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Fake news

· 11 min read

Google bias​

link: https://onezero.medium.com/the-enduring-anti-black-racism-of-google-search-d024924bff77

Bad article​

A search engines job should be to get users the information they want. It feels like the baseline for zero bias is what the internet offers. So when the whole internet is nine images of an apple and one image of a banana, it would be good to expect an apple more often when searching for "fruit".

So when there are the tags for "black girls" are overwhelmingly found on porn sites it should be to no surprise that google shows those when searching for "black girls".

It feels like, if google would not intervene in the "societal" distribution of the search results, we would have more racist search results, as one can see at the exact example in the article. So to blame google instead of the culture of the people is wrong. So google actually does bias the results, however one could argue that that's a good thing. The author shouldn't blame google for the few times reality was shining through, but thank google for adjusting some bad baselines in society.

It might be helpful to get some diversification in the workplace to help these things, however those need not necessarily be engineers, as the manual adjustments shouldn't have anything to do with engineering, rather with social studies or ethics.

The whole thing is hard to evaluate since we don't exactly know how google selects the search results, however the alternatives are hard to imagine. Is the implication of the article that google engineers went ahead and weighted porn websites higher when searching for "black girls" instead of "white girls"? What would be the motive behind that?

Some weird quotes​

Pornography is a specific type of representation that denotes male power, female powerlessness, and sexual violence.

This feels wrong.

Porn on the internet is an expansion of neoliberal capitalist interests. The web itself has opened up new centers of profit and pushed the boundaries of consumption. Never before have there been so many points for the transmission and consumption of these representations of Black women’s bodies, largely trafficked outside the control and benefit of Black women and girls themselves.

  • Why is an expansion of capitalist interests bad?
  • Isn't that good for a lot of people?
  • What does neoliberalism have to do with it?
  • The assumption that the consumption is "largely" outside the benefit of black woman needs to be justified.
    • black woman that do porn do benefit? If they are exploited there is another question. (more fame, money, like music labels)
    • why only for black woman? And what about men in porn? (earn way less than woman)

Gunn and Lynch Googling (2019)​

Chapter 4, page 41-51

Risks of googling​

  • anonymity, no accountability of face-to-face information. Not a google issue, internet issue.
  • no way to make sure that information is good, same issue in real life, but internet gives broader view quickly. One needs to check multiple sources, integrate in world view and check for inconsistencies.
  • reductionism
    • reductionism: trust is earned not assumed
    • anti-reductionism: just trust others, assuming they have similar thinking faculties
  • google searches lead to most wanted results, assumed to be right, because many others found it to be right
  • trust if author is trusted, problematic, but not unique to internet
    • collective of authors (wikis)
    • some are automated (currency exchange)

selecting sources​

  • more reliable information is shared more, higher in ranking, good
  • sometimes information of influencers does have popularity-because-popular, bad
  • there are often experts on both sides, use institutional markers
  • use of likes, upvotes, titles (must not necessarily be a good marker)
  • advertising can be misleading
  • Wikipedia can be good as everything needs source from expert, but can be outdated due to lag of checkups
  • not all people are able to select "good" sources, most just accept everything google gives them first.

Google in Brain​

  • extend brain with chip, access fast amounts of information at speed of thought
  • accelerates effects/issues above

Epistemic Agency​

Tugend​

Verantwortung Anonymity

On trusting Wikipedia​

  • generally trusted
  • not always correct

Wikipedia and the epistemology of testimony (by deborah perron tollefsen)​

Introduction​

  • studies mainly focus on individual testimony
  • group testimony can't always be understood as just a summation of individual testimony
  • the group itself testifies
  • example Wikipedia

Questions​

  • Is Wikipedia a source of testimony?
  • What is the nature of that source?
    • the individuals that make entries
    • a subset of individuals
    • the entity Wikipedia itself
  • How can we asses the trustworthiness of Wikipedia as such an unusual epistemic source?

Are the statements on Wikipedia testimony?​

define testimony​

  • conservative (Coady 1992)
    • speakers intention to present evidence on a specific matter in the interest of the audience
  • liberal (E. Fricker 1995, Sosa 1991)
    • "tellings in general" with no restriction on the domain
  • Jennifer Lackey (2006)
    • "S testifies that p by making an act of communication a if and only if (in part) in virtue of a’s communicable content, (1) S reasonably intends to convey the information that p, or (2) a is reasonably taken as conveying the information that p."
    • so it is a testimony if the speaker intends to convey information or if the audience takes it as such

Wikipedia as testimony​

All would obviously include Wikipedia as testimony.

Assumption: People are trolling, writing false information for fun.

Some definitions of testimony might be broken. Lackey's definition would still include Wikipedia as testimony, as people who read Wikipedia still assume it to be testimony.

Wray: not all entries are testimony, some are jokes, so nothing is testimony.

Doesn't mean nothing is testimony.

Testimony is not only what one believes, otherwise there would be no false testimony.

Moran(2006), Assurance view: Testimony comes with assurance that statement is true. Testifiers have responsibility to be truthful. They are aware that they might be questioned and need to explain themselves if the statement is false.

The same is true on Wikipedia. People can change information, but they know that they can then be called to question by other people that can discuss these changes and change them again.

Even if a troll is sometimes hard to track down and question, the information still is taken to come with assurances.

So none of the definitions of testimony would exclude Wikipedia as testimony.

Group testimony​

New Question: Is the source the person that writes the entry or the entity Wikipedia?

When group decides something, it doesn't necessarily follow that all or most of the group, would testify the similarly.

Example:

NAS needed to make statement on long term genetic hazards of radiation exposure. It was a difficult decision, but needed to be made to protect the public from other, more harmful misinformation. Some scientists even refused to sign it, because they thought it was indeterminable. In the end they all signed.

For a group G, speaker S, and utterance x, G utters x if and only if:

  1. There exists a group (G), this group has an illocutionary intention, and x conveys that illocutionary intention.
  2. S believes that he or she knows the illocutionary intention of G and that x conveys this illocutionary intention.
  3. G does not object to S uttering x on its behalf and if G intends for any specific individual(s) to utter x, it intends for S to utter x. S believes that he or she knows this.
  4. 2 and 3 are the reasons S utters x.

Need to add 5th condition.

  1. S utters G in the proper social and normative context.

This is important, as the NAS group would probably not have signed the statements, if it wasn't necessary to keep public trust and safety.

So group testimony (group speech act with conveyed information):

Group G testifies that p by making an act of communication a if and only if:

  1. (in part) in virtue of a’s communicable content G reasonably intends to convey the information that p.
  2. The information that p is conveyed by either (i) a spokesperson S or (ii) a written document.
  3. If (i), G does not object to S’s uttering p on its behalf and if G intends for any specific individual(s) to utter p, it intends for S to utter p and S believes that he or she knows this.
  4. If (i), S utters p for the reasons in 3.
  5. If (ii), G does not object to the way in which p is conveyed in writing.
  6. G conveys the information that p in the right social and normative context.
  7. In conveying the information that p in the right social and normative context, G is taken to have given its assurance that p is true.

Wikipedia entries as group testimony​

Traits shared by groups (research teams, governments or corporations)

  • share certain goals
    • clear goals on Wikipedia: natural, balanced, verifiable knowledge to all for free
    • contributors have largely those goals, would be hard to explain otherwise
  • are aware that they share these goals
    • "Wikipedia community", "Wikipedians" are names used, Wikipedia conferences exist
    • there are pages on Wikipedia that explain itself, so its self reflective
  • group decision making process with specific rules
  • group members have special rights and obligations

Articles are testimony of Wikipedia once they have been discussed at length and have been approved by the community, they become featured or good articles.

Until then, they are either individual or group testimony.

The trustworthiness of Wikipedia needs to be monitored in those early stages, while "steadying ones mind", almost like a child.

Trustworthiness of Wikipedia​

Anti-reductionism: Trust others, assuming they have similar thinking faculties. (normal conversation) Reductionism: Trust, if there are positive reasons, that the other person is sincere/reliable.

Anti-reductionism​

Normal conversation with one person is on topics with not expertise, so anti-reductionism is fine. Generally groups have some kind of specific expertise (governmental, scientific, legal). With Wikipedia its different, because it speaks on a wide range of interests (more like a person on the street).

However the standard trust assumption of anti-reductionism may fail with Wikipedia, if it's treated as a child/unstable.

Reductionism​

Scrutinize the speaker/Wikipedia​
  • Sum of individuals:
    • check if some or all of the contributors are reliable
    • often short track record of contributors, hard to evaluate
    • mature articles could be closer to the truth than the individual entries of the contributors through the process of discussion and approval
    • might tell us nothing about the trustworthiness of Wikipedia
  • Systematic cues:
    • Programs can figure out anomalies (quick changes without discussion after long stable period, information that doesn't fit into the style of the article)
    • quick correction of spelling/grammatical errors might hide red flags for the content of the entry from the reader; one can still check the history (most probably wont)
    • trust the system not the individuals
Scrutinize the content​

Verify with own background knowledge. Integrate in world view and check for inconsistencies. A UFO landed on the school roof (unlikely because of prior believe) Trust the process and the reports, not the individuals. There are incentives for groups to tell the truth(scientific groups, some corporations)

If group testimony is wildly at odds with your own knowledge, one has no reason to trust it.

Wikipedia:

  • incentives are in the structure of the system
  • entries will be checked against background knowledge
  • by challenging Wikipedia, its reliability increases through new policies and procedures

Conclusion​

  • Wikipedia involves a mix of individual, group and Wikipedia testimony
  • Can't trust Wikipedia by default, yet (still a child)
  • Will get better once it matures, and doesn't need to be constantly monitored

Discussion Questions​

Fake News and Partisan Epistemology​

Context Collapse​

Hopeful Trust​

Pendulum swung too far:

  • Tweets with misinformation are taken as truth because of labels of person (trans, black); Trust gets abused by speaker. It is assumed people trust the person just because of the label. Examples disproportionally damage trust in truthful speakers.

  • vulnerability invites trust, but only sometimes. On social media, one needs to take the average to see effect

    • trump voters meet trans people in real life