[joshuamorton]

(I work at Google, but don't work on search)

> If wikipedia contains cherry picked slander against a person, topic or website then the raters are instructed to provide a low page rank score

This sounds like a good thing to me. Sites that contain lies, fabrications, and falsehoods should not be as highly ranked as those which do not.

Why should shareholders sure Google for, as far as I can tell from your argument, trying to provide users with a more useful product?

[viklove]

Why do your colleagues get to decide what is fact and what is fiction? It's our right, as humans, to be able to make that decision on our own after we encounter information. If Wikipedia gains a reputation for libel, then the onus should be on the public to stop trusting them.

Google does not have the moral authority to censor the internet, and it's absolutely wrong for them to attempt this. Information should be free, and you don't have the right to get in the way of that.

[samatman]

They don't get to decide any such thing, and in fact, can't. Google (fortunately for all of us) doesn't run the Internet.

They do run a popular search page, and have to decide what to do with a search like "Is the Earth flat?".

Personally, I would prefer they prominently display a "no". Others would disagree, but a search engine is curation by definition, that's what makes it useful.

[pen2l]

> Personally, I would prefer they prominently display a "no".

Oh hey! I just tried this, and it does! image: https://i.imgur.com/OqqxSq3.png

[Aeolun]

You would, and fortunately Google agrees with you, but imagine for a moment that they didn’t. 90% if the internet would suddenly see a ’yes’ to that answer, even if 99% of websites disagree.

[Nasrudith]

They get to decide because it is their algorithm and the whole point is of a search function is to discriminate inputs to be relevant. They aren't "getting in the way" - they are using it as they please.

What you ask for isn't freedom but control over everyone else - there is nothing stopping you from running your own spiders, search engines, and rankings.

[joshuamorton]

Who said anything about censorship? The topic of discussion is what order results are in. Are you saying Google would be more useful if it returned the 100 million results randomly and left you to sort them out?

[yibg]

They get to decide what they display as results. What do you suggest they do instead? Display all of the internet and let the user filter things for themselves?

[krageon]

> decide what is fact

The fun thing about facts is that nobody needs to decide whether or not they are true. Perhaps the fact that you can honestly claim to think otherwise means you need to take a step back and examine your reasoning.

[viklove]

> Perhaps the fact that you can honestly claim to think otherwise

This is an example of a "fact" that I'm talking about. It's not a fact, it's an opinion being presented as fact. I guess if you present yourself this way online you have no problem with Google controlling what "facts" are found when you use their search engine.

I guess I'll just have to wait until they start peddling a perspective you disagree with.

> If wikipedia contains cherry picked slander against a person, topic or website

Just remember that this is the comment we're discussing... how does one determine if a statement is slander? Are you telling me Google has teams of investigative journalists following up on each of their search results? Or did someone at Google form an opinion, then decide their opinion is the one that should be presented as "fact" on the most popular search engine in the world?