{"id":235,"date":"2017-11-22T12:31:23","date_gmt":"2017-11-22T12:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fpsn.org\/?p=235"},"modified":"2018-01-03T14:58:34","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T14:58:34","slug":"google-will-de-rank-rt-articles-to-make-them-harder-to-find","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fpsn.org\/index.php\/2017\/11\/22\/google-will-de-rank-rt-articles-to-make-them-harder-to-find\/","title":{"rendered":"Google will \u2018de-rank\u2019 RT articles to make them harder to find"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Published on RT.COM: 20 Nov, 2017 19:58<\/p>\n<p>Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Google\u2019s parent company Alphabet, says the company will \u201cengineer\u201d specific algorithms for RT and Sputnik to make their articles less prominent on the search engine\u2019s news delivery services.<br \/>\n\u201cWe are working on detecting and de-ranking those kinds of sites \u2013 it\u2019s basically RT and Sputnik,\u201d Schmidt said during a Q &amp; A session at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada on Saturday, when asked about whether Google facilitates \u201cRussian propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; padding-top: 25px; height: 0;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/410444-google-alphabet-derank-rt\/video\/\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<pre>Schmidt appearance begins at 1:07:00 mark, relevant question at 1:33:00<\/pre>\n<p>\u201cWe are well of aware of it, and we are trying to engineer the systems to prevent that [the content being delivered to wide audiences]. But we don\u2019t want to ban the sites \u2013 that\u2019s not how we operate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The discussion focused on the company\u2019s popular Google News service, which clusters the news by stories, then ranks the various media outlets depending on their reach, article length and veracity, and Google Alerts, which proactively informs subscribers of new publications.<\/p>\n<p>RT has criticized the proposed move \u2013 whose timescale has not been publicized \u2013 as arbitrary and a form of censorship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGood to have Google on record as defying all logic and reason: facts aren\u2019t allowed if they come from RT, \u2018because Russia\u2019 \u2013 even if we have Google on Congressional record saying they&#8217;ve found no manipulation of their platform or policy violations by RT,\u201d Sputnik and RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>During the discussion, Schmidt claimed that he was \u201cvery strongly not in favor of censorship,\u201d but said that he has faith in \u201cranking\u201d without acknowledging if the system might serve the same function. Schmidt, who joined Google in 2001, said that the company\u2019s algorithm was capable of detecting \u201crepetitive, exploitative, false, and weaponized\u201d info,\u00a0 but did not elaborate on\u00a0 how these qualities were determined.<\/p>\n<p>The Alphabet chief, who has been referred to by Hillary Clinton as a \u201clongtime friend,\u201d added that the experience of \u201cthe last year\u201d showed that audiences could not be trusted to distinguish fake and real news for themselves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe started with the default American view that \u2018bad\u2019 speech would be replaced with \u2018good\u2019 speech, but the problem found in the last year is that this may not be true in certain situations, especially when you have a well-funded opponent who is trying to actively spread this information,\u201d he told the audience.<\/p>\n<p>Schmidt advised Barack Obama\u2019s 2012 campaign on digital operations, and offered the same services to Hillary Clinton\u2019s campaign in 2015, according to several emails from campaign chairman John Podesta\u2019s private account, published by WikiLeaks last October.<\/p>\n<p>On election night 2016, Schmidt was spotted at the Clinton campaign headquarters with a \u201cstaff\u201d badge, according to a photo submitted to Politico.<\/p>\n<p>RT America registered under FARA earlier this month, after being threatened by the US Department of Justice with arrests and confiscations of property if it failed to comply. The broadcaster is fighting the order in court.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Branding media entities as \u2018foreign agents\u2019 is dangerous practice, as it can narrow space for freedom of media&#8217; &#8211; #OSCE representative https:\/\/t.co\/LEDr1tmCjq<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 RT (@RT_com) November 17, 2017<br \/>\nGoogle\u2019s initiative will have a direct impact on \u201cfreedom of speech and thought\u201d in the US, believes Prof. Dan Kovalik, from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.<\/p>\n<p>Read more<br \/>\n&#8216;Keep fighting the good fight&#8217;: Marine veteran\u2019s letter of support for RT America<br \/>\n\u201cIt is a form of censorship, and the idea is to lead readers away from RT content. And it will have an impact on the discourse in this country,\u201d\u00a0 Kovalik told RT.\u00a0 \u201cWhen [you start] censoring anyone, they are going to censor everyone, and I think everyone in the US should be appalled by this and very concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Google is dancing to the tune of the US government as part of the broader campaign to demonize Russia, political commentator and TV host Steve Malzberg told RT.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is all about the fact that Russia is right now the enemy. Russia has been made the enemy by the left, the Democrats and, by definition, the media. The media has been nonstop for a year now about \u2018evil Russia.\u2019 Anything associated with the \u2018evil Russia\u2019 will incur the wrath of the government,\u201d Malzberg said. \u201cIt is because they have been called in before Congress and because of this witch hunt that is going on&#8230; They don\u2019t want to risk the wrath of Congress, and that is the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h5>Related links:<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/409792-rt-fara-foreign-agent-censorship\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">US used \u2018backdoor censorship,\u2019 attacked RT \u2018like a weasel\u2019 \u2013 journalism prof<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"read-more__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/409854-fara-russia-foreign-agent\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span class=\"read-more__footer\">&#8216;Slap at the First Amendment\u2019 &#8211; RT America forced to register as foreign agent <\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"read-more__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/410535-censorship-google-rt-media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span class=\"read-more__footer\">\u2018Modern censorship: Google decides RT is propaganda, yet millions disagree\u2019<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"article__heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/410463-google-rt-sputnik-information-war\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u2018Google\u2019s plan to isolate Russian media is an act of information warfare\u2019 <\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"article__heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/410551-eric-schmidt-google-clinton\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Google\u2019s Eric Schmidt, arbiter of news, has long history with Obama &amp; Clinton<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Published on RT.COM: 20 Nov, 2017 19:58 Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Google\u2019s parent company Alphabet, says the company will \u201cengineer\u201d specific algorithms for RT and Sputnik to make their articles less prominent on the search engine\u2019s news delivery services. \u201cWe are working on detecting and de-ranking those kinds of sites \u2013 it\u2019s basically [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fpsn.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fpsn.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fpsn.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fpsn.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fpsn.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fpsn.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":298,"href":"https:\/\/www.fpsn.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions\/298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fpsn.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fpsn.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fpsn.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}