Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It's a historic statement - and nobody has yet grasped its significance.
Not so very long ago, Google disclaimed responsibility for its search results by explaining that these were chosen by a computer algorithm. The disclaimer lives on at Google News, where we are assured that:The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program.
I know that its signifies. This means that the results of searches will be biased rather than objective. For the users, some searches, likely political or controversial topics, will be less reliable. For the searched, they too will be affected and it will only be a matter of time when this will be influence by money to google.
While not what one would typically think of as a media company, Googles delivery of information to users for both news and entertainment does qualify it as a media company of sort. It has thus acquired the same status as most other Mainstream Media outlets, that of bias driven policies.
What we all need and search for is objective truth. Once that was thought to be probable with google searches. Now that is no longer the case. The solution for now is to go beyond the first 2-3 pages of google search results.
HT: Public Secrets
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