Google Details Fight On Bad Ads, 'Fake News'

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nutjob2

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I'm trying to figure out who's dumber, Google PR or the "tech" press that laps it up and regurgitates it.

It could take longer than a second for each ad to be removed and it still wouldn't take 50 years to remove 1.7 billion. Maybe Nate can explain to us why that might be the case. The fact that he let that one pass truly is "ironic."
 


But 1.7 billion seconds is 53 years. 1 ad per second would take 53 years. (Feel free to check my math, thats according to googles conversion tool)
 

Jason Hanna

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TomsHardware needs to take a page from Googles book. I disabled Adaware out of respect for you guys and see click bait ads rampant all over this site.
 

nutjob2

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Your math is fine, but your thinking is seriously deficient.
 

mavikt

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I wonder if they're going to put the hammer down on next gen fake news, "alternative facts"?
I wish they would; a big, fat, one...
 


How?
 

nutjob2

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You're overlooking that they'd be processed in parallel, so the running time would be (very) roughly 53 years / number of concurrent processors allocated. But of course I'm sure you'll tell me I should assume a single core processor dug up from the distant past and special versions of the machine learning software that would be used for such a task to stop it from doing any sort of threading and that each one of those little ads was processed sequentially, becuase... idiotic Google PR drivel.
 


The 50 year analogy was one ad per second, nothing more, and not an automated process running in parallel. It was just meant to give a perspective on how many ads that is if, say, a real person had to sit there and do it by themselves.
 

bit_user

Polypheme
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Yeah, that's how I took it. They were merely trying to convey a sense of scale.

However, what I'm still not clear on, is whether these were 1.7 billion unique ads, meaning each one is different. That number sounds quite high, but then I'm sure some ads are automatically generated in numerous variations.

On the other hand, if they were 1.7 billion postings of perhaps thousands or millions of unique ads, then it's rather disappointing and clearly meant to misrepresent the scope of Googles prior efforts.

BTW, this was the biggest whopper in that article:
Often the company's goal is merely to show as many ads to as many people as possible
Their ad network is also spy ware. They're tracking everyone who views their ads and building up information about them - what sites they visit, when, and from where. Okay, the end goal is still advertising (for now, at least), but it's a significant goal of their ad network.
 


This is what I want to know. If those are not a "unique" 1.7 billion, its not all that impressive (or rather beneficial)
 

bit_user

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Whoever came up with the phrase "fake news"
I don't understand why so many media types are offended by this phrase. It's actually a pretty apt description. We can argue whether X is an example of fake news, but everyone immediately understand what is meant by the phrase: false or misleading content, masquerading as legitimate news (i.e. backed by principled journalistic practices). Yes, it's a bit of an oxymoron, but that doesn't make it a bad name.

Anyway, I'm sure competing ad networks are doing quite well, out of this. That's the obvious risk.
 

alextheblue

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That's as bad of a source as you could pick. Fox is bad but CNN is equally bad. Anyway using that site is like asking CNN to rank themselves. Seriously... Polititrash is still defending ARRA to this day. I could have stimulated the economy more by dumping money out of a fleet of dirigibles nationwide. More impressively, they're saying that Merrick Garland isn't anti-gun, and that O'Reilly's statement that he voted as such is false because "Garland never heard this case". Well he wasn't on the panel that made the decision. But he DID vote to review that decision, trying to get the case in front of the full panel to be reviewed again. The only reason you would do this is if you dissented, and there WAS a vote for the review... for which he voted yes (it was his request in the first place). So yeah, it's on his voting record, and it's pretty clear-cut.
http://www.businessinsider.com/merrick-garland-heller-guns-2016-3

Oh and they said Cheney's statement on nuclear weapons is false because he "hasn't scaled back THAT much". Yes, yes we have scaled back that much. From START 1's end (2009) to today (operating under New START), we have scaled waaaay back. More so than the Russians, who have not scaled back nearly as much, and that's just what we know about. Wrong again, you hacks.
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/NewSTART

In the Megyn Kelly statement about the Amtrak crash, they say her statement is half true because congress "mandated PTC a long time ago". But what they failed to mention is that the law didn't require PTC to be IMPLEMENTED until well after the Amtrak crash. In fact, it was extended further... 2018. Rather disingenuous that they would call HER statement "half true" when they talk about mandates but ignore the actual dates in the law itself.
https://www.fra.dot.gov/ptc

I could go on forever, but I haven't the time.
 
As there is a fake news add right on this page from Recontent, called "From the Web"...

My old lady get's sucked into fake news stories every day that come through her Facebook feed. To me it's obvious what is fiction, but she, like many Americans is easily duped by entertainment websites that dress up as actual news.

What is more shameful is websites that are so greedy for ad revenue that they allow this crap content. I'm looking at you Purch.
 

Tanyac

Reputable
Define misleading... "Anything we don't like, or want people reading"?
Lets say there is some negative press about the NSA using back doors or Google sending emails to them. And an independent news site reports it.
The site is taken down, the publishers permanently banned.

Non-mainstream news and that not published by big-media, which we know has a long way to go to be trustworthy and factual, is not necessarily "misleading".

Are big-media going to be banned for their questionable news articles?

Sorry, as much as there may be some legitimate stuff that does need to be dealt with, this smells a lot like censorship.
 

bit_user

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Where did you find such a definition? Any good dictionary definition will do:
http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=misleading

They also define what they mean by "misleading ads", in the blog post linked by the article.

By whom, Google? They don't take down sites - just ads. And it would need to run afoul of their policy, which I don't see how it would.

Whatever you're talking about doesn't sound much like the story being covered, here. Here's the blog post:

https://blog.google/topics/ads/how-we-fought-bad-ads-sites-and-scammers-2016/
 

logainofhades

Titan
Moderator
Not that CNN had much credibility with me to begin with, but after this, I lost all respect.

https://www.cnet.com/news/cnn-uses-fallout-4-screenshot-in-report-on-russian-hacking/

There are others, that I will not mention, as that would make things political which is a big no no here. So as a kind warning, be wary of what you say. ;)
 
Google also said it removed 23,000 self-clicking ads on mobile platforms;

I seriously doubt that they put a dent in these underhanded adverts.




There's always the official definition... and the "new" definition. Partly because language is always evolving, and terms get invented, even if they don't properly fit. This does include misusing the term "fake news" to include news that is actually factual but undesirable by those in authority. (be it political or media.)



In November and December it reviewed 550 sites, took action against 340 of them, and permanently banned 200 publishers from its platform.

Banning them from major search engines is effectively shutting them down... at least on the "visible" web. (the dark web still thrives, but that is another story... as the average person doesn't know how to access it, let know anything about it.




IF the scope is as they say, AND it doesn't slip into censorship (although within certain countries, they have no qualms of instantiating it).... fine. We don't need misleading adverts. We don't need wolves in sheep's clothing adverts and websites. But it can be a slippery slope on what is fake, and when the wolf defines what is real and fake, we all suffer. We don't need Google to be, or be the agent of, the wolf. (Politics, political correctness, those in positions of authority/control, or their agents, can easily turn into a wolf.)
 
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