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Trump Wants To Regulate Google


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Google is a private platform.

 

Even if a platform like Google is targeting conservatives, I’m tired of hearing them complain about it.

 

I say if you don’t like the way they conduct business, don’t use it.

 

There are other platforms to get information from.

 

Instead of bitching about it, conservatives need to sit down and talk to Google.

 

In the infamous words of Mrs. Ringwood......... “Work the f@cking thing out”.  A reference from the movie “An Innocent Man”’ for those who don’t know.

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LOL...............................another laughingly mis-named Gator thread.......................it must be a day that ends in "Y" 

 

 

 

 Funny: Just over a year ago, in June 2017, the European Union fined the company $2.7 billion for … bias in its search algorithms.

 

Yes, Trump’s off-the-cuff charge focused on political bias, whereas the EU verdict (after a seven-year investigation) was about the company “systematically favoring” its own Google Shopping feature. But all the Trump-bashers who were suggesting Google would never, ever put its thumb on the scale seem to have ignored at least one elephant in the room.

 

As we write, the top headlines on Google News include two CNN stories: “Trump slams Google search as ‘rigged’ — but it’s not” and “Debunking Donald Trump’s latest conspiracy theory on Google.” How is the average web surfer to trust that Google isn’t weighting those stories?

 

The layman has plenty of reasons to worry about political bias to which the company could be blind: Silicon Valley is a notorious progressive place (except on issues that touch its own interests, anyway), and the internal Google discussion over “dissident” engineer James Damore showed a shocking intolerance for the merest questioning of certain left-liberal pieties.

 

On the commercial front, Google’s power is obvious: Its algorithms can literally make or break a company — perhaps a whole industry. Google says, “We respectfully disagree with” the EU ruling that it “abused its market dominance,” but that’s not exactly a rebuttal.

 

We’re no fans of heavy-handed government intervention, but any free democratic society is going to frown on enormous unchecked power. It certainly seems like some kind of independent oversight is called for here.

 

https://nypost.com/2018/08/28/we-should-all-be-worried-about-googles-power/

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There is so much wrong with Facebook, Google, Twitter, I can't even begin to start.

The biggest problem for Facebook is they take advantage of laws that say "not our problem, we didn't publish it, we are just the messenger" and then in addition to algorithms, they also depress reach - it is pay to play if you want them to show something  that is going to take people off Facebook - a joke, a photo that keeps people on Facebook will get better reach. A status with a link? Dies without immediate engagement.  People have taken advantage of the report features to kill reach or hurt pages when they do not like the content.

For Google it isn't simply search algorithms and depressing search returns (Google does a pretty decent job of combating manipulations, so if you see something not show up in Google search that you think should, it is possible they truly have deindexed it). The google ad network services something like 80% of all ads on the internet (I could find out exactly, but don't want to bother my publisher). There is a lot of clout being the search engine that services the majority of search (based on the last thing you searched for so they can target ads), as well as the major network that keeps websites afloat on the internet. What they did to ads on youtube crushed a lot of people. (duckduckgo has come a long way in search, and it returns truer search returns as it is not based on what you last searched for, and they do not have a publishing network).

If they pulled a Ma Bell on Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc it would be painful for them, and possibly better for all of us. However, there are laws of unintended consequences, and I cannot say with any degree of certainty that breaking up any of those would lead to better products or a more open internet for the masses.

The worst thing about search and social media is the big-boys buy everyone and everything that might even be considered a competitor possibly, sometime, in the future. Great payout for whatever they purchased, painful for us poor slobs looking for a competitor. It is tough to try and launch something new... look how long duckduckgo has been at it. Gab is two years old and just passed 600K users. StumbleUpon shutdown last month and is now trying to grow a new platform from scratch. Every day I get a new email about the newest next-best-thing in social media. And they go nowhere.

I do not pretend to know the answer to these complex questions, but I could write a book and complain about any one of them. ?
 

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3 hours ago, njbuff said:

Google is a private platform.

 

Even if a platform like Google is targeting conservatives, I’m tired of hearing them complain about it.

 

I say if you don’t like the way they conduct business, don’t use it.

 

There are other platforms to get information from.

 

Instead of bitching about it, conservatives need to sit down and talk to Google.

 

In the infamous words of Mrs. Ringwood......... “Work the f@cking thing out”.  A reference from the movie “An Innocent Man”’ for those who don’t know.

 

 

Are Conservatives Going To Ask Government For A Social Media ‘Fairness Doctrine’ Or Learn To Take Risks And Compete?

https://www.redstate.com/jimjamitis/2018/08/29/conservatives-going-ask-government-social-media-fairness-doctrine-learn-take-risks-compete/

 

 

All the hubbub about anti-conservative bias in social media and search engine results is starting to remind me of those days when the left was complaining about conservatives dominating talk radio. That was before social media was even a thing, or at least before it was being used by anyone with a job.

 

The answer to the perceived unfairness we gave then is the same one we should give now: Let the market work.

 

Much more at the link:

 

 

.

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By my own experience, I find that I can find anything searching in Google, only sometimes I need to go a page or two deep. Any weighting or bias I've seen just pushes certain search results to the top,  it doesn't obscure them altogether. If you're willing to dig a little, you can find what you're looking for.

 

To me, Twitter is nothing more than a cesspool of insipid opinion, with an occasional sprinkle of wit or insight but not enough to spend a second of my time with. If you get your news from Yahoo or your Facebook feed, you're not going to know too much that's accurate.

 

There is nothing in my opinion that warrants government regulation, control, or involvement beyond what's already in place. Ultimately, if people don't trust their news sources or social networks, alternatives will emerge.

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9 hours ago, 4merper4mer said:

Clinton went after Microsoft but these things take care of themselves.

 

When Clinton "went after" Microsoft he did so in a way that entrenched Microsoft as the industry leader for generations.

 

The major part of Microsoft's "settlement" was that it agreed to provide it's software, free, to elementary and high schools all across the country.

 

Mac labs were out, and several generations of children learned computing exclusively on Microsoft platforms, carving out massive market share.

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2 minutes ago, TakeYouToTasker said:

 

When Clinton "went after" Microsoft he did so in a way that entrenched Microsoft as the industry leader for generations.

 

The major part of Microsoft's "settlement" was that it agreed to provide it's software, free, to elementary and high schools all across the country.

 

Mac labs were out, and several generations of children learned computing exclusively on Microsoft platforms, carving out massive market share.

I know right.  Every kid I see now just can't take their eyes off their Windows CE powered phone.

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7 minutes ago, 4merper4mer said:

I know right.  Every kid I see now just can't take their eyes off their Windows CE powered phone.

 

<_<

 

Technology changed the marketplace over time, as it always does in every industry, but at the time it cemented Microsoft as the industry leader for several generations.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, TakeYouToTasker said:

 

<_<

 

Technology changed the marketplace over time, as it always does in every industry, but at the time it cemented Microsoft as the industry leader for several generations.

 

 

Define generation and define industry.

 

And what do you think I meant when I said "these things have a way of taking care of themselves"?

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2 minutes ago, 4merper4mer said:

Define generation and define industry.

 

In computing, I would define generation in terms of wide reaching technology leaps.  For the purpose of this discussion, I'd say the end of Microsoft's dominance began with the introduction of the smart phone.

 

Industry would be a specific branch of commercial activity.

 

And what do you think I meant when I said "these things have a way of taking care of themselves"?

 

I wasn't disagreeing with you.

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1 hour ago, TakeYouToTasker said:

 

In computing, I would define generation in terms of wide reaching technology leaps.  For the purpose of this discussion, I'd say the end of Microsoft's dominance began with the introduction of the smart phone.

 

 

Before the smart phone, what was the threat to Microsoft's dominance and how did free computers to schools squelch it?

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