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The Strange Politics of Google Autocomplete
Politico ^ | December 06, 2013 | MEGAN GARBER

Posted on 12/07/2013 12:20:46 PM PST by Slings and Arrows

In the late 1930s, as humans managed to launch yet another war that would fail to end all wars, H.G. Wells wrote a series of essays laying out a plan for a better world. Wells, a novelist, reformer and sometime historian, believed that technology could connect people in ways that had never before been possible, joining them in a network and uniting their wisdom into a kind of synaptic and singular mind. The structure Wells imagined would be, he declared, “a sort of mental clearinghouse for the mind, a depot where knowledge and ideas are received, sorted, summarized, digested, clarified, and compared."

Wells’s “World Brain” would, sadly, remain unrealized in his lifetime. But the World Wide Web, built decades later on the foundations of the military-industrial Internet, was created for the express purpose of sharing ideas and connecting people around them—for building, essentially, a global mind of the sort envisioned by Wells. The web has since been organized (and, in some sense, humanized) by search engines operating under the assumption that information is, fundamentally, a means of connection.

Today, thanks to Google, the most dominant of those engines, we have a tool that taps into humanity’s hive mind better than anything Wells could have imagined. We have snapshots of the information people seek when there’s no barrier between them and their curiosity save for an open field and a flashing cursor. We have … Autocomplete. 

---snip---


(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...


TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Society
KEYWORDS: google; googlebias; googlebomb; hacks; napl
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To: a fool in paradise

“Nancy Pelosi is hot”

wait.. what??


21 posted on 12/07/2013 1:10:19 PM PST by GeronL (Extra Large Cheesy Over-Stuffed Hobbit)
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To: cynwoody

Empty chair works well too.


22 posted on 12/07/2013 1:10:33 PM PST by Slings and Arrows (You can't have Ingsoc without an Emmanuel Goldstein.)
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To: Silentgypsy

Szoitenly!


23 posted on 12/07/2013 1:11:20 PM PST by Slings and Arrows (You can't have Ingsoc without an Emmanuel Goldstein.)
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To: Slings and Arrows

24 posted on 12/07/2013 1:13:22 PM PST by JoeProBono (SOME IMAGES MAY BE DISTURBING VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED;-{)
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To: GeronL

That’s Google’s first autocomplete suggestion.


25 posted on 12/07/2013 1:27:54 PM PST by a fool in paradise (America 2013 - STUCK ON STUPID)
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To: JoeProBono
That's from Wednesday, January 30, 2008 (when the feature was still in beta)!

Current results:


26 posted on 12/07/2013 1:29:01 PM PST by cynwoody
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To: Zeneta
Propaganda...
27 posted on 12/07/2013 1:48:53 PM PST by Chode (Stand UP and Be Counted, or line up and be numbered - *DTOM* -vvv- NO Pity for the LAZY - 86-44)
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To: GeronL
“Nancy Pelosi is hot”

wait.. what??

Maybe 50 years ago.

28 posted on 12/07/2013 1:52:11 PM PST by Disambiguator
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To: Zeneta

Creepy?


29 posted on 12/07/2013 2:18:48 PM PST by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both.)
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To: GeronL

She keeps ducking in and out of her home district — in Hades.


30 posted on 12/07/2013 2:20:23 PM PST by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both.)
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To: BenLurkin

bump

Th Lord of the Underworld is her voter


31 posted on 12/07/2013 2:21:35 PM PST by GeronL (Extra Large Cheesy Over-Stuffed Hobbit)
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To: BenLurkin

Yep.

You need to watch the TED talk.

Post # 13

Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles”

http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html


32 posted on 12/07/2013 2:28:15 PM PST by Zeneta
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To: Zeneta

The information about the bubble is interesting but I disagree with him as to his conclusion. “Journalistic ethics” did not “get us through the last century”. In fact, “journalistic Ethics” of the last 50 years acted against America’s interests in a radical and destructive way.

“Algorithmic gatekeepers” programmed to apply neo-”journalistic ethics” are much scarier than ones designed to cater to our personal interests — and more scary even than ones designed to steer us towards specific advertisers or services.

Who decides what is “important”, “challenging” or even “different”? I trust Zuckerberg’s judgment on those things even LESS than I trust his judgment as to what my usage indicates would be of interest to me.


33 posted on 12/07/2013 2:52:23 PM PST by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both.)
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To: BenLurkin

Yes.

But as he said, he is a Liberal.

This issue is certainly not about you or me.

It is about the folks that won’t watch an hour long presentation or read something more than a quarter page.

They are, the Google’s and Yahoo’s of the world are pushing people into a box out of convenience.

I’m not sure about your experience over the years using MS Windows, for example.

The operating system and user interface has progressively attempted to “HELP ME”.

It/they “assume” what I want to do, and try to make that easier for me.

Automatically.

I hate it.

It drives me mad.


34 posted on 12/07/2013 3:13:12 PM PST by Zeneta
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To: Slings and Arrows
On my machine...

Hillary Clinton is a...

Barrack Obama is a...

Harry Reid is a...

Mitch McConnell is a...


35 posted on 12/07/2013 3:54:14 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Lot of reptiles in this administration, I’m noticing.


36 posted on 12/07/2013 5:59:28 PM PST by Slings and Arrows (You can't have Ingsoc without an Emmanuel Goldstein.)
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To: a fool in paradise

“Nancy Pelosi is hot”

In which alternate universe?


37 posted on 12/09/2013 7:04:07 AM PST by ZirconEncrustedTweezers (I'm not anti-government, government's anti-me.)
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To: Slings and Arrows

Yes, mostly of the variety that has no limbs and slithers on its belly.


38 posted on 12/09/2013 7:05:45 AM PST by ZirconEncrustedTweezers (I'm not anti-government, government's anti-me.)
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To: Slings and Arrows

39 posted on 12/09/2013 7:07:48 AM PST by Pan_Yan (Who told you that you were naked? Genesis 3:11)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Mitch McConnell is a turtle... that’s funny right there.


40 posted on 12/09/2013 7:08:53 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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