Journalism Neutrality Now! Why The Government Needs To Oversee The NY Times' Editorial Neutrality
from the bizarro-world dept
We've tried debunking the ridiculous concept of "search neutrality" a few times now. It's an invention by a few telcos who were upset that Google was supporting net neutrality rules (something I don't support). So they came up with this concept of "search neutrality" to get back at Google. But, of course, the situations are entirely different. The reason why people believe in net neutrality is because your ISP controls what you can do online. You don't have a choice. When it comes to search, not only do you have the ability to make an instant choice, but the whole point of a search engine is to "rank" results based on what it thinks is best. You can't be "neutral" because a "neutral" search is just a unranked list of links that may or may not have anything to do with what you're searching for.But, it appears the editorial folks over at the NY Times have gotten confused by all of this, and are saying that the government should step in and ensure that Google's algorithm is "fair":
Still, the potential impact of Google's algorithm on the Internet economy is such that it is worth exploring ways to ensure that the editorial policy guiding Google's tweaks is solely intended to improve the quality of the results and not to help Google's other businesses.It's difficult to think of anything more ridiculous than a news publication calling for the government to step in and review the editorial guidelines of another company. So, just as the the telcos did with Google, why not flip this around, and make the same point about the NY Times. Here's my attempt:
Some early suggestions for how to accomplish this include having Google explain with some specified level of detail the editorial policy that guides its tweaks. Another would be to give some government commission the power to look at those tweaks.
The potential impact of the NY Times' coverage on the world/economy/war/etc. is such that it is worth exploring ways to ensure that the editorial policy guiding the NY Times' coverage choices is solely intended to improve the quality of the world, and not to help the NY Times' or other businesses.How would the NY Times (or pretty much any journalist) react to that? My guess is not too kindly.
Some early suggestions for how to accomplish this include having the NY Times explain with some specified level of detail the editorial policy that guides its front page choices. Another would be to give some government commission the power to look at those guidelines.
Danny Sullivan, it appears, had a similar idea and rewrote the entire NY Times article as if it were talking about the NY Times (rather than just the two paragraphs I did here). He then goes into detail on why the whole thing is bunk.
Search engines are very similar to newspapers. They have unpaid "organic" listings, where usually (though not always), a computer algorithm decides which pages should rank tops. The exact method isn't important. What's important is that those unpaid listed are the search engines' editorial content, content it has solely decided should appear based on its editorial judgment.He also points out why Google is significantly more transparent than the NY Times about its own editorial policy:
Search engine also have paid listings, advertisements, which aren't supposed to influence what happens on the editorial side of the house. We even have FTC guidelines ensuring proper labeling of ads and intended to protect against "advertorials" in search results.
It's a church-and-state divide with good search engines, just as it is with good newspapers.
What the New York Times has suggested is that the government should oversee the editorial judgment of a search engine. Suffice to say, the editorial staff of the New York Times would scream bloody murder if anyone suggested government oversight of its own editorial process. First it would yell that it has no bias, so oversight is unnecessary. Next it would yell even more loudly that the First Amendment of the US Constitution protects it from such US government interference.
Still, shouldn't Google share more about how it creates its algorithm? Compared to the New York Times, Google's a model of transparency. Consider:There's a lot more in Sullivan's piece that basically debunks pretty much every myth that people (beyond just the NY Times) are making out to be an issue about Google's "neutrality" in search. Hopefully this silly concept goes away, but I fear there are too many lobbying dollars invested in it, that folks like Sullivan are going to have plenty of opportunities to re-debunk this concept in the future.
- Google will list EVERY site that applies for "coverage" unlike the New York Times, which regularly ignores potential stories
- If Google blocks a site for violating its guidelines, it alerts many of them. The New York Times alerts no one
- Google provides an entire Google Webmaster Central area with tools and tips to encourage people to show up better in Google; the New York Times offers nothing even remotely similar
- Google constantly speaks at search marketing and other events to answer questions about how they list sites and how to improve coverage; I'm pretty sure the New York Times devotes far less effort in this area
- Google is constantly giving interviews about its algorithm, such as this one in February, along with providing regular videos about its process (here's one from April) or blogging about important changes, such as when site speed was introduced as a factor earlier this year.
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Filed Under: editorial, journalism neutrality, neutrality, oversight, search neutrality
Companies: google, ny times
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Re: *sigh*
How are things in your part of the world? I hope they're well. How can I get a job trolling? It seems like a good way to waste time while earning money.
Or, if that's a bust, who're you working for?
I don't expect a straight answer... probably some cock'n'bull story about "nobody's paying me to do this" but it rarely hurts to try.
Anyhow, that's all. Have a nice day.
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While we're at it why not do exactly the same for Bing, Yahoo and any other search engine out there. After all, they all can effect the Internet economy. Though goodness knows Microsoft (Bing) would never, ever, ever do anything which might promote its other businesses.
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Google >> NYT
Of course, this is the trend of mainstream media in general - even the Wall Street Journal regularly puts out some pretty bad articles - but the "good" ones generally suffer more from a lack of effort than a lack of intelligence or journalistic integrity.
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haha on americans
HAIL OBAMA
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If I had the coding skills
If someone wants to "steal" this idea, go for it. Just send me a link.
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Re: If I had the coding skills
The moment it's an ordered list it is no longer neutral. And, if you sort the list on purpose *gasp* then you're being quite discriminatory! I do code... and believe it not, greater discrimination of your data is the key to good input; kinda the opposite of "garbage in, garbage out."
"Search Neutrality" is right up there with "This Statement is False" on my list of fun logical paradox phrases.
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Re: If I had the coding skills
FROM interwebs..sites
ORDER BY newid()
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...or maybe it's a better comparison than it seems, if one is inclined to believe the conspiracy theories about, e.g. the NYTimes coverage of Apple.
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www.google.com could be the govt compliant one. If you click on recommended
www.google.com/recommended
could be the google recommended one. and when everyone starts to naturally set www.google.com/recommended as their default search, what will the NYT argue then? What will MSM argue then? What will their argument be? That google can't offer their own recommended search despite offering the govt compliant one as the default? Why?
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The true motive of search neutrality is an attempt to turn the Internet into the deceiving system that everything outside the Internet has turned into and countering with the option of having two search platforms, a govt compliant one and a recommended one, would either force the MSM to drop the idea about search neutrality upon realizing that everyone will simply default to the non govt controlled one or it would further expose the true intent behind these search neutrality arguments, to unfairly benefit those who argue in its favor (of course they will come up with another excuse, but the point is that their other excuse will be even less defensible. It would be something silly like, "but too many search options clutters the market and causes confusion" or some other silly nonsense argument).
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I just want to make sure that every possible argument against my above idea is destroyed because I know TAM or some other troll can't wait to find a counter argument no matter how lame.
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Why, you might ask?
The cost of creating, certifying (and regularly re-certifying) and running the "Search Neutrality Compliant" monstrosity would raise a substantial barrier to entry into the web search market, just like other such consumer-protection mandates have done (Sarbanes Oxley, anyone?).
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So Microsoft and Google both start separate govt compliant search neutral engines and non search neutral engines. I make my own search engine. So long as my search engine either offers a govt compliant search neutral option of its own or so long as it links to either Google's or Microsoft's search neutral option I'm OK. I can choose which govt compliant search neutral engine my engine will link back to.
What does the NYT and MSM have to say about that?
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techdirt neutrality
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Tosser Search
I agree the term search neutrality is currently (since 2009) being used as a pretense to allow large commercial interests to pressure Google into cooperation with their agenda. The site searchneutrality.org is as a good a reference for this fact as any.
This pretense is as disingenuous as governments constantly using red herrings to implement draconian policies, such as Australia's Net filter which is supposed to purge the continent of child pornography.
The very last thing the people of the world need is for governments to step in and start calling the shots on search algorithms. Even more absurd is notion of having the government step in to regulate commercial search engines such as Google under the pretense of "search neutrality".
The real issue the NY Times has is that they are less and less relevant to the real world, and they want a nice dose of U.S. commercial welfare by forcing Google to make them more visible in their paid results without having to bid more, or go through countless SEO cycles. That's just the way it works and they need to get used to it.
If the people want a truly open search engine, without biasing towards commercial or "approved" sources it needs to come from a different, community service (funded by donation) style source or under a different advertisement supported model.
But why do some here comport that search-neutrality would mean listing every site for every search regardless of linguistic algorithmic relevance? To me this argument smacks of inane schilling. Just cut to the chase: the ideal of search neutrality does not and cannot exist with advertisements favored in the results.
The whole "story" of search-neutrality you've been following here is a bunch of bullshit. It's about profiteering, nothing more. It has nothing to do with an ideal of inclusiveness by relevance.
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Just Who Do They Repersent?
... almost certain proof that corporations have more influence on the Government than anyone else.
And, I would never suggest that corporations represent the free market or the people (other than investors).
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Really, if they wanted to make this about Search Neutrality, they should use the more general 'search engines' rather than just naming Google.
They way that Google is called out would suggest that it's less an issue with Search Neutrality and more an issue with Google Neutrality. And I'm not quite sure which idea is more stupid.
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Google is the only one called out because it is by far the most capitalized of the search engines. These are not ideals being chased, just dollar signs.
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Answering: "why not flip this around"?
"How would the NY Times (or pretty much any journalist) react to that? My guess is not too kindly."
My observation, not guess, is that some portion of journalists are *eager* to see a police state fully implemented and welcome even your putting the notion out.
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Neutrality
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Alternative Thinking
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Mike, this line confused me - are you saying you don't support net neutrality?
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