A New Tool Shows How Google Results Vary Around the World (wired.com) 24
Search Atlas makes it easy to see how Google offers different responses to the same query on versions of its search engine offered in different parts of the world. From a report: The research project reveals how Google's service can reflect or amplify cultural differences or government preferences -- such as whether Beijing's Tiananmen Square should be seen first as a sunny tourist attraction or the site of a lethal military crackdown on protesters. Divergent results like that show how the idea of search engines as neutral is a myth, says Rodrigo Ochigame, a PhD student in science, technology, and society at MIT and cocreator of Search Atlas. "Any attempt to quantify relevance necessarily encodes moral and political priorities," Ochigame says. Ochigame built Search Atlas with Katherine Ye, a computer science PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University and a research fellow at the nonprofit Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research.
Just like Google's homepage, the main feature of Search Atlas is a blank box. But instead of returning a single column of results, the site displays three lists of links, from different geographic versions of Google Search selected from the more than 100 the company offers. Search Atlas automatically translates a query to the default languages of each localized edition using Google Translate. Ochigame and Ye say the design reveals "information borders" created by the way Google's search technology ranks web pages, presenting different slices of reality to people in different locations or using different languages.
Just like Google's homepage, the main feature of Search Atlas is a blank box. But instead of returning a single column of results, the site displays three lists of links, from different geographic versions of Google Search selected from the more than 100 the company offers. Search Atlas automatically translates a query to the default languages of each localized edition using Google Translate. Ochigame and Ye say the design reveals "information borders" created by the way Google's search technology ranks web pages, presenting different slices of reality to people in different locations or using different languages.
Too bad... (Score:2)
its still in private beta. Sounds like a fun tool.. hopefully I'll remember to check again in a year..
Re: Too bad... (Score:3)
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Indeed, and you can somewhat replicate the results by setting your Google account to include other languages. In fact you don't need a Google account, you can just search in a different language.
It's actually quite enlightening to do so. You start to see how there is already some segregation between parts of the internet speaking different languages. As an example someone in Japan recently asked about MN taper potentiometers on Twitter. I was able to find a datasheet and graph explaining it (it's used for b
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In fact you don't need a Google account, you can just search in a different language.
In fact you're probably better off not using your google account, because THAT shifts your search results as well...
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Define "granular level".
Let me put it this way: the last 8 or so years, every year, when I was working and doing technical searches, the signal-to-noise ratio dropped, massively, as the ad department took over the search algorithms.
Personal searches did the same. Example: I was looking for men's boots. -"women" "Sponsored ad" had wo[bold]men's[/bold] boots.
And then there's google friggin' news. I used to see articles from the Scotsman, the Hindustani, the Asia Straits Times, and others. Now - haven't seen a
Not quite buying the implications here. (Score:2)
The research project reveals how Google's service can reflect or amplify cultural differences or government preferences
This presumes that everyone is this perfectly blank slate with precisely zero opinion about , and who immediately form a final, inalterable opinion about based on, literally, the first thing they see on a search result. Even if the second thing is the opposite of that.
This is how people work in hacky soc / psy / phi studies and maybe some video games. This is not, however, how people work in the real world. For every Kerry voter chuckling smugly over the first Google result for "miserable failure", there's
second paragraph correction (Score:2)
Second paragraph should read:
This presumes that everyone is this perfectly blank slate with precisely zero opinion about thing, and who immediately form a final, inalterable opinion about thing based on, literally, the first thing they see on a search result. Even if the second thing is the opposite of that.
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The research project reveals how Google's service can reflect or amplify cultural differences or government preferences
This presumes that everyone is this perfectly blank slate with precisely zero opinion about , and who immediately form a final, inalterable opinion about based on, literally, the first thing they see on a search result. Even if the second thing is the opposite of that.
You're not speaking the same language as everyone else here.
Amplifying cultural differences is easy. That's not the same as changing them. People are vulnerable to manipulation in ways in which they are already being manipulated.
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You're living on another planet. Just because you're confronted with cultural differences more often doesn't mean they're actually amplified.
A MAGA dumbfuck and a pompous progressive are less culturally different than, say, a slaveholder and an abolitionist, or a hippie and a segregationist.
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A MAGA dumbfuck and a pompous progressive are less culturally different than, say, a slaveholder and an abolitionist, or a hippie and a segregationist.
Not really. A MAGA dumbfuck is pro-slavery.
Who believes in the "myth"? (Score:2)
the idea of search engines as neutral is a myth
Did anyone ever believe that search engines were neutral? It's just not possible for communication to be neutral, especially for multiple readers, each of whom perceive different meanings in the message. Objectivity is the claim of liars and fools. It is not only not necessary but arguably not useful. Objectivity and neutrality are nebulous qualities that are meant to be useless facades for accuracy and correctness.
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A truly neutral search engine actually requires continuous public input. The method simply get as many people as possible to approve specific search results or reject specific search results. As in that first web site on the list spot on, tick. The first bunch of results all arsehole search engine optimisers for shitty search results, often nothing but another search engine serving nothing but ads big ole 'X' for them.
You then allow those result to permeate the system. You only take results from registered
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PS do not data mine your customers, let your customers data mine the web for you. What is good, what is bad, why, content, layout, keep surveys short never more than ten questions and purely voluntary, voluntary (double on purpose, one for generally and the other for each time). Why use questionable AI when you can use one hundred million customers instead, far more accurate results on a continous global internet web site survey. Those ijiots at stumbleupon had no idea how the package and sell the data they
Yeah, it reflects your IP (Score:1)
Search results are just ads now anyway, so it hardly matters
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Search results are just ads now anyway, so it hardly matters
Congratulations on winning the dumb comment of the week award.
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:-) I am intrigued by your interest
Not new (Score:2)
Results in Portugal suck, mostly apply to Brazil (Score:3)
If I am trying to look up something about a law or a regulation, I often end up on the opposite side of the world. We share a common language with Brazil but the laws are obviously different. If I remove brazilian sites with -site:.br I still get .com sites made in Brazil.
Google is useless. I have to specify Portugal and sometimes even my city. What happened to my location data? I use Google Maps all the time and sometimes I search for a city and end up in Brazil. I don't ever want to look something up on the internet about a remote location i've never been to.
Even street names are shit. I have ended up in another city more than once because there's a street with the same name. I don't ever want to grab an Uber to a different city thank you very much. I'm told they use Google Maps searches for their location data...
Not surprising (Score:2)
Merchantilists don't care, stupid. (Score:1)
Information borders are a fact of life (Score:3)
Try browsing Wikipedia in different languages some time. The vast majority of articles are on the English site. In addition, foreign-language pages often have entirely different information, often that the English pages don't have, if it's about the non-English speaking world.
And this extends well beyond what content is available in what language on the web. All people view their reality filtered by a number of lenses, one of which is where you live.
no surprise there.. (Score:2)
It even gives different results on different persons. I really hated that, as my colleague got better results then I got with exactly the same keywords, and that's really a bitch if you're searching for some answers (he did get, and I didn't).
So if it comes as a surprise it gives different results in different regions, you really have been naÃve..
I thought it varied per person, not per country (Score:2)