I am conflicted.
I think that Daily Mail deserves it all. At the same time I don’t think it should be Google’s duty to limit the reach of a bad publication by means of algorithmic changes to its opaque Search product.
daily mail isn't gaming the system, people know it is a tabloid. the real issue is that many supposed respectable news agencies have been shown to have more than their fair share of misinformation.
I suspect most people searching using Google’s news features want news, not tabloids.
Slurping a bunch of searches for news into your tabloid site sounds like an obvious case of “gaming the system”.
I didn’t know it was a tabloid until just now, because I’ve never heard of them. I’d have been upset with the news aggregators I use if they accidentally bubbled unreliable sources to the top of my feed.
I really don’t understand the controversy.
Why shouldn't they? If I search for information about the Earth, I don't want to see a bunch of flat Earth crap. If I search for information on vaccines, I don't want to have to sift through anti-vax results, no matter how popular they are.
People use Google because they think the results are good. Google's bet is that one reason people for this is that they surface true information. Therefore, they penalize information they assess likely to be false. If users disagree with Google's assessment — i.e. it buries valuable information or surfaces worthless information — they'll use another search engine.
As a flat earther (I'm not a flat earther), the emphasis I wuold be looking for would be on returning results proving the earth is flat when I search for information about the Earth.
I'm not sure Google can win this one.
I am in a different camp. I want something useful to come up. Once upon a time popularity (in the pagerank sense) and usefulness were better correlated. Today the signal-to-noise ratio is worse and those trying to game the system are more sophisticated.
And furthermore the perspective that is crowned the true one, is based on whatever is politically convenient for Google.
If people loudly and angrily demand that Google show a lie as truth, then you will now be in position where Google will only show the lie without any questioning or contrary perspectives.
As the lie becomes established, so policy will made based on it. And it will be very deficient policy. And it will lead to disaster. Afterwards, people will ask? How come no one saw this coming? How come no one raised any objections?
Did you know that during the communist mass starvation, there was a lot of false propaganda about how well big the harvests were. People looking to ingratiate themselves with the elite lied about how well everything was going and flattered the elite with how great their their wisdom was.
They were surrounded by yes men who created a filter bubble. The distorted vision of that was catastrophical. Tens of millions dead.
There is no objective, Platonic measure of "popularity", and Google always has to temper it with "correctness".
When someone searches for "california governor", Google needs to show results for "Gavin Newsom" instead of "Arnold Schwarzenegger", even though the latter is immensely more popular by any reasonable metric.
So yes, Google's engineers will keep tweaking the algorithm until it stops showing Arnold Schwarzenegger entirely. In search of correctness. Otherwise it will become unusable very quickly.
A problem I run into repeatedly with Google is that I enter search terms and when it gives me the wrong thing, sometimes the opposite of what I want, it strongly resists my refining it. For instance, if I search for "turning off feature X" and everybody else searches for "turning on feature X", Google will "correct" me implacably. You're not allowed to turn "X" off. Back in the old days when it wasn't as intelligent, you could add words that would divert it from the popular cluster of hits. This isn't just an annoyance, I believe it's shaping society by determining which ideas and information thrive and which wither.
Maybe instead of trying to sell drama and rage headlines they could focus on actually producing worthwhile content... but then again its Daily Mail.
What would be interesting is to see how other papers were affected by this.
The headline creation and news selection promote clickbait within organization. The most outlandish and catchy stuff gets most revenue, why spend days/week/months on quality article that will be surpassed in terms of ROI by gossip drop?
Over time ppl working in Daily Mail would naturally write stuff that trends on google.
And I wager that what was trending on google had a good chance to trend amongst their target audience too (stuff that triggers emotional responses).
Google is just responding to what people want; the search engine has taken a lot of flak over the years for being spammed, and alternatives have been cropping up. Though "to google" has become a household word, Google cannot rest on their laurels and take that entrenchment for granted.
Google has to order its results somehow. How do you propose they order them?
Should that be Google's duty? If so, what is Google's responsibility with regard to transparency and accountability?
There's a risk of bias though you're definitely right about that.