Google is not research

I saw an exchange on twitter a while ago where two people had an argument as to whether they should wear a mask in public or not in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.  One person advocated their use as the Centre for Disease Control [CDC] recommended they be worn in public, and the counter argument came from someone who had asserted their own research via Google et al had concluded that wearing a mask had no impact on whether or not you would catch the virus.  For the record both arguments actually have merits in that masks help you prevent spreading the virus but do little to stop you catching it unless they also cover your eyes and are paired with PPE but that is not the focus here.

Instead the focus here is that the advocate of the CDC's advice made a salient point in reply, that was that the CDC is a body whose entire purpose is to research infectious diseases and has a budget in the order of billions to do so, you aren't going to be able to match their focus and depth with an hour on Google performing your own "research" as it were.  This did however highlight something I have thought for some time and that is that Google really has a lot to answer for when it comes to misinformation.  Politics aside for a moment there is one major problem more than any other when it comes to Google as a search engine and that is the belief that what you find is the correct answer to whatever question you asked, when in reality you simply found *an* answer, not necessarily *the* answer.

This is a very important distinction to make - for 99.9% of the things you use Google to find, what is returned is what is the most popular result weighted not only by page views but also the amount of sites that are associated with it.  Google makes no attempt to ensure that what you find is accurate, or true for that matter, and I'm going beyond the difference between Objective and Subjective truths which I have discussed in the past, this comes down to the simple question of whether Google has provided any verification of what is returned and the answer is simply no, it has not.

I say this applies to 99.9% of what you search for also for another simple reason, sometimes Google controls what you see, not just through the use of its algorithm but explicitly through the use of search result pages that are designed for a specific purpose.  Since the Covid-19 pandemic for example searching for "Covid-19", "Coronavirus", or other related terms brings you to a dashboard designed by Google to show you information about the pandemic, this combines automated feeds, curated content, and the usual search results as ordered by Google's algorithm below with lesser prominence.

This is welcome but it highlights the problem more than ever before - that Google had to specifically intervene in this case to ensure people found information that was accurate when they searched rather than being left to the luck of the draw with the algorithm as to what they would find.  I say 'luck' but in reality there's very little random chance incorporated here, the algorithm is quite easy to manipulate and entire fields of study are devoted to Search Engine Optimisation to increase your ranking in the search results.

Nevertheless this intervention shows that Google is aware of what it is doing and that raises the question of why it doesn't intervene elsewhere.  When people "do their own research" like those that argued with CDC advice, Google is the first place they will turn and whilst the consequences of this for most things are insignificant if not frustrating at least, when it comes to providing information that literally impacts the lives of others and potentially whether they live or die, one can argue Google's intransigence borders on negligence.

I've mentioned before how much I hated one of my lecturers at University who was fond of telling people to Google everything, inflamed by the fact I paid £3,000 a year in tuition, which is now £9,000 a year which is even worse - Google does not teach, the same reason it is a poor substitute for someone who actually knows what they are talking about is the same reason it is a poor source of accuracy when it comes to vital information, there is no verification of the information it delivers, and further still there is no attempt made whatsoever to ensure you actually understand that information once conveyed.

People want a simple answer to every question and that is problematic when you have complex questions and complicated situations, a truly viable source of information would not only be able to identify this but would also be able to offer simplified questions that can be given simple answers in an attempt to understand what the person is actually looking for.  Beyond the pandemic this problem has so many ramifications it's quite scary if you actually stop and think about how omnipotent Google has become and how much that misconception is that it is also omniscient.

So the next time someone tells you to Google something just reply, tell them the reason you asked them is because you thought they might know, if they don't then they just have to say they don't know, and then seek out someone who does or at the very least don't blindly accept one source of information as true, seek out others that can corroborate the information you find.