Safari's 'Siri Suggested' Search Results Highlighted Conspiracy Theories, Fake News (buzzfeednews.com) 120
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: Apple's Safari, one of the internet's most popular web browsers, has been surfacing debunked conspiracies, shock videos, and false information via its "Siri Suggested Websites" feature. Such results raise questions about the company's ability to monitor for low-quality information, and provide another example of the problems platforms run into when relying on algorithms to police the internet. As of yesterday, if you typed "Pizzagate" into Apple's Safari, the browser's "Siri Suggested Website" prominently offered users a link to a YouTube video with the title "PIZZAGATE, BIGGEST SCANDAL EVER!!!" by conspiracy theorist David Seaman (the video doesn't play, since Seaman's channel was taken down for violating YouTube's terms of service). The search results appeared on multiple versions of Safari. Apple removed all examples of the questionable Siri Suggested sites provided to it by BuzzFeed News.
[W]hen BuzzFeed News entered incomplete search terms that might suggest contentious or conspiratorial topics (as shown below), the search algorithms directed us toward low-quality websites, message boards, or YouTube conspiracy videos rather than reliable information or debunks about those topics. Meanwhile, Google does not feature such unreliable pages in its top search results. Those suggested results matter since Safari is one of the internet's most popular web browsers -- some estimates suggest it has captured over 10% of the browser market share. The poor suggestions may be a result of a "data void," which is "what happens when a term doesn't have 'natural informative results' and manipulators seize upon it," reports BuzzFeed. "Many of the sites surfaced by the Siri Suggested feature came from conspiracy or junk sites hastily assembled to fill that void."
In a statement, Apple said: "Siri Suggested Websites come from content on the web and we provide curation to help avoid inappropriate sites. We also remove any inappropriate suggestions whenever we become aware of them, as we have with these. We will continue to work to provide high-quality results and users can email results they feel are inappropriate to applebot@apple.com."
[W]hen BuzzFeed News entered incomplete search terms that might suggest contentious or conspiratorial topics (as shown below), the search algorithms directed us toward low-quality websites, message boards, or YouTube conspiracy videos rather than reliable information or debunks about those topics. Meanwhile, Google does not feature such unreliable pages in its top search results. Those suggested results matter since Safari is one of the internet's most popular web browsers -- some estimates suggest it has captured over 10% of the browser market share. The poor suggestions may be a result of a "data void," which is "what happens when a term doesn't have 'natural informative results' and manipulators seize upon it," reports BuzzFeed. "Many of the sites surfaced by the Siri Suggested feature came from conspiracy or junk sites hastily assembled to fill that void."
In a statement, Apple said: "Siri Suggested Websites come from content on the web and we provide curation to help avoid inappropriate sites. We also remove any inappropriate suggestions whenever we become aware of them, as we have with these. We will continue to work to provide high-quality results and users can email results they feel are inappropriate to applebot@apple.com."
not really.... (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:not really.... (Score:5, Informative)
3.38% wouldn't seem to cover the large volume of iPhones currently active, which also run Safari. http://gs.statcounter.com/brow... [statcounter.com] lists it as #2 with ~15% share.
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maybe cause Apple forces its users to use safari by default and won't let any other browser be set to default on iphones, wouldn't shock me if they do the same in their desktop OS as well.
Bullshit. It "forces" browsers on iOS to use WebKit as their engine. They still show up as not-Safari at the various browser-share stats.
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people who are to stupid to tell facts from fictions
Which, I'd guess, would be about 67% of the human population. The interesting point is that the heuristics being employed by most of the content suggestors are also too stupid to tell facts from fiction.
And look! Even you were unable to resist collapsing back into some convenient, if improbable, conspiracy theory. It's just possible, you know, that the algorithms basically suck at sorting the chaff out and that se
I don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
Why it's Apple's job or any other company's job to monitor links to content outside their control?
Let ***ME*** decide if the links are valuable or not.
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Is it the supermarket's job to stop me from reading a National Enquirer?
No, it's their job not to offer you, inter alia, child pr0n.
Why is it that tech companies feel the need to curate what I'm exposed to?
Not too subtle a difference I hope, but this is not about what you are exposed to, this is about what they are exposing you to. Once you actively suggest something to someone else, you accept a responsibility for what you suggested that you did not previously have.
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Why it's Apple's job or any other company's job to monitor links to content outside their control?
It isn't. This is about links they provide. The content may not be, but the suggestions are perfectly within their control. They are not being asked to change the content, only to change their suggestions.
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Because they are not just providing those links, they are offering them up as suggested answers.
Not just in Safari either, if you ask Siri something it will generally get the suggested web result and read it to you.
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Because they are not just providing those links, they are offering them up as suggested answers.
And how is showing a link to the original article NOT answering a question about what Pizzagate was? Someone asked for that information, and Apple thinks they need to sanitize the answer to be only the the "correct" one.
If I ask for the pizzagate story, give me a link to the pizzagate story, not other people's interpretations and spins on it.
Fun fact: someone who claimed to be one of the inventors of Siri was on Penn and Teller's Fool Us, doing an absolutely lame, well known card trick. P&T fell all
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The original link doesn't explain what pizzagate is. It gives you a conspiracy theory as if it was fact.
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The original link doesn't explain what pizzagate is.
The original link IS pizzagate. Isn't it the best source to determine what the pizzagate conspiracy actually is, instead of being shown only everyone else's interpretation and spin on it?
It gives you a conspiracy theory as if it was fact.
No, it does not. It does not say "this material at the end of this link is a fact". It simply provided the link to the original material. AND it provided links to everyone else explaining why it wasn't true.
So, answer the question. If I ask for the pizzagate conspiracy message, why should it NOT show me a link to that mes
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The original link doesn't explain what pizzagate is.
The original link IS pizzagate. Isn't it the best source to determine what the pizzagate conspiracy actually is, instead of being shown only everyone else's interpretation and spin on it?
Wrong. The "real" Pizzagate (or at least the name) came from 4chan, the link Siri suggested was to a YouTube video - and thus is just "somebody else's interpretation and spin on it".
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Why it's Apple's job or any other company's job to monitor links to content outside their control?
Let ***ME*** decide if the links are valuable or not.
It is there responsibility to monitor the content of the links they're suggesting to people.
Its also in their best interest as bad experiences lead to customers leaving.
What's wrong with that? (Score:5, Insightful)
If I type "Pizzagate" it's because I want to find information about that topic (both against and for the conspiracy).
Logically Safari (and Bing and Google) should show me what's available, rather than make it invisible.
I want to see ALL the possible websites, not just the ones Apple of Microsoft or Google thinks is "safe" for my consumption.
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https://imgur.com/gallery/7YVR8
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Welcome to current_year my friend. You have been reported to the thought police for wrong think.
Re:What's wrong with that? (Score:4, Insightful)
LOL! It's the new McCarthyism, and ironically it was brought by the people in Northern California and Hollywood (who had been victims of McCarthy's blacklisting).
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Or, rather, have been screeching about being persecuted for it for 60 years. Never mind that, in fact, the government *actually was infested with communist operatives*, and never mind that neo-McCarthyism with one nutty "Russians own Trump!" conspiracy after another is the official platform of the Democratic party.
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I want to see ALL the possible websites, not just the ones Apple of Microsoft or Google thinks is "safe" for my consumption.
Then you should start your own search engine, not just use the one Apple, Microsoft or Google provides for you.
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And it's still the first and only conspiracy theory to have massive media pushback and every site that talks about it is taken down one way or another.
It reveals the elite and super rich are children farming pedophiles. Why they really want those illegals here. People who can vanish and nobody notices.
Funny how there is a "super rich" (or so he claims), who calls his supporters "elite" and who takes children from there parents by the hundreds - but who is widely ignored as far as that conspiracy theory goes by the elite who believe in it.
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Why would you want to read pro pizzagate shit? Its an objectively wrong theory that has been fundamentally debunked. How is putting that shit up on the search ratings benefiting anyone?
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Why would you want to read pro pizzagate shit?
To see, for myself, what was said. Why do you trust the media's depiction of what you can so easily go look at yourself? Do you think the media is an unbiased, complete reporter of the news and provider of information?
Would you like a recent demonstration of how good our media is? Look in a recent /. submission about using WiFi routers to count the number of people in the room. The media report of this achievement describes a technically impossible method and provides no link to the actual scientific pape
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Why would you want to read pro pizzagate shit?
To see, for myself, what was said. Why do you trust the media's depiction of what you can so easily go look at yourself? Do you think the media is an unbiased, complete reporter of the news and provider of information?
Problem is, every single "the truth about an actual, real conspiracy" bit by a single person is at least as biased than anything even on FOX News or MSNBC. Because its literally one guy looking only for "facts" that support his theory, and ignoring any actual, very obvious facts that don't. Like the fact that the pizza place where the child slave trading took place in the basement never had a basement. And the only thing that got changed by QAnon was dropping anything that could be checked.
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Maybe you want that, but I expect the majority of people searching for "pizzagate" are looking for an overview and some initial info, rather than doing an in-depth study. So the top results, and certainly the suggested answers, should at least be somewhat truthful and accurate.
In the past we trusted other humans to do this. Editors to check information in books, librarians to remove old outdated and potentially dangerous information (don't forget that this conspiracy theory lead to an armed man entering tha
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and certainly the suggested answers, should at least be somewhat truthful and accurate.
Historical truth is controlled by the people who control the press. The internet was supposed to make that control HARDER, not easier.
It's really handy, you can get quick answers to questions... As long as the answers are reliable.
And Bing/Siri/Google get to decide for us what is reliable, on a microsecond by microsecond basis. I will point out that this is about six orders of magnitude faster than any Ministry of Truth could possibly do it, and less transparent and obvious.
Imagine asking for a copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion because you want to see for yourself the nonsense it contains,
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That may be mostly true, but it's not due to the racist reasons you are implying. If you look at desparately poor region with little to no chance of finding jobs for young adult males, then the crime rates in those regions will go up. The demographics of those regions have more blacks than whites in this country. So blame the crime rate on poverty rather than race. The only people who repeat that silly stat of yours are white nationalists, and if you're trusting what they tell you then you need to get m
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That may be mostly true
Indeed!
but it's not due to the racist reasons you are implying.
Zero racist reasons were implied. Therefore the racist implications are in your own head. You therefore, are the racist. There is no other truth here.
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Zero racist reasons were implied. Therefore the racist implications are in your own head. You therefore, are the racist. There is no other truth here.
Stating related facts can be misleading to the point of racism. For instance you are posting on slashdot. Many trolling posters on slashdot live in their mom's basement. Many posters on slashdot are IT folks. Many IT folks are overweight. Some IT workers are unkempt slobs as they are introverts and like working alone in dark spaces where they don't have to deal with social situations.
The implication is that you are a trolling overweight introverted anti-social slob.
Now, none of things may be true of you
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Because impoverished white people simply don't exist, do they? You're wearing out your race card. It's about culture and behavior, not race.
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If you want to learn about pizzagate then maybe start at Wikipedia? If you want to see an argument over the issues, then maybe look at the discussion tab. If someone accuses Wikipedia of liberal bias then they haven't been paying attention.
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Since actual numbers and math show conclusively that black people are 2.7 times more likely to be shot by police than white people, I'm pretty sure it's safe to completely ignore every other item on your passive-aggressive list. You are the reason fake news is a problem. For those of you who still believe that white people are more likely to be shot by police, here is the best available resource on people killed in encounters with law
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I'm pretty sure it's safe to completely ignore every other item on your passive-aggressive list.
You call that reason? You call yourself educated?
Of the 1,146 and 1,092 victims of police violence in 2015 and 2016, respectively, the authors found 52 percent were white, 26 percent were black, and 17 percent were Hispanic.
Source. [theatlantic.com]
Is that left leaning enough for you? White people are more likely to be shot. A black person is more likely to be shot, but they are also more likely to commit crime being 13% of the population and commit over half the murders, rapes, assaults, burglaries, robberies, and domestic violence cases. Its all there. [fbi.gov] Pick a year, any year.
Now go ahead and fail to refute the rest of the list, or are you going to spew insults and hatred like you usually do?
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Black people make up 12.3% of the US population. White people make up 70% of the population. Now pay attention. If black people make up 12.3% of the population and make up 26% of the people shot by police, and white people are approx. 70% of the population and make up 52% of those shot by police, that means black people are more tha
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Gosh, don't they teach basic statistics any more? I guess this is how Trump got elected. First of all, it doesn't "happen more than 50% of the time to one of the two groups". If you re-read it (and then again), you'll see that this one group (white people) make up 50% o
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I'm pretty sure it's safe to completely ignore every other item on your passive-aggressive list.
You call that reason? You call yourself educated?
Of the 1,146 and 1,092 victims of police violence in 2015 and 2016, respectively, the authors found 52 percent were white, 26 percent were black, and 17 percent were Hispanic.
Source. [theatlantic.com]
Is that left leaning enough for you? White people are more likely to be shot. A black person is more likely to be shot, but they are also more likely to commit crime being 13% of the population and commit over half the murders, rapes, assaults, burglaries, robberies, and domestic violence cases. Its all there. [fbi.gov] Pick a year, any year.
Now go ahead and fail to refute the rest of the list, or are you going to spew insults and hatred like you usually do?
Your problem isn't political bias, it's that you think you are educated, but don't even know what "likely" means.
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You chose the fourth item. You looked at the first three, assented, and moved on.
Do you or do you not believe women can have a penis? Do you or do you not believe Pho wasn't just sentenced? And all the others.
When will you stop denying reality. Trump was elected because too many people deny what is real. Drop the attitude or get four more years of the orange clown.
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Hey its the only ACTUAL example of a conspiracy theory on your list.
One correction though. The FBI found Hillary Clinton broke the law precisely zero times.
Sorry, but thems the facts.
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No. No he did not. He said her staff where careless.
And "No reasonable prosecutor" means exactly that. The case is unprosecutable because there isn't evidence of a crime.
Despite the bleatings of the conspiracy theory set, "Grandma doesn't understand email security" isn't a crime, and yes best practices where not followed. But that isn't a criminal act, or 3/4 of the IT industry would be incarc
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And those 30,000 deleted emails? The ones that were bit bleached, like, "you mean like with a cloth", even after they were subpoenaed ? You actually buy that line? You want to talk about bullshit artistry? Grandma my ass, she had hired professionals, she didn't actually system-administrate the server herself, but she gave the orders and made the executive decisions.
Comey had no business suggesting a prosecutor shouldn't pursue this case. He found plenty of evidence, but made the subjective decision that
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And those 30,000 deleted emails? The ones that were bit bleached, like, "you mean like with a cloth", even after they were subpoenaed ?
How the fuck does one "bleach" mails?
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"Bit Bleach" is a secure deletion program. Deletes the file, then writes garbage onto sectors repeatedly so that you can't extract the original data. It's fairly common practice for any sensitive material, though of course when Hillary uses it, it's super sketchy and suspicious.
They don't know what has been going through the email server, all they know is that Hillary was sender or recipient, so deleting emails on the server makes it so they can't be sure what went through the server.
So what you have isn't an email anymore you can over to the FBI. IOW the claim the OP made (handed over bleached emails) was bullshit - thanks for the confirmation.
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Knock it off. You know damn well I never typed that they'd "been handed" over, I clearly said they were deleted -via Bleach Bit. And don't act like you don't know what Bleach Bit is. It was all over the news, even your beloved CNN. The emails were subpoenaed and *supposed* to have been handed over but somehow this wiping "accidentally " happened first, about the most thorough way you can destroy data other than smashing the hard drives to bits. You know, just accidentally.
No skin off Comey's nose though, h
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I'm busted!
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James Comey, then head of the FBI, declared that she's guilty, but that "no reasonable prosecutor" would pursue her.
No. No he did not. He said her staff where careless.
He did, indeed, say that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Here [cnbc.com] is the CNBC story that quotes him.
The case is unprosecutable because there isn't evidence of a crime.
From the same story:
Comey began his address by explaining what investigators found. He said that the probe showed that 110 emails in 52 email chains were determined to include classified information at the time they were received. Within those emails, eight chains contained information that was "top secret" at the time they were sent, 36 had "secret" information and eight more had "confidential" information, the FBI director said.
All of that is evidence of a crime. He is further quoted as saying, in the SAME SENTENCE that contains the "no reasonable prosecutor" phrase:
"Although there is evidence of potential violations regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case," he said.
There is evidence, but no prosecutor would bring a case. Further, he said:
He characterized the investigation findings as showing that Clinton and her team were "extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information" but he said there was no clear evidence they intended to violate the law.
So no, he didn't say that just Clinton's staff "where" careless. Clinton too.
But but but ... no clear evidence of intent? Sadly the laws being broken don't have
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Theres more. Here are his exact words;-
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The FBI doesn't declare guilt or innocence, they run investigations. Comey overstepped his bounds.
Its Funny (Score:2)
Just say you want corporate censorship (Score:5, Insightful)
When did (some) westerners turn into wilting violets? Do they think Batboy is a real person every time they buy groceries and see a tabloid at checkout? If these assholes had been pushing this censorship crap in 2002, anyone questioning the march to invade Iraq would have been slandered as a conspiracy theorist and censored*.
Then there's the fact that the people calling for said censorship can easily be hoist on their own petard, as happened to ThinkProgress [medium.com] after they cheered for Alex Jones being deplatformed. The Weekly Standard picked a nit with an article they wrote on Trump's nominee for SCOTUS, and so FFB throttled them. Because FFB trusted a science-denying, Iraq war loving Bill Kristol rag to do "fact checking".
*To those who say it's not censorship if the government isn't involved, I'll refer you to the Congressional hearings where senators demanding big tech companies do something about "fake news", and the fact that FFB is relying on the Atlantic Council to police their platform - an organization that receives direct funding [thinktankwatch.com] from the US military.
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What is FFB?
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The second F is for Face and the the B is for Book. The first F stands for...
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Not suggesting fake news and conspiracy theories to the user is not censorship. The suggestion itself is speech and this is a request to Apple to stop accidentally lying to users. Presumably Apple cares about not lying to people.
And as for wilting violets? I'd prefer to ask Apple to be more careful, than rely on people spotting fake news and conspiracies.
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Suppressing speech you don't like from search results - how is this not censorship again? And how many times has today's "conspiracy theory" morphed into tomorrow's "oh that's old news move along". You know, shit like the NSA trying to wiretap the entire planet or spying on the personal phones of allied heads of state.
So Apple sho
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Not sure I can explain this any more simply. Search results are not a the output of a database query. They are not neutral to start with. The reason Google is so successful and everyone else copies them is that they have a sophisticated algorithm producing their search results to give the user what they want. Not a "neutral" list or simple popularity ranked list, but a carefully selected batch of links using reputation as a major factor and filtering out most of the fake news and other nonsense.
If you want
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Yeah, which are based on a database pull of popular searches or what the algorithm thinks will be popular. As totally opposed to instant search suggestions, which are based on a database pull of popular searches and what the (same) algorithm thinks will be popular. Not Alex Jones deciding what comes up first in search results.
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Where's the analogy in this sentence?
See the already mentioned demands from Senators that tech companies "do something" about "fake news", and tech companies relying on the Atlantic Council for advise on what to "do". Th
The Only Thing Worse Than Bullshit Search Results (Score:1)
Wow. (Score:2)
Siri delivers accurate results. How original, and how dangerous.
Safari, one of the internet's most popular browser (Score:2)
+1 Funny
Complete stupidity. Who writes this shit. I don't even know any Mac users who use that POS.
Safari? That's that thing you use to download a real browser, just like Edge on Windows.