Thursday, 1 August 2019

GOOGLE POLITICAL POWER Chomskian video analysis

Clunky title but an intriguing, provocative video which unpicks the story of a US Democrat running for the presidential nomination having her account suspended just in time to probably doom her campaign.

The video makers take a clear editorial line on this, which you may well take issue with (it could have been random algorithm bad luck...), but they provide useful context and research - she had pledged to tackle big tech; research showing how the ordering of the top 4 search results can powerfully impact opinion.

There are parallels here to the long running failure to effectively regulate UK press content/conduct (never mind ownership) given the power of the press (these days more through setting TV/radio news agendas) to utterly torpedo a party or politician's electoral prospects.

Google is on a power level way beyond the press (ditto Facebook, with the press suffering a triple whammy of extreme ad revenue loss, circulation hemorrhage, and reliance on secret algorithms to push traffic their way - whilst complaining about how the tech giants exploit their expensive product while grossly underpaying...).

https://youtu.be/b8A2kzeEqGA

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