Search Algorithms and Popular News
In this article, YouTube is under fire for prioritizing a video with false information on a recent shooting in its search algorithm. The tragic shooting on the first of this month in Las Vegas had many on the internet looking for information on the situation and the shooter. Unfortunately, when someone typed “Las Vegas shooting” into YouTube, the fifth result claimed that there were multiple shooters involved in the attack, when authorities confirmed that there was only one. The video went viral, acquiring over 1.1 million views in a little over a day. YouTube quickly altered their search algorithms and began giving more reliable search results shortly after the mistake. However, they did not release what changes they made. I believe this incident opens a much needed discussion on transparency and search methods in the tech industry.
In class, we have been learning about link based search results, as well as scoring methods with authorities “voting” for pages to prove that they are more reliable. However, perhaps more must be done to make search results more reliable, especially when offering insight on high pressure situations like the Las Vegas attack. We are living in an age where the authorities can very quickly confirm facts and release them to the public using the internet. Perhaps instead of other sites and corporations “voting” for a site’s relevance, searches for sensitive news information should be cross referenced with reliable news sources. This way when a post has unreliable information it will not be given priority in search results just because it is related to a popular topic. It would also be useful for YouTube to be completely transparent about why they value one post over another, specifically when it comes to news.