I don’t have that phone, but I believe so. As I recall you can turn the behaviour off in the Google Now settings.
Velcome to boing boing, new comrade.
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On my phone, even just opening a new tab in Chrome will force new headlines into my face. And as far as I can tell, there’s absolutely no way to turn this off.
Maybe I should try using the new Firefox on my phone instead?
The one time you absolutely needed a hyphen–for “built-in”–you failed to put a hyphen in.
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Certainly it’s an underused technique so far, there’s lots of low hanging fruit:
UK government votes that animals are incapable of feeling emotion and pain . . . . in the Trump era!
How to investigate and report on modern slavery . . . . in the Trump era!
How do you train for the most polluted race in the world . . . . in the Trump era?
Go and get the new shingles vaccine: it works . . . . in the Trump era!
Navy admits its pilot sky-wrote a giant cloud-wiener . . . . in the Trump era!
Baking fantastic bagels is supremely simple . . . . in the Trump era!
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Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he objects to (or is deeply disappointed in) the hed’s redundancy. Most of us here already know that “engagement maximisation” is a powerful vector for those who deliberately spread disinformation, who are also obviously thriving in the current right-wing populist miasma covering America.
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Log into their website at news.google.com and go to the settings. You can outright block sources.
I can do it from the app. The … menu on the right side of articles.
FTFY
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I disagree. ‘Engagement maximization’ is most definitely more soul-destroying now than it was two years ago. During the ‘Obama era’ I don’t recall being barraged with homophobic, xenophobic, misogynist garbage spewing from the US leader’s mouth, or by the constant threat of a pissing-match nuclear incident, all of which are deemed uber-newsworthy by the slavering media…
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Considering which member they chose to white knight for, immediately upon “arrival?”
Benefit denied.
You know what they say about assumptions…
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"because we need to seize this moment of dislocation to smash Trumpism and begin the urgent work of saving our planet, species and society. "
You’re still ending this call to action on a reactionary frame.
The work of saving the planet, etc, is not something that must begin. It’s been in progress for a very long time. If you want to join the efforts already in motion, you’d need to slow down, take a breath, and stop trying to stress everybody out with the immense urgency of the problem. The people who’ve been doing this stuff all our lives, know exactly how important it is.
I think smashing Trumpism remains an urgent goal, but the ingredients of this perfect storm have been out in the open for a very long time, and they will not be disposed of so quickly.
TLDR: “importance” and “urgency” are related but distinct qualities. To pace ourselves for the long haul, it’s important to know the distinction.
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Well, that was a breath of fresh air! Thanks!
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I’d honestly be curious to know how effective that would be; and whether it might actually backfire if not done very carefully:
It’s not generally considered polite to talk about it openly(most app-pushers don’t go with Dopamine Labs’ “Dopamine makes your app addictive” tagline; but that’s because it might spook the eyeball herds or the regulators, not because it isn’t the objective https://usedopamine.com); but a contemporary smartphone(or computer, to a somewhat lesser extent) is basically an exercise in attempting to be as habit forming as possible without direct pharmacological aid. As any casino could tell you, that’s actually pretty damn habit forming, likely with extra credit for being virtually omnipresent and closely connected to a communication device that is hard to do everyday stuff without).
That isn’t necessary the sort of problem one can educate out of(any more than a stats class will clean up a problem gambler: it’s rarely a pure knowledge problem); and, when the problem is that someone is in the position to grab your monkey brain and twist, hard; you really want to avoid a curriculum that engenders dangerous confidence. When dealing with problems that aren’t primarily knowledge problems you don’t want to succumb to the illusion that your knowledge of the existence of the problem, and maybe even some of it’s attributes, immunizes you from it.
This doesn’t mean that any education would be futile, necessarily, but given the rather lopsided matchup between kiddo and the assembled expertise of every internet company that lives or dies based on MoA and conversion rates it is rather like expecting to fix obesity with some food pyramid hand-outs at the McDonald’s cash registers.
(And it’s hardly a theoretical problem: people really seem to like reassurance that the world is just and they aren’t largely at the whims of fate; so practically any discussion of some flavor of fraud, advertising, or propaganda brings out the chorus of people who assure you that this would never work on them, only on some dumber target audience safely different from them. Hooking someone who strongly wants to believe that he can handle it and wouldn’t fall for it is likely to be rather easier than someone who is pessimistic about their odds.)
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I don’t blame you. It’s probably safer to deny me the benefit of doubt.
I at least believe I was commenting out of frustration. This same thing appears on every other site…usually I can ignore it and just attempt to learn what I can, but I guess I just hoped BoingBoing remained above it. They DO for much of it. Perhaps I’m just expecting too much.
Don’t follow leaders.
Watch the parking meters.
Look out, kid…
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Android version of Brave on tablet/phone as browser.
Startpage as search engine in the browser.
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I think I’ve found your problem!
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For example: the Android home screen search bar. By default, tapping in this bar drops down a list of top searches from this moment. Inevitably, these are searches that portend catastrophe, e.g., “trump nuclear war threat.” That’s because Android’s algorithm for choosing top searches has maximized engagement, and these are the kinds of searches that drive further searching.
They’re suggestions based on your past activity. If you’re getting a lot on Trump, it’s because you look for stuff about Trump all the time.
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It’s really becoming a self-parody along the lines of the Young Ones: “The bathroom is free, unlike England under this Thatcherite junta.”
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