[Infowarrior] - Google cranks up the Consensus Engine

[Richard Forno]

Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/12/googlewashing_revisited/

Google cranks up the Consensus Engine

Manufacturing isn't dead - it just went to Mountain View

By Andrew Orlowski (andrew.orlowski at theregister.co.uk)

Posted in Music and Media, 12th December 2008 19:38 GMT

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.

A few years ago, Google's apparently unimpeachable objectivity got  
some people very excited (http://www.internetisshit.org/2.php), and  
technology utopians began to herald Google as the conduit for a new  
form of democracy. Google was only too pleased to encourage this view.  
It explained that its algorithm "relies on the uniquely democratic  
nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of  
an individual page's value. "

That Google was impartial was one of the articles of faith. For if  
Google was ever to be found to be applying subjective human judgment  
directly on the process, it would be akin to the voting machines being  
rigged.

For these soothsayers of the Hive Mind, the years ahead looked  
prosperous. As blog-aware marketing and media consultants, they saw a  
lucrative future in explaining the New Emergent World Order to the  
uninitiated. (That part has come true - Web 2.0 "gurus" now advise  
large media companies).

It wasn't surprising, then, that when five years ago I described how a  
small, self-selected number of people could rig Google's search  
results (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/04/03/antiwar_slogan_coined_repurposed/ 
), the reaction from the people doing the rigging was violently  
antagonistic. Who lifted that rock? they cried.

But what was once Googlewashing by a select few now has Google's  
active participation.

This week Marissa Meyer explained that editorial judgments will play a  
key role in Google searches. It was reported by Tech Crunch proprietor  
Michael Arrington - who Nick Carr called the "Madam of the Web 2.0  
Brothel" - but its significance wasn't noted. The irony flew safely  
over his head at 30,000 feet. Arrington observed:

     Mayer also talked about Google’s use of user data created by  
actions on Wiki search to improve search results on Google in general.  
For now that data is not being used to change overall search results,  
she said. But in the future it’s likely Google will use the data to at  
least make obvious changes. An example is if “thousands of people”  
were to knock a search result off a search page, they’d be likely to  
make a change.

Now what, you may be thinking, is an "obvious change"? Is it one that  
is frivolous? (Thereby introducing a Google Frivolitimeter™ [Beta]).  
Or is it one that goes against the grain of the consensus? If so, then  
who decides what the consensus must be? Make no mistake, Google is  
moving into new territory: not only making arbitrary, editorial  
choices - really no different to Fox News, say, or any other media  
organization. It's now in the business of validating and manufacturing  
consent: not only reporting what people say, but how you should think.

Who's hand is upon the wheel, here?

None of this would matter, if it wasn't for one other trend: a  
paralysing loss of confidence in media companies.
Old media is hooked on the drug that kills it

Today, the media organisations look to Google to explain what is  
really happening in the world. Convinced that they can't lead, the  
only option left is to follow. So they reflect ourselves - or more  
accurately, they reflect the unstinting efforts of small self- 
selecting pockets of activists - back at us. In the absence of  
editorial confidence, Google - the Monster that threatens to Eat The  
Media - now defines the purpose of the media. All media companies need  
do is "tap into the zeitgeist" - Google Zeitgeist™!

Take this example from a quality British broadsheet.

One journalist on the paper lamented that:

     ...it's becoming all too clear at The Telegraph, whose online  
business plan seems to be centred on chasing hits through Google by  
rehashing and rewriting stories that people are already interested in.

The digital director of the Telegraph recently suggested the newspaper  
could work even closer with Google... by subsuming its identity into  
the Ad Giant. Why couldn't The Telegraph run off a  
telegraph.google.com domain and allow Google to take care of all the  
technology? he mused (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2008/sep/18/uk 
).

Not all companies have the same suicidal lack of foresight as The  
Telegraph's resident guru - but many share the same apocalyptic  
conclusion.

Today, Google's cute little explanation of being "uniquely democratic"  
is no longer present on that page. A subtly different explanation has  
taken its place - one which acknowledges that in the new democracy of  
Web 2.0, some votes are more equal than others.

     PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a  
vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value,  
thus giving the linked page greater value. We have always taken a  
pragmatic approach to help improve search quality and create useful  
products, and our technology uses the collective intelligence of the  
web to determine a page's importance.

Google's New Age motto

Picture culled from Google's 2006 analyst presentation

So you see, it's not rigged! How could Google "rig" a system that only  
reflects our finest and most noble sentiments back at us - mediated by  
a technocratic priesthood of unquestionable moral authority?

Google has taken Googlewashing in house. ®