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This <\/a>strikes me as an exceedingly bad idea from Google<\/strong>:<\/p>\n From Drudge<\/strong>:<\/p>\n GOOGLE FRANKENSTEIN: MACHINES TO CHOOSE YOUR NEWS GOOGLE CEO and Obama political activist Eric Schmidt declared this weekend that his machines will help decide what news you receive!<\/p>\n News sites should use technology to PREDICT what a user wants to read by what they have already read, Schmidt told the AMERICAN SOCIETY OF NEWS EDITORS, where a few humans still remained in the audience.<\/p>\n “We’re all in this together.”<\/p>\n MORE<\/p>\n Schmidt said he doesn’t want ‘to be treated as a stranger’ when reading online, POLITICO reports.<\/p>\n He envisions a future where technology for news editing could help tailor advertisements for individual readers.<\/p>\n And he wants to be challenged through technology that ‘directs readers’ to a story with an ‘opposing’ view.<\/p>\n [An odd suggestion from the CEO of a company long accused of offering little to no conservative-leaning links on its news page, while aggressively promoting left-leaning hubs.]<\/p>\n Schmidt said GOOGLE is working on new ways to push adverts and content for consumers, based on what stories they’ve read.<\/p>\n What stories his machines have selected.<\/p>\n Developing… <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n If this no-choice\u00a0“opposing view” meme sounds familiar, that’s because a prominent friend and appointee of President Obama<\/strong>, former U. of Chicago<\/strong>\u00a0law professor\u00a0Cass Sunstein<\/a><\/strong>, has, for several years,\u00a0articulated <\/a>a sophisticated<\/a>\u00a0 theory<\/a> on the need for\u00a0government\u00a0to regulate speech<\/a>, “reformulate” the 1st Amendment to ensure greater “diversity” and compel the presentation of “opposing views”. While I share Sunstein’s concern that many people are deliberately corrupting their OODA Loops <\/a>by only reading sources with which they already agree, forcing legal adults to read something else isn’t the answer. It’s a free country and with\u00a0liberty comes the right to be left to\u00a0wallow in ignorance in peace.<\/p>\n Getting the Congress and states to turn the free speech and free press clauses on their head is a task with small chance of political success. Persuading or pressuring a small number of\u00a0friendly CEO’s of search engine companies to\u00a0optimize their own systems to produce politically favorable results for the administration and the Democratic Party<\/strong> is a lot easier, far less transparent to the public and more difficult for the GOP<\/strong> and\u00a0conservatives (or for that matter, dissident progressives and unpopular minorities)\u00a0to combat.<\/p>\n
\nMon Apr 12 2010 08:15:34 ET<\/p>\n