Google News and the silencing of the climate crisis
For the last several years, I’ve read the Google News feed daily. And for the last several years, the Google News feed has contained nearly zero stories about climate change. As of this writing (August 1st, 2019), there are currently zero stories relating to climate change in my Google News feed.
To put some context around this, climate change (also known as the climate crisis, climate emergency, or simply ‘the largest existential threat to face complex life on this planet since the Chicxulub asteroid wiped the dinosaurs off the map’), is real, happening, and, in some ways, truly the ‘news of the day’.
Nearly each day, there are new stories either regarding new broken climate records, or new modeling discoveries that indicate our prior modeling predictions were too conservative.
Climate change is a complex evolving topic that is unfolding in real-time.
My interest in writing this essay has to do with 4 things:
- My background in tech and working with design teams
- My interest in and fear of climate change
- My belief in a stronger need for design ethics and accountabilities for results
- My desire for a more robust system for comparing and contrasting design based intentions and assertions verses results in the real world
The 11 sections of this essay are as follows:
- So, how are Google News stores selected?
- The news of the day
- How news works on Google News
- High quality news
- Surfacing criteria
- Intentions and results
- Statistics
- A curated narrative
- Consequences
- The informed citizen
- An annotated look at the authors’ own Google News feed
1. So, how are Google News stories selected?
From their website, Google answers the question as such:
Computer algorithms select what you see in Google News… Algorithms personalize for your Google News settings, like your interests and sources. They also personalize for your past activity on Google, like in Google Search and YouTube.
So there you have it. Based on the above assertion, my Google News feed should be dominated (or at least represented) with news and stories on climate change. This is because climate change scares the shit out of me, and like any good primate, my browsing history reflects a constant rate of knowledge accumulation on that which terrifies me (spoiler: my Google News feed does not reflect my browsing history with regard to climate change).
In an interview regarding the Google News 2018 overhaul, Google News boss Trystan Upstill (LinkedIn profile here, Twitter account here), asserted that:
“This approach means Google News understands the people, places and things involved in a story as it evolves, and connects how they relate to one another.
At its core, this technology lets us synthesise information and put it together in a way that helps you make sense of what’s happening, and what the impact or reaction has been.”
If there is any single topic that demands the rigor of ‘understanding the people, places, and things involved in a story… and connects how they relate to one another,’ it would be climate change.
In the article, “A look at how news at Google works,” penned by Richard Gingras, Vice President of News at Google, (LinkedIn profile here, Twitter here, Wikipedia page here), Richard asserts that:
“We built Google News’ homepage to help users discover diverse perspectives from multiple news outlets about the news of the day…”
2. The news of the day
The phrase ‘news of the day’ could be interpreted in one of two ways. Either the news of the day refers to today (the day you’re reading this, as in ‘Today, President Trump vomited on Twitter’), or it refers to the day, as in the zeitgeist.
In either case, the uncontested fact of the breakdown of the complex systems that allow this planet to be habitable (and our civilization structured the way it is), combined with the nearly daily record setting and sobering climate modeling updates, is in itself news that is applicable today (the day you are reading this), or this era in which we live.
Either way you slice it, climate change is the news of the day.
3. How news works on Google News
The mini website, created by Google, “How news works on Google” sheds further light on the matter, and helps us to understand the innovative features that have resulted in a near complete suppression of climate change related content on the Google News platform.
Learning that Google News has a clearly defined purpose helps us better evaluate if the results are meeting the goal for which it was intended.
“Our purpose: To help everyone understand the world by connecting people with high quality news from a variety of perspectives.”
Obviously, having a ‘variety of perspectives’ is only possible when there are multiple pieces of content. In the case of climate change, on the Google News platform, there is both an absence of ‘high quality news’, and a ‘variety of perspectives.’
4. High quality news
The topic of ‘high quality news’ is a fascinating one. As someone who has more than a passing interest in the topic of ‘high quality news’, and invests time in finding and following ‘high quality news’ sources, I can assure you that almost none of them are featured on your Google News feed.
In this era, it goes without saying but must be said anyway: I am not talking about conspiracy theory websites or fake news. I’m not talking about product placements presented as news. I’m talking about award winning journalism, which involves the investigation of facts in reality, not opinion pieces, or punditry presented as news, not click bait (headlines written to entice viewers to click for the purpose of generating ad revenue).
Indeed, while defining the topic of ‘high quality news’ is beyond the scope of this essay, it is far easier to simply falsify the assertion that the content on your Google News feed is in fact ‘high quality news’.
For a snapshot of ‘high quality news’ that has never been featured on your Google News Feed, you can head over to the Online Journalism Awards, the Society of Professional Journalists Awards, and the Awards for Investigative Journalists.
Likely, none of these places or journalists who are nationally and internationally recognized for creating content have ever been found on your Google News Feed. Nor none of their content.
So what determines the surfacing criteria on your feed?
5. Surfacing criteria
From Google’s own How News Works on Google page, we learn that part of the Google News surfacing criteria is based on:
“Prominence: Prominence is a way to identify noteworthy news stories…”
While it goes without saying… apparently in this case it must be said: few events on the planet have more prominence (or are more noteworthy) than climate change.
Period. Full stop.
Fortunately, we can rest assured that:
“We aim to make our experiences relevant, useful, and enjoyable.”
Perhaps this then becomes the reason for the climate change news blackout on Google News: the experience of reading about it is neither useful nor enjoyable.
6. Intentions and results
I only pulled a few choice quotes from the above Google News official websites, but if you point your horse in that direction and spend some time reading the pages, you’ll find nothing but good intentions.
So, how should we weigh intentions and results? From a business standpoint (and make no mistake Google is a business), results outweigh intentions by about… oh I don’t know… infinity to zero.
In the real world, results matter more than intentions.
The real world is a place of results.
And in the case of the Google News platform, the results speak for themselves: despite (or perhaps in spite of) their best intentions, the result is that the Google News algorithm whether deliberately or accidentally, fails to consistantly surface news stories on the single most consequential ongoing crisis to ever face our species.
This wouldn’t matter so much if few people used Google News as a primary source of news related information.
So how many people actually get their ‘news’ from Google News?
7. Statistics
Google News gets around 6 billion visits a year.
As with anything, scale matters.
In complex systems, scale actually changes the property of the system. In this case, 6 billion visits a year and nary a mention of climate change, while unmeasurable in impact, surely has one.
8. A curated narrative
Any system that curates content will result in biases. At its core, this is the philosophy of curation: any aggregate selected from a larger pool is a representation of some process, whether conscious or unconscious, accidental or deliberate.
In the case of Google News, the pool of ‘news’ stories that it draws from is vast: the feed is only a small selection of all possible news stories.
Knowing this to be true, how it is possible for the algorithm to so consistently and reliably (you can bank on it) fail to surface stories related to climate change?
If the biases were more random, I would expect the occasional stories to bubble up into my feed. You’ll have to take it on faith from me that after thousands of visits to my Google News feed over the last several years (yes I am a bit of a compulsive news checker), I can personally assure that you stories related to climate change hardly (if ever) display on my feed.
Again, it must be said: I am not suggesting any conspiracy or any deliberate attempt to suppress climate change related content by any member of the Google News design team.
This essay is a personal attempt to objectively look at Google News’ own assertions and the assertions of members of the Google News design team, and contrast these assertions with results in reality: as they show up on the authors’ own Google News Feed.
9. Consequences
So what are the consequences of 6 billion visitors each year being exposed to a specific and highly curated narrative of world events that does not involve the single most urgent and catastrophic event to ever befall our species (to date)?
Well, fortunately, you and I have plenty of time to ponder this question as the planet heats up, your childrens’ economic future evaporates, and all megafauna with the exception of humans and our domesticated animals goes extinct, but what we do know from a scientific consensus is that: we have less than 10 years to modify our behavior as a species across the entire planet.
The question I would invite you consider: is it helping or hindering our effort to modify our behavior when a news page visited 6 billion times a year fails to surface content on the topic of climate change?
10. The informed citizen
At the core of democracy is the idea of the informed citizen. Part of the strength of a democracy (leaving aside meaty topics like gerrymandering and voter suppression) relies on how well informed its citizens are, and the degree to which they can hold their leaders accountable.
Now let us examine the opposite: the uninformed citizen. What should we make of 6 billion visits, each effectively un-informing the viewer through an absence of climate change related content?
Clearly there is an asymmetry between this ‘additive’ and ‘subtractive’ information state.
The silver lining for me is this: Google News is a platform with over 6 billion views a year.
Imagine what it would be like if this platform rose to what it aspired to be: a destination that serves up high quality content on complex and relevant topics?
A place where folks can go to become informed.
A place where folks could go and actually learn something of value about ‘the news of the day’.
11. A look at my Google News feed (with comments)
What follows is an annotated blow-by-blow of my Google News feed as it appears on the day of this writing.
Notice how most of the stories below have zero relevance to the day you are reading this. In fact, in looking back (the hindsight bias), you could assert that the time spent reading this content on Google News would have been better spent literally doing anything else (for example: going to the gym, petting your cat, eating kale, going on a hike, deleting apps from your phone, donating to your favorite climate activist organization, etc.).
From a purely cost/benefit standpoint, your time spent reading ephemera presented as ‘news’ is actually costing you the time you could have spent doing something actually productive or learning something of value. And this doesn’t even address the harm caused through the consumption of low quality ephemera based information.
As you browse the below section, keep in mind that I never visit Fox News, never click on or read any articles about products, video games, sports, pop culture (with the exception of one article I read 6 months ago on Guns n’ Roses — now they show up 100% of the time on my news feed (talk about cost/benefit analysis, what else of value could replace this?)).
Despite my viewing behavior, this kind of low quality content dominates my feed.
Also keep in mind that these stories, while specific to whatever day I happen to be writing this are consistent with the ‘news’ quality of every single day over the last several years on my Google News feed.
What you will see below is a curated collection of content largely consisting of:
✅ Low information quality
✅ Little relevance to actual events
✅ Anecdotal stories
✅ Click bait
✅ Punditry/opinion presented as news
✅ Product placements
✅ Ads presented as news
✅ Trump noise with no reporting on actual policy
✅ Little to any content from award winning journalists or news organizations
✅ Zero mention of climate change
And now, I present my Google News Feed in its entirety as it appeared on August 1st, 2019…
Headlines
For you: recommended based on your interests
U.S.
World
Business
Technology
Entertainment
Sports
Science
Health
Summary
The Google News platform, due to its unusually high traffic rate, provides a unique opportunity to provide its users with valuable content and information — as promised by its mission statement.
On the Google News feed, there is a nearly complete absence of content relating to the topic of climate change. While Google News does not actively promote any story or topic, the striking lack of content on this newsworthy topic is alarming.
If you work in tech and are concerned about climate change, please consider having your voice heard by contributing either audio, video, or text articles to the Design Ethics & Climate Change publication here on Medium.com
Get involved. Start donating, start volunteering with a youth climate activist group in your area.
Get outside your comfort zone and start making a difference.
