This is one of the most insidious evils I can imagine.
33 Replies to “I find this very disturbing.”
The capacity to brainwash whole nations is here.
@Ken: The capacity to brainwash whole nations (or enough of a nation that the rest didn’t matter) has always existed. The Pharaohs in Egypt did this. So did the Roman Caesars. So did Hitler.
The difference here is the effortlessness with which it can be achieved.
How ironic, though, that the current incarnation of the internet is burying us in narcissism! We end up as prisoners of our own petty inclinations.
That was a great talk. I sort of assumed that was happening but it’s good to have it spoken so succinctly.
One of my pet peeves is how Netflix tries to limit the selection of potential choices based on my past viewing habits. But i’m a cinephile. I love movies, all genres, levels of quality and time periods. Butbecause i have a few preferences, i don’t get to browse the entire library andcan only hope to stumble upon something that catches my fancy.
More broadly speaking, i like the presenters call to allow theuser to adjust the filters more selectively.
That was a great talk. I sort of assumed that was happening but it’s good to have it spoken so succinctly.
One of my pet peeves is how Netflix tries to limit the selection of potential choices based on my past viewing habits. But i’m a cinephile. I love movies, all genres, levels of quality and time periods. Butbecause i have a few preferences, i don’t get to browse the entire library andcan only hope to stumble upon something that catches my fancy.
More broadly speaking, i like the presenters call to allow theuser to adjust the filters more selectively.
Further to that, Clay Shirky says: “It’s not information overload. It’s filter failure.”
The answer to the filter failure problem that Eli Pariser illustrates, is not that difficult if you’re motivated. For searches, using random searches or targeted searches can overturn foreign filters. Also, using a variety of different websites (like SDA) will turn up very different stories.
The problem is, you have to be motivated. Those who passively accept the information pablum spoon-fed to them will soon passively accept their new information overlords.
The comments attached to that TED video are also interesting. One example: “there are addons [like] noscript, adblock, ghostery, trackmenot or the tor network to make it fb or google as hard as possible to track you.”
Wikipedia: The Society of Professional Journalists — Preamble to its Code of Ethics states:
…public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility.
Who defines truth, fair and comprehensive?
Filter, Schmilter!- They need to get out of the way. We do not need no stinkin’ filters!-This IS evil!
It’s interesting that the internet, in the minds of many people, has shrunk to Facebook and Google. I refuse to use my real name on Facebook and have only used it with fake persona’s to check out the facebook pages of some of my teenaged patients who are under the delusion that they’re “private”. What I’ve seen makes me wonder what’s going to happen in 10 years time when a potential employer googles their names. It makes me glad that the only evidence of my youthful indiscretions is in the memories of friends or a very few grainy BW photos.
For google, I turn off cookies and have Firefox ad blockers as well as every tool I can to get me directly to the information I seek while keeping out the crap. I also utilize multiple IP addresses for my searches and use google.com/ncr which gets me to google.com not google.ca.
Google does censor anything climate related as was most evident in the M4GW climategate video in Dec 2009. Despite it having >1 million views, it never made it into the top video list on YouTube and eventually was taken off due to complains from Mann and Gore. It has probably had in excess of 5 million views but you won’t find that information anywhere on google. For climate related searches I use Bing which, so far, appears to be climate neutral.
That’s why blogs such as SDA and WUWT are so important as they provide information that the MSM is trying to suppress. Right now the MSM is moving into the internet and it will be very important to ensure that the same “gatekeeping” function they perform in broadcast news doesn’t happen online. I get regular updates from the EFF which is doing its best to maintain the neutrality of the internet.
The only personalized information source I have is Amazon.com although I’ve only bought one of the suggestions that they’ve made and that was the JJ. Cale/Eric Clapton CD. Every other suggestion that they’ve made is for a book that I either already own or have read. I think my eclectic reading habits must confuse their suggestion algorithm.
It may be that statists don’t have to be censors; all they have to be able to do is to ensure that the population is so fragmented that no group will ever be powerful enough to take over from them. The other problem is that there is so much information out there that it’s physically impossible for one person to keep up with it all. Thus, we all use information concentrators that we trust. For myself, SDA, WUWT, climateaudit, motls.blogspot.com make up the bulk of my recreational internet activity although I do visit a lot of the sites that are mentioned on these blogs as well as search some of the topics in more detail. The only thing I don’t have is a grasp of local news since I’ve stopped watching TV and totally stopped reading newspapers but, if it’s important enough, people will tell me about it.
Ive noticed this for a while. Its why I keep to Blogs, using Google only for minor searches. I have a face book page, but never use it.
For important stuff I use alta vista. Read Journalists I know are objective or at least I know their point of view.
Man you should have seen the web in 96 for you young ins. Cowboy Country, meets Indian territory.
It really was free. I remember when a moderator was lower on the scale of life than an amoeba.
In those days post boards & chat rooms is where you connected.
The standing O response of the TED viewers in the video was a relief.
There is a “conservapedia” to wikipedia, perhaps there will be a conserva-google or conserva-bing in the coming years. I don’t see any way of forcing the issue or requesting certain unfiltered results in news searches. It’s not like “we” can stop buying their newspapers without having an alternative,
aside from the obvious like having blogmeisters do the work for us… 🙂
I watch and view what I wish to. Useful filters are retained, useless ones are not. If google meets my needs then fine I’ll use it, and if it doesn’t then I won’t.
These various media servers are useing their editorial discretion, in the manner that all media servers have, in order to maximize their revenue while minimizing costs. We hear shrieks of outrage here every day about media bias, who thinks that doesn’t happen here? Kate and co. provide us with stories we are interested in. It is certainly why I come here.
I am wary of describing editorial choice as evil. We all have that final free choice to view or watch what we wish to.
The speaker in the video presumes value judgements and proceeds to decry editors at google or facebook because they don’t share his values. The editors edit the information flow to suit the needs of the audience they cater to.
If you don’t like it then change the channel.
Kyla, that explains a whole lot about the ignorance of the Trolls who come onto SDA. But in fact, people have been self-censoring forever and a day. Using CBC News as a focal point, some Canadians get most all of their news from it while others never go to it. Because CBC News is such a highly biased news organization, the perceptions of those two groups of people must be radically different.
Only an idiot uses their real identity on the internet.
Using CBC News as a focal point, some Canadians get most all of their news from it while others never go to it. Because CBC News is such a highly biased news organization, the perceptions of those two groups of people must be radically different.
I see your point about the average person who only visits media sources that parrot their preconceived ideas. They end up with a very distorted and biased view of reality. An intelligent person should be able to visit a variety of news sites and be able to synthesize what they read, analyze the content, and discern the truth from the propaganda.
Don’t use google at all. I use http://www.startpage.com they do not track me at all and do not attach cookies etc..
For a week now, I’m being constantly targeted with ads for WW2 replica nazi uniforms, almost every website I visit, Google should change their name to Godwin.
“Personalization” is editorializing writ large. Insidious is an apt description, Kyla.
While watching the video on youtube I noticed the selection of videos in the sidebar. My sister noticed the same while she was watching the Pariser video as well. Youtube had selected different videos for us based on what it thinks we both wanted to see.
I have recently been using as a search engine
duckduckgo.com
they don’t track or bubble your searches. It is really interesting the search results you get from them vs google or bing etc.
Not surprising news considering all Google and facebook feeds flow through the CIA e-security center where they have a superuser editing capability – welcome to big brother’s eyes.
certainly lots of filtering here at SDA.
isn’t that right EBD?
“Only an idiot uses their real identity on the internet.”
Perhaps, but I admire more the people who WILL use their real name,rather than the cowards who will call those people every name under the sun behind their facade.
I can see hiding behind a nom-de-net if you’re in a vulnerable position due to employment or blog with Islamists, but far too many on the ‘net spew the most disgusting and scathing vitriol on anyone they disagree with,including physical threats,all from behind a convenient facade.
I’ve always admired Kathy Shaidle for her courage in NOT hiding her identity,and she DOES offend people,in her own name. Same with that woman from Delisle.
now that the NET is here people are discovering that some one else is “telling” them what they “want”, h3ll, that’s been going on since about WW2. Tho it has increased with the greater ability of information disemination. In automotive you could buy a 6 speed tranmission as long as you bought a V8, but you only needed and wanted a 4 spd with a 6 cylinder. That sort of Moulding has been going on for over 50 years, it’s just now with the changing information flow that we may “want” a 6 spd tranny with our 6 cyl trucks
some should take marketing 101 and financials 102:-))))
I for one want a search engine that takes a good guess at finding what I want to see not ‘what I should’ see. If I wanted info on the uprising in Egypt I could have spent 4 more key strokes and searched Egypt riot.
When I search for ‘area classification’ a search engine that gives me information on NEC and IEC hazardous area classifications is far more useful than one giving me Area 51 links.
Who gets to deiced what’s important? I’d rather have a faceless consumerism driven algorithm than some CBC news editor. Google isn’t a charity, they provide you with a service for free. But remember there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Thanks, Kyla, that was very enlightening—and scary. (What isn’t these days?)
But I noticed that the presenter mentioned the consensus media of the past as having “embedded ethics”. Hmmm, like that subversive Walter Cronkite, who always signed off, “And that’s the way it is”?
Right.
P.S. As a traditionalist Christian, the consensus media have presented, for the last, many decades, as Google is now. The consensus media were the gatekeepers: they only reported what they wanted to. What they didn’t like was misreported, ridiculed, deep-sixed—whatever it took to keep views opposite to theirs out of the reasonable picture.
As a member of “the non-progressive untouchables”, whose views were “unwelcome” (at best), I used to bother to document my concerns and involve myself with press councils and ombudsmen. WHAT an utter waste of time!
The insidious, anti-diversity, anti-tolerance, anti-TRUTH media discrimination against the more conservative amongst us has been going on for some time. Google’s just a new face on the bigotry block.
This kind of evasive censorship is much like the boiled frog effect. You wouldn’t put a frog into a pot of boiling water it would react to fast and jump out. Unless it was introduced to the heat gradually without it noticing until the water temperature reaches a boiling point. Then it would be dead from the effect of too much heat exposure.
Same thing applies to the internet, 10 years ago this kind of censorship would have been unheard of, but now it’s becoming more of a reality. Because we the people haven’t really been paying much attention to the provisions and laws that have been passed without our expressed consent or knowledge.
The only thing now is to reinvent a new internet protocol that is decentralized. Out of the hands of the trotskyites and marxists who wants to control what we see and what we hear.
I don’t see the issue here. Rather I understand the point, but it is nothing new. Every search, every newspaper, every television station must choose to include some things and ignore others. There is no other choice. The top ten must be picked somehow.
As long as the market is the arbiter I see no problem. Some sources will be very specialized others not soo much. That has always been true and it is no surprise it is true on the internet.
The danger isn’t google the danger is the potential reaction to this guy at TED. Expect to hear calls for government to mandate the inclusion of material in search results. These calls will be well intentioned, but will end in little more then propogands and big media subsidies via search results. Expect significant support for this idea from the dying newspapers in desperate need of more eyeballs.
After all everyone knows only “unbiased” news sources should be everyones primary window on the world.
I appreciate what he’s saying, but it almost sounds like he’d be calling for a resurrection of the old “fairness doctrine”, something that would be worse than what Google’s doing.
The issue is, if you search for a topic, you might not get the actual most relevant returns for the topic, rather you will get links to sites that are similar to site you visit often. In Google’s case, you get links to things you discuss in private emails.
So, if you are searching for information, much of that information can be blocked from your search. It makes your world smaller.
Thank you for the post. I typically stick to Google, but this is a reminder to start flipping between different browsers, at the very least.
The capacity to brainwash whole nations is here.
@Ken: The capacity to brainwash whole nations (or enough of a nation that the rest didn’t matter) has always existed. The Pharaohs in Egypt did this. So did the Roman Caesars. So did Hitler.
The difference here is the effortlessness with which it can be achieved.
How ironic, though, that the current incarnation of the internet is burying us in narcissism! We end up as prisoners of our own petty inclinations.
That was a great talk. I sort of assumed that was happening but it’s good to have it spoken so succinctly.
One of my pet peeves is how Netflix tries to limit the selection of potential choices based on my past viewing habits. But i’m a cinephile. I love movies, all genres, levels of quality and time periods. Butbecause i have a few preferences, i don’t get to browse the entire library andcan only hope to stumble upon something that catches my fancy.
More broadly speaking, i like the presenters call to allow theuser to adjust the filters more selectively.
That was a great talk. I sort of assumed that was happening but it’s good to have it spoken so succinctly.
One of my pet peeves is how Netflix tries to limit the selection of potential choices based on my past viewing habits. But i’m a cinephile. I love movies, all genres, levels of quality and time periods. Butbecause i have a few preferences, i don’t get to browse the entire library andcan only hope to stumble upon something that catches my fancy.
More broadly speaking, i like the presenters call to allow theuser to adjust the filters more selectively.
Further to that, Clay Shirky says: “It’s not information overload. It’s filter failure.”
The answer to the filter failure problem that Eli Pariser illustrates, is not that difficult if you’re motivated. For searches, using random searches or targeted searches can overturn foreign filters. Also, using a variety of different websites (like SDA) will turn up very different stories.
The problem is, you have to be motivated. Those who passively accept the information pablum spoon-fed to them will soon passively accept their new information overlords.
The comments attached to that TED video are also interesting. One example: “there are addons [like] noscript, adblock, ghostery, trackmenot or the tor network to make it fb or google as hard as possible to track you.”
Wikipedia: The Society of Professional Journalists — Preamble to its Code of Ethics states:
…public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility.
Who defines truth, fair and comprehensive?
Yippy.com and others
Search Engines That Protect Your Privacy: Alternatives to Google.
http://www.brighthub.com/internet/google/articles/123719.aspx
Filter, Schmilter!- They need to get out of the way. We do not need no stinkin’ filters!-This IS evil!
It’s interesting that the internet, in the minds of many people, has shrunk to Facebook and Google. I refuse to use my real name on Facebook and have only used it with fake persona’s to check out the facebook pages of some of my teenaged patients who are under the delusion that they’re “private”. What I’ve seen makes me wonder what’s going to happen in 10 years time when a potential employer googles their names. It makes me glad that the only evidence of my youthful indiscretions is in the memories of friends or a very few grainy BW photos.
For google, I turn off cookies and have Firefox ad blockers as well as every tool I can to get me directly to the information I seek while keeping out the crap. I also utilize multiple IP addresses for my searches and use google.com/ncr which gets me to google.com not google.ca.
Google does censor anything climate related as was most evident in the M4GW climategate video in Dec 2009. Despite it having >1 million views, it never made it into the top video list on YouTube and eventually was taken off due to complains from Mann and Gore. It has probably had in excess of 5 million views but you won’t find that information anywhere on google. For climate related searches I use Bing which, so far, appears to be climate neutral.
That’s why blogs such as SDA and WUWT are so important as they provide information that the MSM is trying to suppress. Right now the MSM is moving into the internet and it will be very important to ensure that the same “gatekeeping” function they perform in broadcast news doesn’t happen online. I get regular updates from the EFF which is doing its best to maintain the neutrality of the internet.
The only personalized information source I have is Amazon.com although I’ve only bought one of the suggestions that they’ve made and that was the JJ. Cale/Eric Clapton CD. Every other suggestion that they’ve made is for a book that I either already own or have read. I think my eclectic reading habits must confuse their suggestion algorithm.
It may be that statists don’t have to be censors; all they have to be able to do is to ensure that the population is so fragmented that no group will ever be powerful enough to take over from them. The other problem is that there is so much information out there that it’s physically impossible for one person to keep up with it all. Thus, we all use information concentrators that we trust. For myself, SDA, WUWT, climateaudit, motls.blogspot.com make up the bulk of my recreational internet activity although I do visit a lot of the sites that are mentioned on these blogs as well as search some of the topics in more detail. The only thing I don’t have is a grasp of local news since I’ve stopped watching TV and totally stopped reading newspapers but, if it’s important enough, people will tell me about it.
Ive noticed this for a while. Its why I keep to Blogs, using Google only for minor searches. I have a face book page, but never use it.
For important stuff I use alta vista. Read Journalists I know are objective or at least I know their point of view.
Man you should have seen the web in 96 for you young ins. Cowboy Country, meets Indian territory.
It really was free. I remember when a moderator was lower on the scale of life than an amoeba.
In those days post boards & chat rooms is where you connected.
The standing O response of the TED viewers in the video was a relief.
There is a “conservapedia” to wikipedia, perhaps there will be a conserva-google or conserva-bing in the coming years. I don’t see any way of forcing the issue or requesting certain unfiltered results in news searches. It’s not like “we” can stop buying their newspapers without having an alternative,
aside from the obvious like having blogmeisters do the work for us… 🙂
I watch and view what I wish to. Useful filters are retained, useless ones are not. If google meets my needs then fine I’ll use it, and if it doesn’t then I won’t.
These various media servers are useing their editorial discretion, in the manner that all media servers have, in order to maximize their revenue while minimizing costs. We hear shrieks of outrage here every day about media bias, who thinks that doesn’t happen here? Kate and co. provide us with stories we are interested in. It is certainly why I come here.
I am wary of describing editorial choice as evil. We all have that final free choice to view or watch what we wish to.
The speaker in the video presumes value judgements and proceeds to decry editors at google or facebook because they don’t share his values. The editors edit the information flow to suit the needs of the audience they cater to.
If you don’t like it then change the channel.
Kyla, that explains a whole lot about the ignorance of the Trolls who come onto SDA. But in fact, people have been self-censoring forever and a day. Using CBC News as a focal point, some Canadians get most all of their news from it while others never go to it. Because CBC News is such a highly biased news organization, the perceptions of those two groups of people must be radically different.
Only an idiot uses their real identity on the internet.
Using CBC News as a focal point, some Canadians get most all of their news from it while others never go to it. Because CBC News is such a highly biased news organization, the perceptions of those two groups of people must be radically different.
I see your point about the average person who only visits media sources that parrot their preconceived ideas. They end up with a very distorted and biased view of reality. An intelligent person should be able to visit a variety of news sites and be able to synthesize what they read, analyze the content, and discern the truth from the propaganda.
Don’t use google at all. I use http://www.startpage.com they do not track me at all and do not attach cookies etc..
For a week now, I’m being constantly targeted with ads for WW2 replica nazi uniforms, almost every website I visit, Google should change their name to Godwin.
This from Drudge. Facebook partners with Politico to use Facebook users info for Politico. http://allthingsd.com/20120112/facebook-gives-politico-deep-access-to-users-political-sentiments/
“Personalization” is editorializing writ large. Insidious is an apt description, Kyla.
While watching the video on youtube I noticed the selection of videos in the sidebar. My sister noticed the same while she was watching the Pariser video as well. Youtube had selected different videos for us based on what it thinks we both wanted to see.
I have recently been using as a search engine
duckduckgo.com
they don’t track or bubble your searches. It is really interesting the search results you get from them vs google or bing etc.
Not surprising news considering all Google and facebook feeds flow through the CIA e-security center where they have a superuser editing capability – welcome to big brother’s eyes.
certainly lots of filtering here at SDA.
isn’t that right EBD?
“Only an idiot uses their real identity on the internet.”
Perhaps, but I admire more the people who WILL use their real name,rather than the cowards who will call those people every name under the sun behind their facade.
I can see hiding behind a nom-de-net if you’re in a vulnerable position due to employment or blog with Islamists, but far too many on the ‘net spew the most disgusting and scathing vitriol on anyone they disagree with,including physical threats,all from behind a convenient facade.
I’ve always admired Kathy Shaidle for her courage in NOT hiding her identity,and she DOES offend people,in her own name. Same with that woman from Delisle.
now that the NET is here people are discovering that some one else is “telling” them what they “want”, h3ll, that’s been going on since about WW2. Tho it has increased with the greater ability of information disemination. In automotive you could buy a 6 speed tranmission as long as you bought a V8, but you only needed and wanted a 4 spd with a 6 cylinder. That sort of Moulding has been going on for over 50 years, it’s just now with the changing information flow that we may “want” a 6 spd tranny with our 6 cyl trucks
some should take marketing 101 and financials 102:-))))
I for one want a search engine that takes a good guess at finding what I want to see not ‘what I should’ see. If I wanted info on the uprising in Egypt I could have spent 4 more key strokes and searched Egypt riot.
When I search for ‘area classification’ a search engine that gives me information on NEC and IEC hazardous area classifications is far more useful than one giving me Area 51 links.
Who gets to deiced what’s important? I’d rather have a faceless consumerism driven algorithm than some CBC news editor. Google isn’t a charity, they provide you with a service for free. But remember there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Thanks, Kyla, that was very enlightening—and scary. (What isn’t these days?)
But I noticed that the presenter mentioned the consensus media of the past as having “embedded ethics”. Hmmm, like that subversive Walter Cronkite, who always signed off, “And that’s the way it is”?
Right.
P.S. As a traditionalist Christian, the consensus media have presented, for the last, many decades, as Google is now. The consensus media were the gatekeepers: they only reported what they wanted to. What they didn’t like was misreported, ridiculed, deep-sixed—whatever it took to keep views opposite to theirs out of the reasonable picture.
As a member of “the non-progressive untouchables”, whose views were “unwelcome” (at best), I used to bother to document my concerns and involve myself with press councils and ombudsmen. WHAT an utter waste of time!
The insidious, anti-diversity, anti-tolerance, anti-TRUTH media discrimination against the more conservative amongst us has been going on for some time. Google’s just a new face on the bigotry block.
This kind of evasive censorship is much like the boiled frog effect. You wouldn’t put a frog into a pot of boiling water it would react to fast and jump out. Unless it was introduced to the heat gradually without it noticing until the water temperature reaches a boiling point. Then it would be dead from the effect of too much heat exposure.
Same thing applies to the internet, 10 years ago this kind of censorship would have been unheard of, but now it’s becoming more of a reality. Because we the people haven’t really been paying much attention to the provisions and laws that have been passed without our expressed consent or knowledge.
The only thing now is to reinvent a new internet protocol that is decentralized. Out of the hands of the trotskyites and marxists who wants to control what we see and what we hear.
I don’t see the issue here. Rather I understand the point, but it is nothing new. Every search, every newspaper, every television station must choose to include some things and ignore others. There is no other choice. The top ten must be picked somehow.
As long as the market is the arbiter I see no problem. Some sources will be very specialized others not soo much. That has always been true and it is no surprise it is true on the internet.
The danger isn’t google the danger is the potential reaction to this guy at TED. Expect to hear calls for government to mandate the inclusion of material in search results. These calls will be well intentioned, but will end in little more then propogands and big media subsidies via search results. Expect significant support for this idea from the dying newspapers in desperate need of more eyeballs.
After all everyone knows only “unbiased” news sources should be everyones primary window on the world.
I appreciate what he’s saying, but it almost sounds like he’d be calling for a resurrection of the old “fairness doctrine”, something that would be worse than what Google’s doing.
The issue is, if you search for a topic, you might not get the actual most relevant returns for the topic, rather you will get links to sites that are similar to site you visit often. In Google’s case, you get links to things you discuss in private emails.
So, if you are searching for information, much of that information can be blocked from your search. It makes your world smaller.
Thank you for the post. I typically stick to Google, but this is a reminder to start flipping between different browsers, at the very least.