important news topics really do have a hands on human curator, or that certain topics have filters turned on for them that allow the left wing (and centrist) sources come to the surface more naturally without there being direct human involvement.

Regardless, it's a very important topic and I am glad to see a website like this.

[Hong Wu]

Imagine if Google search results for news media were based off of the number of people actually reading said news media directly...

[Drlee]

AllSides assessed 522 news articles that were featured as one of the top three results in Google’s “Top Stories” section for 10 shooting-related queries over three days.

I agree that this is interesting. Here are a couple of off the cuff observations.

I am suspicious of their methodology. The math in the above quote (for example) does not seem to match.

But let me ask some questions.

What would constitute "right leaning"? Running a pro assault weapon article after a mass shooting? Who does that?

What would constitute a "left leaning" article? Would simply posting that we ought to limit access to assault weapons (for example) qualify as "left"?

Now. The founder of Allsides.com is a former political worker having claimed to work for three senate majority leaders and one president. Here is how he describes himself.

Intro: John

"I am not a progressive. I’m a Republican who grew up in a Republican family in the conservative South and worked in Republican politics locally and nationally."

So Verve you have fallen for a not to good right wing tool.

Why was I suspicious? Because the numbers did not make sense? Well. They didn't actually. But more importantly, the question does not make sense. This republican tool accuses Google of left wing bias. Is it? It is possible but it certainly could not conceal bias as profound as this fake organization claims to have found.

Fake organization? Yes. On the first page of their site they refer to "fake news" a Trump invention and right wing Meme.

On this so-called media monitor site, on their first page, in the first four articles there are the following three subjects.

"Democrats descend on Iowa State Fair" (the accompanying photo was Trump waiving at the crowd)

"Springfield Walmart Gunman Thwarted". (About an armed fireman stopping an armed man.)

and (of course)

When Talking to Liberals, Conservatives May Want to Avoid These Terms

So my old friend. You have been bamboozled. But look how easily we started down this road. So how about this. Throw out this blatant propaganda designed to, once again, make the poor conservative special snowflakes feel like victims and ask the real and compelling question? And that is:

If conservatives are so all-fired afraid of the "left wing media" and that this media is manipulating what we see online, why what their first action when gaining the presidency, ending net neutrality?

or

Why have they not brought anti-trust action against Google? It is, after all, the very definition of a monopoly.

or

Why, if Google is so far left, is the second entry on a google search for Walmart Shooting, the Wiki article?

There it is Verve. You should feel better. There is no vast left wing conspiracy. Never was. Why? Because there are very few liberals in the US period, the people who republicans call liberal usually aren't and the democratic party is not liberal. Start there.

[Hong Wu]

Apparently Drlee hasn't been following the leaked videos where Google calls themselves the "good censor" and has various high level people talking about how swinging elections and changing people's opinions.

[Drlee]

And apparantly Hung Wu, as usual, did not read the document he refers to. Why does this not surprise me. It is all too typical these days.

About the first slide of the presentation.

“The Good Censor,” and it’s a mix of findings and insights based on interviews and contributions from a number of journalists, academics, and cultural critics. The aim, according to the first slide of the presentation, is to “reassure the world that [Google] protects users from harmful conduct while still supporting free speech.”

News flash. If you decide to go to school after high school, and you take journalism, you will understand what this means.

Google's statement:

“Google is committed to free expression — supporting the free flow of ideas is core to our mission. Where we have developed our own content policies, we enforce them in a politically neutral way. Giving preference to content of one political ideology over another would fundamentally conflict with our goal of providing services that work for everyone.”

Where is the proof that they are censoring one political idea except in unsupported allegations by the likes of Brietbart and Fox News. (And, of course, Verv's source.)

[Pants-of-dog]

AllSides also works with the Charles Koch Institute.

https://www.charleskochinstitute.org/ed ... nizations/

[Drlee]

AllSides also works with the Charles Koch Institute.

Clearly this is a smash and grab website. It is extremely partisan.

On their news page they quote as "left" an article entitled:

"New Rules Can Deny Green Cards For Immigrants On Food Stamps"

So I read the article from the Huffington Post. It was nowhere near left. It pointed out that this was already the law. It was about as milktoast an article as can be imagined. It does refer, because of poor journalism, the shooting in El Paso but is it left? Nope.

I'm interested in what Verve says about this. It is interesting to note that Google did not filter out this site though it is clearly right wing and fraudulent in its claims of neutrality.

One more comment about this. This site employs confirmation bias to not only give the false impression of bias but to cause the reader to self-select the stories they want to read. It is very smart but not very uncommon.

[Hong Wu]

https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/08/ ... f-my-soul/

Another Google whistleblower has come forward, giving a laptop and 950k documents to the DOJ. Google called a SWAT team to his house over "mental health" concerns and he told Google everything that he had turned over to the DOJ. Revelations include widespread evidence of "human raters" within Google that influence the flow of information relative to someone or a group's rating.

President Trump is said to be preparing an executive action regarding social media companies while the DOJ prepares antitrust cases.

[Palmyrene]

https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/08/14/google-machine-learning-fairness-whistleblower-goes-public-says-burden-lifted-off-of-my-soul/

Another Google whistleblower has come forward, giving a laptop and 950k documents to the DOJ. Google called a SWAT team to his house over "mental health" concerns and he told Google everything that he had turned over to the DOJ. Revelations include widespread evidence of "human raters" within Google that influence the flow of information relative to someone or a group's rating.

President Trump is said to be preparing an executive action regarding social media companies while the DOJ prepares antitrust cases.

Hong Wu, please check the agenda and funding sources of these websites before you post them.

[Hong Wu]

These shallow bias allegations are not going to count for much if the government starts cracking down on these companies. There is abundant evidence, software engineers are turning over the algorithms, the code and providing video of high level people from the CEOs on down in some cases openly discussing what they are doing.

[skinster]

CNN, NYT and The CIA/Bezo Post are not leftwing.

[Drlee]

@skinster

CNN, NYT and The CIA/Bezo Post are not leftwing.

Very true. The US has practically no left wing. Even MSNBC is right of center.

[Palmyrene]

@skinster

Very true. The US has practically no left wing. Even MSNBC is right of center.

It just makes it all the more hilarious when alt-right MAGAs claim that "cultural marxism" is taking over America.

If there is "cultural marxism", it's not in the US.

[Rancid]

What the hell is cultural marxism anyway?

[Drlee]

What the hell is cultural marxism anyway?

It is a made-up term designed to motivate hard right aspirants to toe the political line with republicans. (Not conservatives....Republicans.)

It is similar to the term "Liberal". Liberal is a word that has a very specific meaning but that has been perverted to enrage people who are not smart enough to know better. Or even what a liberal is.

[AFAIK]

Left wing websites like Counterpunch and WSWS complained about a significant drop in traffic after Google changed it's algorithm to promote mainstream sources of news.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

As an example of what 'allsides.com' considers 'left' and 'right', ABC, CBS, and NBC are listed as 'leans left', and Fox News (news, not opinion) as 'leans right'. If you're not laughing now, you don't know anything about American media. With a rating system like that, it's no surprise that most stories are listed as 'left' or 'leans left'.

One other thing to make you laugh - they say they've patented their method. Who the hell would want to copy it?

[skinster]

What the hell is cultural marxism anyway?

Left wing websites like Counterpunch and WSWS complained about a significant drop in traffic after Google changed it's algorithm to promote mainstream sources of news.

TeleSUR, RT, The Canary, Truthdig, etc. So many were attacked, as well as leftwing journalists having their social media accounts removed, losing all their followers and such before being reinstated. The left was attacked first, but the right/alt-right are the biggest crybabies in this story, due to permanent victimhood feels that they have a tendency to feel.

[Rancid]

WSWS is one of the most garbage websites I've ever seen. I don't know anything about counterpunch.

Further, I would argue WSWS is not news. Then again, CNNm Fox, etc. and the like are not much of news either.

[Rancid]

Broader question to everyone:
Does the bias of the news source matter if you as the reader understand that its biased?