Google’s News Feed is Full of Fake News
Bottom Line: For years we’ve been told that the most credible news sources determined by users were the news sources populating everything from our Facebook feed to Google news feed.Over the years there’s been push back. Facebook admitted bias in its news feed division when it overhauled the way news feeds were populated (only to replace the human bias in decision making with programmed human bias that’s computer automated). Recently I’d pointed out how absurd my Google news feed was (with several CNN stories, a New York Times story and a couple pop culture blog sources). This while FoxNews.com was the most trafficked news site online. In fact, here’s the current lay of the land with news sources.
- #1 TV ratings: Fox News
- #1 Polling: Fox News
- #1 Online traffic: Fox News
Notice a trend? Yet how often do you see Fox News stories populating feeds compared to CNN and others? There’s no objective way Facebook, Google or any technology company could justify anything other than Fox News being a prominent, if not the prominent source for national news stories. Yet here’s the latest study from Northwestern University...
For Google news feeds here are the most prominent sources:
- #1 CNN: 10.9%
- #2 NY Times: 6.5%
- #3 Washington Post: 5.6%
Where’s Fox News? The number one source for news by every available metric currently? 3% of Google’s news feed traffic. That’s right, less than a third of the reach of CNN, less than half of the reach of the NY Times and about half of the Washington Post. Any questions? Google’s entitled to be biased but they claim not to be. According to the findings by the Northwestern University Computer Lab. They’re not being honest with us.