For what it’s worth, I clicked “Report an issue” on the panel and pointed them to this thread. Maybe if 10,000 others do this too they will notice…

You're onto something with that particular number there.

After a second go at dubiously tinkering with Algolia, I finally found a post I knew I'd seen a little while back:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24811669

> I have a good friend at Google. The motto they go by is that unless 10000 people are impacted by an issue, it's really not worth their time to investigate.

At Google's scale, this makes absolutely perfect sense: Google (according to Wikipedia) currently has 139,995 engineers, and up to approx. 2 to 4.8 billion customers (using a floor of Chrome's user base and a ceiling of "number of users connected to the internet"). This means each and every engineer has a broadly averaged/amortized potential impact on up to 14,286-34,286 users. None of those developers will consistently produce useful output if they're thinking about all that responsibility all day, and probably quite a majority wouldn't produce any output at all if they were tasked with interacting with all the users their products impacted (the most impactful developers might be faced with queues filling with maybe 300 tickets a second or more).

However, at world scale, where just about everything that relates to humans is sufficiently fractal-like that it doesn't track along a 10,000-entry/point/dimension/column/etc-sized graph/curve/vector space/BigTable/whatever, you get issues like this.

I can kinda understand (while headscratching through the math for this for the first time) why Google hires so many external contractors (who presumably aren't counted as employees?) to try and combat this sort of thing, but there's only so much that can be done there too.

It's a really difficult problem.

Human empathy seems to have a serious bathtub curve for "things and problems that are human-sized", with maximum sensitivity around maybe 1-20 people. Anything smaller than a human is only intrinsically interesting if it's cute, and anything bigger than a human can probably figure its problems out itself, and is only intrinsically worth my attention if whatever it's doing might kill *me* in particular, and possibly the group I'm in.

Sadly, this is a problem *because* the humans on both sides of the fence equally bleed red and run the same legacy firmware, while the producer end of the queue is grossly under-represented.

Scaling up an individual's or group's impact unfortunately hits the edge of that empathy bathtub curve in a hurry when you go beyond even just a few hundred recipients, let alone a thousand. What am I supposed to think of 150,000 Twitter likes, or 20 million TikTok views, or 20 upvotes on HN? It sort of blurs out to a fuzzy "...:D" that holds zero semantic value (it doesn't provoke an intuitive context-specific response), and also close to zero little intrinsic value (I don't know how to reason about it in isolation).

So, what are Google's engineers supposed to do to solve these kinds of problems? Serious question.

Saying "they're big enough, they'll figure it out" is just bumping into the edge of the empathy curve. Saying "well, they need to scale out their empathy" implies the engineers at Google have access to some sort of intrinsically more sensitive model of intuition (the self-correcting kind that would naturally occur at the individual level and propagates outward in groups). A real solution is needed here.

The only thing Google can do is collectively whittle away and figure out solutions to this fundamentally non-intuitive problem using... *drumroll*... bureaucracy. "NOOOoooo," I hear you say... but that's the only glue available to collectively hold *checks* 139,995 empathy bathtub curves together. Yep, it's like the PHP of duct tape, but sadly humans haven't figured anything else out yet, crazily enough... almost like the empathy model we use doesn't find solving for the problem space as a whole interesting, or something...

--

Ignore the above, Google is a mean bully that abused their power for {killing {Google Reader/related-image search/other favorite product}/locking someone out of their account/locking Android down/having UI inconsistency/etc etc etc} D:<

If you can't do something right, don't automate it, I suppose.

I'm guessing that worked - I can't find the knowledge panel. If someone knows how to find it, please link to it.

I just tried to see it again (previously saw it with incorrect photo): the photo has been removed (for now).

It still shows up for me, still with the wrong person's photo. I have reported it as well.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=andrea+vassell

They have finally removed the photo this morning. Thanks to all who reported it. On my Facebook page, I have the screenshots of all the incorrect images that they placed in the knowledge panel.

It is laughable that "tech giants" are going to great lengths these days in cahoots with elected politicians and warlords (equally), to crack down on "misinformation" and yet when their own algorithm and callous management propagate damaging misinformation, no one can crack the whip on them, so to speak.

As others suggested, this needs to hit the court and be brought to the notice of regulators too. What if one day this deceptive "knowledge box" gets someone lynched? Am sure this has already happened if the lens is broad enough. Nevertheless they cannot be allowed to associate random photos with unrelated content without repercussions. At the very least they should have a channel where the general public can reach them and they take prompt action based on the merits of the case.

It's laughable how feudal, unaccountable, unreachable and unregulated the tech industry is, while they have a deliberately cultivated oversized impact on society.

Getting this to "hit the court" is a non-trivial problem for someone without access to the legal system. So in order to help the OP should we suggest she contact...whom? the EFF? The ACLU? Who can help with these sorts of legal issues?

the pastor who did not write the book has access to the courts, it's obviously a tort case and probably has affected her ability to work as well so I suppose that means Google should end up paying a lot.

The next person Google does that too gets even more money!

Obviously this thread is evidence in the pastor's favor.

on edit: obviously the OP has been harmed by Google's actions, but I think the pastor can show they have been harmed more. Also being a pastor and stuff, it's a good thing Google is made of money.

According to a lawyer, I could sue for “false light invasion of privacy.” Unfortunately, the pastor doesn’t live in a state where that tort is recognized. In any case, Google just fixed the knowledge panel-so thank you guys so very much for commenting and discussing my post! I exchanged dozens of emails with Google in April, then they just started ignoring me after that, all the while rotating images in the knowledge panel. A few days ago they had the audacity to send me a survey about my experience with the knowledge panel support team.

one good thing about doing an "Ask HN" is that it can get so much attention that someone high up at google sees it and fixes it. I'm glad to hear that Google fixed it. Nevertheless, I still wish for legal action just to get a court precedent saying that these things aren't OK. I can dream, I guess.

I would love to take legal action if I could find a brave attorney. During my consultations with attorneys, they began speaking in half-words and unfinished sentences as soon as I said my dispute was with Google. I was willing to file the suit without a lawyer to at least force them to fix it. At the very least, I will be reaching out to law professors who are interested in this topic in hopes that they will start a conversation. Although I’m glad it’s fixed, I’m still really ticked off they took me and others through this for months. We all felt very powerless.

I would try contacting the EFF, they might be interested in taking up the case or might be able to find you a lawyer who is willing to.

This is the second time in a few months that I have seen this issue crop up:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27622100

Yes, by "Access to the legal system" I really meant "money and introductions to a law firm that could credibly and argue a complaint against google". I've asked the lawyers I know on twitter if they know anyone (https://twitter.com/mebassett/status/1428032516292759560) but I don't know what else one can do.https://twitter.com/mebassett/status/1428032516292759560

it's easy to say "you should sue" but that's a lot more difficult in practice.

> In any case, Google just fixed the knowledge panel-so thank you guys so very much for commenting and discussing my post!

I fear that this situation will not last. I just googled the name, and curiously, the knowledge panel has a little link that says "claim this knowledge panel." Do you see that option; have you tried exercising it?

>I could sue for “false light invasion of privacy.

Yes you could sue for that but I doubt that is what the pastor should sue for, as you said she was threatened after being mis-identfied as you, they were told of their error, they recognized it and removed her picture, then they put another one in of her again.

I think the pastor should talk to a lawyer from her state as to what she can sue for.

I'm thinking it could be almost anyone, at this point.

In my case, I'm sure I've been rejected from job applications because anyone inexpertly Googling will find there are many people that have the same name as I do, but have been arrested for misdemeanors or even a murder.

Just last week, a guy from a BnB told me he was nervous because he thought I was a dangerous man because of the Google results he got.

So, it would seem that you are involuntarily being dragged to try to compete on Google's search results, even if you're a privacy-minded person.

Knowledge panels arguably add a layer of authoritativeness. But your beef is really with individual names being used as a web search key generally (whether on Google or something else). And the reality is if you have a less common but not unique name, you may end up confused with other people in situations where the searcher isn't really interested in putting in much effort to disambiguate the results.

The only real (imperfect) thing you can if it becomes a problem is to adopt some working name variant that is unique. But that only really helps if you do it up-front.

ADDED: You're probably reasonably safe with a common name. No one expects Joe Smith to be unique. The real problem is when you share a name with only one or two people and they have a big and negative Internet presence.

Ever tried to sue a large company? Know anyone who was successful?

"Having access to the courts" is in practice _just not a remedy_ for an individual fighting a $100 billion company.

> it's obviously a tort case

Yes.

> and probably has affected her ability to work as well

That is NOT how the law works, or every writer who got a bad review would sue the reviewer saying it "affected their ability to work".

> so I suppose that means Google should end up paying a lot.

Unless the woman was already making good money as a writer before the picture, and suddenly wasn't, Google will pay _nothing_.

My guess would be that Google would stall the lawsuit for a year or two, then turn off that picture and pay the woman a few grand, but not legal fees.

Then in the next software rev, some picture returns, and she's back where she started.

> Unless the woman was already making good money as a writer before the picture, and suddenly wasn't, Google will pay _nothing_.

The suggested plantiff is the misassociated pastor. Google is effectively saying that the pastor wrote the book, which is untrue and Google was notified of this and acknowledged it, and then they started claiming the association again.

This claim is damaging to the pastor in a clear way, and could probably get damages.

I would agree that the author would seem to have a harder case though as damages would be harder to show.

>> and probably has affected her ability to work as well

>That is NOT how the law works, or every writer who got a bad review would sue the reviewer saying it "affected their ability to work".

I thought it was quite clear that I was suggesting that the pastor should sue, and that it was a tort case for her. I was expecting that being a pastor - which is a semi-public role that it might have affected her work.

At any rate a tort is in no way like a book review and if you have a case where your work has been affected that may very well figure into the damages you will be awarded - if it didn't every medical malpractice suit wouldn't mention how their client was unable to work for months after the surgery.

In the US bad reviews, unless they are lying, are protected by the First Amendment. (provable lies can be defamation)

This does not seem to fall under First Amendment protection.

The OP might also want to avoid a curt case to protect their privacy.

I asked G ‘how long has X been a senator?’ It returned the ages of the senators, not the length of the terms. It is going downhill.

Try asking for details about things that didn't happen. Google is broken.

https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1333529967079120896

Relevant according to whom? You’ve explained _why_ Google returns those results, but that doesn’t make the answers relevant. Especially not when Google presents them so authoritatively as knowledge cards (or whatever they’re calling it these days).

Sure, if you’re a someone trying to reverse-engineer the algorithm, then they’re probably pretty “relevant”. But that’s not how most people use Google. I’ll bet most of HN doesn’t use Google this way.

Maybe it’s a UI issue. It’d be nice if Google attached a little disclaimer that said: “These results are “relevant” to the way our algorithm produces these results, but there’s a chance they’re laughably incorrect, so please take with a bucket of salt.” Or better still, just show the search results, instead of being clever and pretending to understand what I’m looking for. Y’know, like back in the day, when it was such a delight switching from AltaVista/Yahoo! to Google. Good times.

Taking the paragraph out of the page it's on and displaying it separately in a highlighted box with no context is the problem; it's being presented as a standalone fact. Google should really stop pushing this half-baked feature and go back to displaying normal search results so that a person can click through and read it in proper context.

I guess the problem is expectations. It can be useful to have information summarized in that manner but I would never take it as authoritative.

Ranking urls by perceived relevance is far different than displaying a seeming answer.

> this twitter person

Randall Munro illustrated several of his tweets with drawings from his not-entirely-unknown Web comic, so having to resort to a phrase like "this twitter person" feels rather weird.

This kind of thinking shows how artificial intelligence has fallen since the 1970s.

Back then it was clear you could get the right answer 50% of the time with some heuristics and people thought the glass was half empty.

Today you can get the right answer 50% of the time with some heuristic and people think the glass is half full.

disingenuous means "saying something you don't mean, insincere".

It's a polite word for lying, most of the time.

> There may have been some tomfoolery going on with that twitter guy

No tomfoolery here, no sir!

Completely unrelated URL: https://xkcd.com/386/

>It's laughable how feudal, unaccountable, unreachable and unregulated the tech industry is, while they have a deliberately cultivated oversized impact on society.

So true from Twitter, Facebook to Google.

> this needs to hit the court

How would that do anything?

What sort of damages could you get for having a wrong photo up?

Google would simply run a delaying action with its lawyers for a few years, and then "concede", pay her a pittance, and then in the next rev of the search engine, the problem would simply re-appear, and she'd have to do it all over again for the rest of her life.

I worked at Google for five years. Here's how they think (as a corporation):

* Everything has to be completely automated with no human corrections. * So some percentage of errors, even horrible errors, are expected. * And it's completely unreasonable for anyone to expect otherwise. * So one of their mistakes fucks up your life and you try to do something about it, you're the asshole.

Reflecting on this, Telco's here in Australia are held to extremely high standards when it comes to honouring when a customer wishes to not be put in public phone records. If found in breach of this they're hit with high fines due to the security this provides for victims of abuse.

Yet Google can knowingly build an algorithm which fuzzy matches people's images to content on the internet. Imagine if this was a rapist and the wrong image was posted against it.

Yes. We can replace a large embedded monopoly /s

Replacing Google is difficult.

I think YouTube is Google’s only product that 99% of people cannot replace.

More and more people switching to DuckDuckGo as a default and using Google only when necessary would get the ball rolling. Gmail is pretty replaceable with any other email, although I can see many people not changing from it out of laziness.

Google drive apps are pretty nice, but I doubt most people use them much at all, and Microsoft/apple offer alternatives. Google maps can eventually be replaced if people started using the alternatives more.

It will take time, but seems doable if more and more people keep changing habits.

> I think YouTube is Google’s only product that 99% of people cannot replace.

What about Vimeo? Or for a more federated approach, PeerTube?

From the last conversation I had around PeerTube, the main objection I got was that content creators would probably lose a bunch of traffic which they switched, which is true, but that's effectively the same argument as the hassle involved with switching off Gmail.

YouTube has the content. I can put my stuff on the others, and send my friends links no problem. However when Dave Richards posts another old time machine shop video it is only to YT - I can think of several more awesome channels that are only on YT.

I don't know how to solve this problem.

I'm not convinced that's actually a problem. To replace them, we don't need to vacuum every single creator out of their ecosystem at the same time.

When the network effect shifts, it does it gradually with long siphoning effects, not all at once.

> but that's effectively the same argument as the hassle involved with switching off Gmail.

People use gmail for free, and there are no network effects.

Content creators use YouTube due to its ability to sell ads, but I am not familiar with the alternatives to know if they are capable of handling the amount of people and ads YouTube serves. It seems like a more difficult problem than alternatives to email/maps/drive/search.

> but that's effectively the same argument as the hassle involved with switching off Gmail.

huh? There's a massive difference between those two things. YouTube provides discoverability for your content. Gmail does not. Besides the loss of existing viewers in a platform switch, creators would also lose a huge audience of potential viewers of their content both from recommendations and from search results. Sure, there are content creators who build up followings, but lots of people will get a handful of videos that become popular results for certain searches. Those come entirely from searches and "related" listings.

Further, changing emails doesn't require people emailing you to use a completely different client to do so.

Some people I follow have moved to Odysee[1], seems like a good candidate for helping wean users off YT. There are a handful of YT creators uploading content to both platforms simultaneously. That might be the best way to transition away from YT until the other platforms become popular enough to self-sustain. There's a blockchain under the hood which I'm sure will trigger some HN denizens (I'm a bit skeptical as well) but it seems like a solid concept.

[1] https://odysee.com

The good content isn't on any alternative platforms. And they mostly suck.

I wish it wasn't true.

> I think YouTube is Google’s only product that 99% of people cannot replace.

This fits me exactly, I ungoogled myself completely except for YT. There is no viable alternative, and I'd rather not watch TV again so I stick reluctantly with YT for now.

You can ungoogle yourself from both TV and YT just fine. The viable alternative is to spend your time on something else, internets are big.

    “We, and I personally, believe
    very strongly that more information
    is better, even if it’s wrong,” 
    said Eric Schmidt, executive
    chairman of Google[1]

I am reminded of this quote over and over when I encounter those things that are (TIL) absurdly called "knowledge panels". They often confidently present completely wrong information about even trivial things (like the weight of a specific camera or lens).

It is distressing (but not really surprising) to hear they are having disastrous consequences about more complex and obviously ambiguous queries, queries that no so-called "AI" should ever be answering, without a prominent disclaimer that the information was generated by a fuzzy-logic computer program without the ability to actually comprehend the topic at hand, and that therefore the information may be completely and utterly incorrect. (Such a disclaimer would obviously destory this "feature", though.)

I've always charitably assumed that Schmidt was trying to make some point that is less insane than the quote first sounds, like "correct information will eventually triumph over incorrect information if you just give people all the 'information' you can". But Google increasingly offers me information in ways that seem like he and they just, like, literally meant that quote as it reads.

(Also, even if that was the point he was trying to make, it's been thoroughly disproven over the past several years.)

[1]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/17/google-eric-schmidt-cyb...

I wonder if it'll ever hit too close to home for Schmidt. https://imgur.com/a/Al7V662

(I guess that in his position it's pretty easy to point out this is news concerning another person.. good luck if you're a random nobody)

> Most of the time the truth itself is not super critical

You heard it here first, folks.

edit: (added because it's now hard to read above)

> I work for Google.

Okay, you got me. I accept the downvotes. You've missed the point and taken it out of context, but I made it way too easy for you.

So I'll rephrase: In the context of accomplishing a certain task, the accuracy of some information is crucial and the accuracy of other information is not. For instance, if I'm looking to buy a book about Andrea's experience, I care that she's a woman, that she lives in a western country similar to my own. It doesn't particularly matter to me, in this context, what she looks like, so if I see the wrong photo - it's no big deal.

Obviously, the truth matters. And Google can't know what context you care about. But the only way to never be wrong is to never show anything at all. In other words, if you try to be useful and aggregate and show any information at all, you're going to be wrong here and there.

Yes, Google should continue working and improving and getting to as high an accuracy as possible, but it's never going to be 100%.

> You've missed the point and taken it out of context

1. I find the original quote, at least as presented without additional context, pretty difficult to see as anything but nonsensical. You following it up with "Honestly, I think he's right" and "Most of the time the truth itself is not super critical" is leaning into the same nonsensical position even if you try to cover it with additional context of, well actually there's still useful information.

2. This post is specifically about a woman (or in fact several) who have been harmed from this notion of truth not being critical. And you're doubling down on this with a not so relevant view centered around how it's benefiting you and not about the collateral damage. No one is saying perfect information is possible, but in the very least Google needs to be responsible for negatively affecting people's lives and it needs to provide an easy and reliable way to address situations like this.

> So I'll rephrase: In the context of accomplishing a certain task, the accuracy of some information is crucial and the accuracy of other information is not. For instance, if I'm looking to buy a book about Andrea's experience, I care that she's a woman, that she lives in a western country similar to my own. It doesn't particularly matter to me, in this context, what she looks like, so if I see the wrong photo - it's no big deal.

This is a cherry-picked task. If we switch the task from "I'm looking to buy a book about Andrea's experience" to "I'm looking to know more about Andrea, including what she looks like" then the Google response is worse than an irrelevant one: it is a definitely wrong answer.

And our new task isn't something unlikely or fanciful: there are surely people who have read her book who want to know more about her and who might google her.

Google will surely remove this as they should.

In that case, the information itself isn't important either. If it's wrong and it doesn't matter, why is it even being displayed? By definition then, the only people wrong information matters to are the ones it affects. "It's no big deal" to you, but she has been working for years to get this fixed.

> the only way to never be wrong is to never show anything at all.

How much error does this excuse? Any amount? How's this even helpful if you don't draw that line?

And it absolutely doesn't justify a lack of recourse when it does go wrong.

> In the context of accomplishing a certain task, the accuracy of some information is crucial and the accuracy of other information is not. For instance, if I'm looking to buy a book about Andrea's experience, I care that...

This totally disregards that many people search for stuff without any specific "task" in mind at all, and even more so that in controversial contexts like this, probably quite a lot of people with the explicit intent not to contribute to the author's happiness or cash box.

> Yes, Google should continue working and improving and getting to as high an accuracy as possible, but it's never going to be 100%.

What Google desperately needs to work and improve on, far more than mere accuracy, is some goddarn freaking humility: When you know you're not 100% sure to be presenting accurate results, stop pompously calling them "knowledge".

Try, for a change, not to be evil.

It's no big deal to you. It's a big deal to the person who's life was just ruined!

> For instance, if I'm looking to buy a book about Andrea's experience, I care that she's a woman, that she lives in a western country similar to my own. It doesn't particularly matter to me, in this context, what she looks like, so if I see the wrong photo - it's no big deal.

And yet here we are in a thread about a woman whose life is being very negatively impacted by the misinformation.

Well if even the average Google employee has that opinion then we truly are doomed.

Its no wonder we've got ourselves in this mess when we allow people with those kind of opinions to run a search and marketing company.

Ok, I'll repeat.

The truth matters. It matters ten times more when you're Google, where many, many people go to get answers for questions, and it's a deep abuse of trust when Google shows lies.

I phrased my opinion badly, and I was wrong to do so. Mea culpa.

Also, I'm a lowly engineer. I don't manage anyone, and I don't "run" anything, except, you know, unit tests on my machine and stuff.

You write code that runs in that ecosystem. If it makes you feel better then convince yourself you're not responsible.

Doesnt make it any less bullshit.

Let me edit that for you slightly:

> Most of the time the truth itself is not super critical - I want to harass the author of this book. Does it really matter what she looks like?

Yes. Yes, it does matter. Falsely identifying the author after she has repeatedly tried to get it corrected, which has resulted in unrelated people being "attacked" (their words) is an unmitigated ill.

The author of the book and OP of this thread obviously feels differently, and I'd gently suggest that her feelings are much more important than yours in this matter.

Most people don't have or use their critical thinking skills the way you seem to expect them to.

It's a delicate balance - between being useful and being accurate - and it's very possible Google is wrong here. I don't know what the correct threshold is, or indeed that there exists a correct, globally applicable one.

A lot of comments are suggesting workarounds. This behaviour by Google is atrocious. They are causing massive inconvenience to some people (albeit a very small number) just because they want to show off their nice knowledge panel.

Even one person's life inconvenienced is one too many. People working at Google: where is your conscience? If one of your family member was affected like this by a service provider who you have no control over, how would you feel?

Data grabbing for the general public, "intensely private" for others:

https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/tracking-the-googl...

I don't exactly disagree with you, especially since from a quick search the name as mentioned by OP seems to be really common but the Googlebot is apparently fishing for info all over the web in a way that's guaranteed to create conflations. I don't think this is a nice thing to show off for them, it seems really amateurish.

Its kind of like google kicking puppies in a lot of ways. There's no good reason for it.

But the robots can't help. The humans acting as robots can't help either.

Need a human involved. But they're too busy doing... other things.

They're too busy designing even bigger puppy-kicking machines.

Yes of course. If the actions of a collective group are causing harm to others, I expect members of the collective to feel responsible. This is how we build a caring society.

If my actions have caused pain and suffering to others, whether deliberate or not, it does distress me until I have alleviated that somehow. If I do not have a way to alleviate their pain, the guilt of having inconvenienced them stays with me for a long time. That is how I stop myself from doing such things again in the future.

Do you not care?

If Google employees, blinded by their big compensation cannot understand how this can go bad and how nearly impossible it is to navigate the cracks these algorithm are leaving behind then I agree, the google collective they're part of is causing a lot of harm and they should feel responsible.

but what if you don't want to be identified? Because to claim panel you most probably have to provide some evidence it is you. on the other hand, what if you don't know/don't care about some google panel about you. But other people get harmed by it? If someone really lost their job just because his photo was attached. Who should be blamed and how this person should fix this if there is no tools to remove panel? So I don't see this as overreaction. If you make something that can do mistakes that can cost someone their job or harm significantly, you should provide some ways it can be fixed fast. And not via months of talking with a wall.

> Someone being inconvienced is something you think should affect people's conscience?

"Inconvienced"? "Inconvienced"?!?

People have been threatened, physically attacked, and sometimes even killed for books they've written. OP seems to be claiming to have written a fairly controversial book, which so far has generated at least threats. And now Google is associating that book with other people, because their fucking algorithm has more of a hard-on to get a picture, any picture, onto their "knowledge" card than to get shit right.

People could DIE here... And you come blithering about "inconvienced". Are you for fucking real?

Why fight the algorithm? Instead, grab a photo from here:

https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/

Then post it online and claim it as your own. That way nobody gets hurt and you can move on.

Should you have to do this? No of course not, but sometimes it's easier to win a small battle.

Good luck.

Why fight the algorithm indeed. Post this photo in several sites:

https://static01.nyt.com/images/blogs/bits/posts/google_brin...

and call it Andrea.

Are the images from thispersondoesnot unique per page visit or do they ever show the same one twice? What about copyright? Is there any implications to using these photos?

Under the Berne convention all creative works are protected by copyright. And I see no license notice. So it would be a violation of copyright to copy one of these to your own web site. Unless there is some quirk of law that says these aren't creative works because they were generated by algorithm or something like that.

But I bet if you asked permission and explained what it's for you would get an approval.

If I refresh the page twice in quick succession, the same image comes up. By refreshing on my pc/phone at the same time, I managed to get the same image come up too. So it's probably seeded by time.

The source code from Nvidia is covered by this[0] license... which includes a section on derivative work:

> 3.2 Derivative Works. You may specify that additional or different terms apply to the use, reproduction, and distribution of your derivative works of the Work (“Your Terms”) only if (a) Your Terms provide that the use limitation in Section 3.3 applies to your derivative works, and (b) you identify the specific derivative works that are subject to Your Terms. Notwithstanding Your Terms, this License (including the redistribution requirements in Section 3.1) will continue to apply to the Work itself.

> 3.3 Use Limitation. The Work and any derivative works thereof only may be used or intended for use non-commercially. The Work or derivative works thereof may be used or intended for use by Nvidia or its affiliates commercially or non-commercially. As used herein, “non-commercially” means for research or evaluation purposes only.

[0] https://nvlabs.github.io/stylegan2/license.html

According to the interview with the author of the site (https://www.inverse.com/article/53414-this-person-does-not-e...), they're unique per page visit.

As for copyright, who knows. No legal precedent that I know of.

Off-topic, but wow, some of the images this site generates sure are creepy. One example: https://imgur.com/Z382rtF

thats a fucking nightmare haha

Does it have to be a photo of an actual human?

Why not a work of graphic/art? A unicorn perhaps?

I think that's a better option as the 'thispersondoesnotexist' images can't be guaranteed to not actually look exactly like someone.

That could always happen, no matter how you generate the photo, but it's all but impossible that they'd also have the matching name.

Pretty sure the Google algo would feature a isHumanDisplayed() for the photo's that would qualify.

But is Google looking for a human or it just picks the first homonymous human as a poorly automated fallback because there is no other data available?

As far as I know, this worked at least for people like Banksy, Vincent van Gogh, the Zodiac killer and a few others.

looks like someone with the same name as the author? that seems kind of unlikely. I mean at that point you’re advocating for the author to not have any identity, even a pseudonym, associated with her book, that way no one can possibly be confused

> looks like someone with the same name as the author? that seems kind of unlikely

Unlikely, yes, but not impossible.

> I mean at that point you’re advocating for the author to not have any identity

I am not advocating that at all. Please don't put words in my mouth.

FWIW IC3.gov is how you start the process of reporting pretty much any interstate crime that plausibly originated on the internet. If you call the FBI about a scam that you found online they tell you to use the forms on IC3.gov.

As with many things that touch on legal matters submitting paperwork in this manner can be tremendously helpful. Having a police report, or having submitted a complaint to IC3 and contacting a companies legal department (mentioning that the report has been submitted) can provoke a stronger and faster response than you might get elsewhere.

In addition because Google took action to remove the panel previously there is a stronger argument to be made that they know what they are doing is wrong. So not only do you have multiple parties who have been either impersonated, misrepresented, or harmed you have an actor that arguably has admitted fault and demonstrated the ability to remedy the situation.

Science fiction writer Greg Egan spent years trying to fix this exact problem [0]. Searching him on Google now, it looks like he eventually succeeded, but it involved years of posting photos of "himself" which instead called Google fools [1], as well as placing a plea on his home page for his fans to downvote the misleading images on his knowledge panel.

[0]: https://www.gregegan.net/ESSAYS/GOOGLE/Google.html

[1]: https://www.gregegan.net/images/GregEgan.htm

And he's just retweeted a reference to this thread…

https://twitter.com/sohkamyung/status/1427919846985986052

This has come up before, with no resolution. Someone who has been harmed by this needs to sue Google; Google as an organization simply won’t care unless and until there is a monetary and PR cost. Even then it may take multiple suits brought by multiple people.

You might need multiple people sue as a group. In this case it’s kinda lucky that on of the misidentified people is a pastor. She’s the one who needs to sue Google. OP in this case should do nothing, it’s terrible advise, but she isn’t actually harmed, she’s just a good person that doesn’t want to see other people harmed.

Help the pastor sue Google, she’s less likely to be tempted by a large amount of money and settle out of court.

OP has been harmed too. It's her book and she was a victim, she wasted her time and efforts dealing with the black box of Google. It probably hurts her reputation and she was clearly desperate enough to post on a random tech forum about it...sad.

I kind of hope this is the outcome, and that they let us know so we can have the opportunity to donate to help pay legal costs. This kind of thing is a nightmare.

I work for Google Search. Knowledge panels are automatically created and generated. And it is possible that if we have two people of the same name, our systems might select an incorrect photo. My apologies for the concern this has caused you. I'll share more about how you can better get this feedback to us.

We allow for knowledge panels to be claimed. I checked, and yours isn't. This explains more how to do that: https://support.google.com/knowledgepanel/answer/7534902

When a panel is claimed, then when we get feedback about change requests or possible issues, we know they are coming from a verified source and can work better to resolve the issues. This explains more about that process: https://support.google.com/knowledgepanel/answer/7534842

Normally people just don't like the image we show, so we have a mechanism for them to upload a preferred image. That's very easy to use. But in your case, I understand your reasons for not wanting to have an image used at all. I believe if you had filed feedback explaining that, the image would have been removed.

I'll check on this further, but right now, I see that no image is being shown at all. So I suspect that we've gotten the feedback here somehow and taken action to block any image from showing at all. But again, I'll check on this.

Your comment was brought to my attention last night. I had not seen it before nor had the time to read through all of these comments.

Are you suggesting that I did not send feedback through the appropriate channels? I have dozens of email exchanges with Google, some of which have multiple people copied on them, and I have screenshots of me sending feedback through your feedback link located within the knowledge panel. (And I explained my situation to them with more detail than I have explained here.)

In April and May, I received email responses from Google employees who work for the knowledge panel support team. After they changed the photo twice to images of the wrong women instead of deleting them, I continued complaining and they suggested I contact legal removals. When I contacted legal, I received automated responses to contact the knowledge support team. So I was bounced around.

They then began ignoring me and I started receiving automated responses from everyone. Even though I was being ignored, on any given day, I would wake up and find a different photo presented alongside my book.

I also reached out to you, Danny Sullivan, directly. Glad you and Google decided to acknowledge me and fix it once it was brought to the public’s attention and the public seemed to care. I appreciate that and I hope it stays fixed. I hope for others sake you will get rid of the knowledge panel until it’s working correctly.

> I believe if you had filed feedback explaining that, the image would have been removed.

I believe you’re wrong about that

Happy to read about your efforts trying to investigate the issue :)

Personally, I think that there are 2 separate issues: displaying/generating such a panel (including a pic) + the correctness of the informations displayed/generated.

Maybe knowledge panels should just not be generated for sensitive topics (e.g. identify "sensitive material" through keywords?) as in that context the potential for mistakes and/or subjective opinions can be quite high. Or maybe panels containing potential sensitive material should be checked manually before being published and references to the sources of the text/pics should be shown clearly (e.g. like Wikipedia does).

In general, it's absolutely too easy to require the affected people to react & try to get things fixed - people might even be completely unaware of "bad" things being shown about them on Google, they might just feel the after-effect of that. The mistake(s) in this case originated apparently at Google, the user had apparently no involvement with the generation of wrong informations, Google must fix it.

Cheers :)

> Maybe knowledge panels should just not be generated for sensitive topics

Knowledge panels shouldn't be generated for people period.

Wondering how many job applications have been thrown out due to the Knowledge panel pictures, without the person involved ever realising..

> But in your case, I understand your reasons for not wanting to have an image used at all. I believe if you had filed feedback explaining that, the image would have been removed.

So, you're claiming they didn't say they didn't want a picture? Have you read their correspondence with Google on the matter, or how do you know this?

Hi! This may be off topic. There is a bug in Google Search for El Salvador for quite a while.

Every search query related to prices/curtency are shown with the wrong local currency.

For example, this query, using a Salvadoran IP address:

https://www.google.com/search?q=precio+bitcoin

Will show bitcoin price in SVC (Salvadoran Colon), the former currency that was phased out in 2001. The current currency in El Salvador is USD, so prices should be show in US Dollars.

Provided you fit the eligibility criteria, I've had some success resolving this by creating a Wikidata element with the correct info (and picture), waiting for it to propagate to the knowledge graph API as a new entry (5-10 working days usually), then asking the knowledge graph team to merge the two entries: https://support.google.com/knowledgepanel/contact/posts_on_g...

But what if you don't want your picture online?

You can create a Wikidata entry and mark it as "different from" the other folks that it's being conflated with. Then the Googlebot has the information it needs to do the right thing.

Perhaps I'm using it wrong (I've long wanted to, but haven't yet seriously played with Wikidata), but there don't seem to be any Andrea Vassells listed?

https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?search=Andrea+Vassell

So OP would need to create multiple entries, for the wrong people too? And since Google currently displays this panel without it coming from a Wikidata entry, how does it then know that this new Wikidata entry ties up to what it wants to show; that the image it is showing is related to one of the other new Wikidata entries?

Wikidata doesn't look great. Tried searching myself. I have a pretty big web presence in general and all Wikidata has is a scientific paper I didn't write with one author with my first name as their last name and another author sharing my last name.

Well, it's worth noting that it's not intending to be specifically for publications, it's not like Google Scholar or ORCID for example.

The reason it's interesting / useful for things like 'knowledge panel' is perhaps clearer if you look at a more complete entry, such as for 'apple': https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q89 and something on using the SPARQL API, such as https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:SPARQL_tutorial or https://www.markhneedham.com/blog/2020/01/29/newbie-guide-qu....

As I say, I haven't actually got around to using it at all myself, but that's why I hold it in higher regard than 'not great'. :)

That doesn't usually stop it from picking an image from the image search results.

Yes, at some point she would still need to "claim" the "knowledge panel" for herself by complaining to Google. But having accurate info in the community-curated Wikidata graph (that's used by pretty much every Big Tech firm out there btw, not just Google) ought to ease that process by avoiding that "Knowlege Graph" entry being fed from less accurate sources.

Use a fake photo as provided above, algorithmically generated. Or use a photo of Sergey Brin or Larry page, they deserve the credit for this "feature" eh?

that would be vandalism of wikidata

Citation: "I chose not to put a photo of myself online".

Assuming that:

1) "Andrea Vassell" is a pseudonym (so that Google won't confirm claim for panel) or author just does not want send any extra information to Google

2) There are multiple "Andrea Vassell" writers, fitting Wikidata eligibility criteria

The solution would be:

1) Find origins of wrong images

2) Create a Wikidata item for each author and link each item to pages, which contain relevant images with https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P973

3) It is a good idea to create a page, describing original "Andrea Vassell" starting with a definition in a form of "Andrea Vassell is an NNNan writer, publisher of non-fiction books ...etc...". This page may contain the images of books (so that final card may look like https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=/g/122rd6_8&hl=en)

Step-by-step example:

1) I was notified that Google Knowledge Graph mixes Russian historian Andrey Simonov and American economist Andrey Simonov (wrong page snapshot: https://web.archive.org/web/20201202182248/https://www.googl...)

2) I created https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41802044, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q103187106, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q103378461 and improved https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4419737 (as all of them are passing notability requirements)

3) After few weeks Google removed photo of economist from historian (https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=/g/1hb_dk0rq&hl=en), because this photo was attached to economist card https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=/g/11fyy5b4yb&hl=en

Disclosure: I'm a Wikidata editor with 10M+ edits (mostly tool-assisted, of course). Have no relation with Google, other than hundreds of unsuccessful attempts to communicate with a brick wall of Google's contact form.

Why on earth are we providing free labor to fix googles mistake though?

I get why we might to help the various Ms Vassell's who are caught up in this though, but why are we pretending that Google is being reasonable here?

Another important notice. Ignore all suggestions from comments to provide fake data. Of course there are checks on Google's side. It is trivial to detect that image was generated with convolutional neural network. It is trivial to detect that you have used already known to GoogleBot image of Sergey Brin. Google marks sources with many contradictory facts as untrusted and pessimizes them when calculating weights for Knowledge Graph. This is not a speculation, this is literally written in published patents.

I would sue. I wouldn't even attempt any of the hacks the folks here in HN are recommending... we are talking about a business (Google) impersonating the OP online; that's serious. Unfortunately, suing costs money. It's a shame giants like Google don't give a damn about these things.

IANAL, and if you are I apologize for talking over you.

... But I doubt there are grounds for a lawsuit. Google is not impersonating the OP... They are stating an untrue fact in a public fact directory. I don't know of any precedent for suing the phone book for misreporting somebody's phone number. The back stop against such errors has traditionally been in the marketplace itself... A source of "facts" that is consistently wrong grows a bad reputation and is no longer trusted or used by the common person. At the broadest stretch of the imagination, they might be guilty of libel, but the victim would have to prove damages (if the damages are sufficiently egregious, libel can be proven without intent, but that usually involves statements "vicious of malice," and I think you'd be hard-pressed to fit "we think this is a photo of the individual in question" into that category without blazing a hell of a lot of new precedent).

I suspect a lawsuit in the space would be a lot of money thrown at no beneficial outcome.

If this is true it is more evidence of a broken legal system.

But the legal system is not fixed. Culture changes and the context in which we interpret laws change. There might not be precedent for getting a number wrong in a phone book, but we barely use phone books anymore, and market mechanisms don't work. I agree with you that it might be difficult to prove standing (the persons whose photos were used were likely to have standing, I think, but IANAL), but it _is_ important that we bring these cases to court and try to gain a new legal precedent.

I suppose you can argue that these knowledge panels are uniquely bad. But any uncommon name that you share with someone who is plausibly you on cursory examination has the same problem--regardless of search provider. If a potential employer or date turns up "your" criminal history, especially for the "right" age range and location, a lot of people will close the browser and move on.

I'm not sure how you fix that.

Even reasonably famous people can't get it fixed after years of trying. https://mobile.twitter.com/hacks4pancakes/status/13372069366...

Even if you tweet at Danny Sullivan @dannysullivan they probably can't/won't help you. But that's the most direct method I can think of. https://mobile.twitter.com/PatentScholar/status/142519790286...

The only way to "fix" it is to figure out where in the Knowledge Graph the data is coming from. The KG is made up of hundreds of sites that contribute to the Knowledge Graph. Find where the bad data is, and get that site to update the data. Then, when search engines refresh the data it will have the correct data.

If it doesn't find a photo, it will keep looking in other sources until it finds one. That means you have to fix all sources with incorrect photos which is basically impossible.

That’s not true, it doesn’t necessarily have to have a photo or image. See the explanation and comment from Danny Sullivan from Google regarding this.

Did you claim your panel: https://support.google.com/knowledgepanel/answer/7534902?hl=... ?

Why is the burden on her to 'claim' her panel? What does it even mean to 'claim' a panel? Who set the law on that? Is a 'panel' some kind of property which can be owned? if so, how did it end up as google's property? what is the claim mechanism which makes it OP's property? If OP does successfully 'claim' it, can google re-claim it? what rights does the OP get if she 'claims' the panel?

google published false information which -it has been informed is wrong and harmful -it knows is wrong and harmful (evidence: they corrected it)

Google does this at scale. You seem to be implying that this means all people now have a burden to 'claim' their google panel so they can correct google mistakes. And that you have to claim the panel google's way.

What if a phone book gives a wrong phone number for you? Why is the burden on you to contact the publisher? And who set the law on that? Is a ‘phone number’ some kind of property which can be owned? …and so on…

If you want to fix the photo issue, I would guess claiming the panel would be the easiest way. If you want to fix it once and for all, you should probably advocate for a law that would fix that. Asking nonsensical questions online probably not gonna change anything.

> Asking nonsensical questions online probably not gonna change anything.

True, true. As ever, though, the devil is in the details; and as so often, the details are matters of definition: What exactly is a "nonsensical question"?

To many of us, it's a question like: "Did you claim your panel?"

This is data from the Knowledge Graph, which is not "owned" by Google. The KG is not Google data, it's shared data amongst several search engines.

The claiming is an option given to entities as a courtesy. If they claim the Knowledge Panel (KP), they are trusted a bit more to make changes to the data that appears there.

> Is a 'panel' some kind of property which can be owned? if so, how did it end up as google's property?

You're asking how a component on Google's website belongs to Google? What?

FYI, all you can do after claiming and being verified is to 'suggest' edits. These suggestions seem to be automatically considered, and pretty much all I've found you can do is to suggest links to add. You cannot alter or remove. Source: am verified as an authorized representative.

What if you don't have/want a Google account? You'd also assume that Google would have suggested that on the initial support case.

I would ask a legal designee such as an attorney to do this for me if I was not interested in a Google account.

Will Google pay for the attorney? It doesn’t make sense that I should waste time and money on dealing with a service I never signed up for.

In this case I guess the publisher could help, but not everyone have that option.

Also aren’t Google violating copy-right by pulling random images?

Reminds me of that time google took some random guys picture and put it next to the "knowledge" panel for a serial killer:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27622100

It wasn't exactly random. They had the same ( very common for the country) name and country of origin. And multiple decades of difference in age.

But then it really was pretty "random": If the name is so common, then why exactly this guy's photo, and not one of the many others of the same name?

You may not be able to fix it but you may be able to mitigate the damage by getting the word out that "There are no photos of me anywhere online. When Google shows you a photo that is supposedly me, they are straight up lying to you."

One way to mitigate inaccurate stuff being online about you is to try to get more accurate info ranked as the top search. This HN post may help but you might also need to do an SEO blog post or something.

I'm sorry you are going through this.

maybe one could defend against this by trying and get a photo from "thisperdondoesnotexist" as the top ranked photo of you?

I'm wondering if a Wikipedia entry would help - it's an authoritative source that will come up in search.

A bunch of Wikidata entries for the book, edition and author would do the trick, and there would be no notability problem provided that the book was published by a reputable, non-vanity press.

While Google adding 1 and 1 together and coming up with 3 is a problem--especially continuing to do so even when they're told they're wrong--it's not the only issue and it's not uniquely a Google problem.

Name collisions of somewhat uncommon but not unique names were a thing long before there was a Web, much less a Google. A friend of mine in NYC shared a name with a local individual who got into a very public spat with the owner of a local sports team. My friend literally got death threats left on his answering machine.

I'm not sure what the answer is. People should probably think more carefully about putting their True Name out there attached to writing and social media presences if they don't otherwise want to have a public presence. But that's pretty useless advice retrospectively and, of course, doesn't help the people confused with someone who does want a public presence.

It's easy to lay this on Google. But if you share a name with a few other people, especially if one of them is notorious in some way, you're going to get conflated with them in searches by any search provider if e.g. a recruiter plugs your name in--so just hope you're not likely to be confused with them.

"I'm not sure what the answer is." The answer is there needs to be some sort of accountability required, where you can reach a human person who can resolve your issue. Under penalty of significant fines.

For knowledge panels, perhaps yes. Google is presenting them in a way that people unfamiliar with how Google operates might think it has verified the information.

But if you have an unusual name but share $FIRSTNAME $LASTNAME with a couple other people and one of them has been convicted of notable $CRIME, that person will turn up in searches for your name. I mean, that's what search engines do. It's up to the searcher to figure out--if they care enough to--that you are a different person.

But if your name is Jeffrey Epstein and all someone finds when they search on your name is that Jeffrey Epstein, I'm not sure what Google, Microsoft, or DuckDuckGo is supposed to do about that.

I'm not sure what accountability you're looking for in a straight web search. (Again leaving knowledge panels out of it.) You plugged in a name and a search engine returned the most popular/authoritative results for that name.

Yes, I know multiple cases of people getting attacked by angry mobs on social media because their names got unfavorable press attention that week, without any involvement of faulty knowledge panels. Sometimes drive-by attacks continue even after the subject pin a post clarifying that they are the wrong person to bark at. The problem is attacking people online (or maybe leaving death threats over the phone) has essentially zero cost.

The knowledge panel problem is easy to fix (by the right person). The assholes-gonna-asshole problem is hard to fix.

And there are also a ton of cases from an AirBnB host to a potential date to a lazy recruiter where someone decides it's just more trouble than it's worth to confirm that news story isn't actually about Person A.

How did you get in touch with Google at all?

They're displaying my full name, along with an invalid phone number at my address on Google Maps. That means my name has been on multiple maps used by others using Google Maps as a map source.

I've tried contacting them through their "remove my data form" but they don't reply. I would like to try something else before reporting them to the authorities and risking getting my Google account shut down.

If you want to, you can send me the listing privately. I'm a level something Google Local Guide and I've had wrong entries / info ( like family phone numbers showing up on wrong places under Google Maps listings) removed directly upon reporting them, presumably based on my reputation. Can't promise anything, but i can try.

This is surreal. You're a volunteer google guide, you're actually helping google by being a local guide. And now they're having free work done for them by you. Now does Google have the worst customer service, or does Google have the absolutely most terrible customer service?

I'm not doing it for them. When I'm in a new city, i use google maps to see what's what. Is that restaurant a terrible tourist trap? Do they have food that I'd like? You get the gist. Since i rely on it it's only fair that i do my part for the other people relying on it. It doesn't take a long time to leave a small review of a restaurant or museum, or correct opening hours. Certainly less than it'd take me to find the same information without Google Maps.

I too am a level something Google Guide. It really frustrates me that Google is the medium in which we cooperate. I would prefer to contribute to an open, not-for-profit platform. Unfortunately, no such platform exists and if it did, I doubt it would be as good as Google Maps. Not because of a lack of programming, design, and other talent, but because the big tech companies have made it impossible to compete. With patents, control of user discovery (via Google Search), control of availability to users (via app stores and restricted capabilities such as Android Auto & Apple CarPlay), aggressive undercutting/loss-leadership (Google Maps is free to users but businesses pay a massive premium to be seen), wide-spread suppression of debate (say something bad about a FAANG? You might never be able to work there), and absorbing of potential competition (via acquisition of any small startup that innovates in the same space), it’s virtually impossible to enter the space and survive independently.

Why not use and contribute to OpenStreetMap instead?

FWIW I appreciate what you do

First of all, thank you for the offer. I don't want this account directly liked to my person though, so I must decline.

I'm going to give two pieces of advice, one practical and one more "correct" in a moral sense.

The practical one is to choose an image (abstract icon, conceptual photo, artistic silhouette that could be considered representative of you but is not you) and put it on your personal website as your photo, along with any other social media presences you have. Knowledge Base isn't wired, at a very fundamental level of its design, to understand the notion that somebody would have no photos of themselves online and be known by people at the same time. The system is "thirsty" to fill that gap in data, and will continue to do so, forever, no matter how many times Google intervenes to manually break the link. If you feed it something intentionally to fill that gap, it will be satisfied (the system can understand a concept like the artist Sia not revealing her face in public as part of her aesthetic... It doesn't understand somebody who has no photo whatsoever).

The alternative is to tell your story to media outlets and be very loud about this problem. You are not the only one in the world who wants to be online without providing a photo, and it's not "okay" that Google doesn't understand your use case and is building products that don't understand your use case. A public discourse about this issue is the only way that Google will be incentivized to change the fundamental design of Knowledge Base and similar products. The bad news is that will be an uphill climb and take a long time (and, to be perfectly level, isn't guaranteed to bear fruit... There's no guarantee enough people care about this problem to make a big enough noise for the problem to be addressed :( ).

> they finally deleted the woman’s photo, but then promptly replaced it with another Andrea Vassell

Sounds exactly how they handle false positives in the Google Safe Browsing list.

I get that they want to avoid costs by automating everything, but if the automation has already failed for something it should not be allowed to modify that again without human review.

Same thing happened[0] to scifi author Greg Egan, who documented it and continued to update on the saga over a number of years. Google does not care.

[0] https://www.gregegan.net/ESSAYS/GOOGLE/Google.html

Yeah, you search my name, you get an info card about me - with a horrendous mugshot of a Jacksonville meth dealer with whom I share my relatively uncommon name.

I’ve had people think it’s me, several times, and likely more times than I know.

I’ve contacted google a few times, but like with most things google, it’s just a black hole.

Hi. I saw the following link being shared here a few weeks back titled 'Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results': https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27477797

This is likely not exactly the same, but you can hopefully be able to either request this yourself, or guide the pastor to fill in this request for possibly removing some of this data. I know this isn't exactly what you likely need, but hopefully it helps some.

Seems the pastor should sue Google for defamation of character.

Good call posting on HN. In all seriousness, I can't think of a better support forum for big tech problems.

Your post has probably been seen by a few dozen senior engineers at Google and I'm sure someone is already working to fix the issue.

And by Greg Egan, who has gone through the same problem.

"That's your problem, isn't it? We don't care, we don't have to. We're Google."

https://vimeo.com/355556831

I saw the same re-posting of bad data in the knowledge panel early on in its days.

I assume this is what happened: Google associated a local sports team with a stadium (old) that they used to play at, and then somehow associated the new stadium with the old stadium. The names of the stadiums were different, addresses different, they were miles away from each other, addresses on the team website were all at the new stadium... but the knowledge panel treated them as one and the same and the location ... the location of the old stadium, and the panel even swapped names here and there.

I used their feedback widget a number of times to notify them. Then for a day it would be fixed .... and somehow whatever script or 'ai' would takeover again and connect the wrong dots again and the address and names would be a jumble / wrong. I kept checking it as it was pretty amusing.

I assume someone at google had to eventually intervene, maybe many times to get things right, perhaps identify a wonky data set or something.

I assumed it only got fixed because it was a major location / sports team.

It is probably amazing tech behind the scenes but the associations / mistakes are just way too high to be left to the status quo of "no customer service, too bad for you if it is wrong". The human consequences in some cases is just too high.

Argentina vice president sued and won a case against google for similar reasons, the auto generated box said something like thief of the nation that was extracted from somewhere in internet.

Here is the link maybe it's interesting to you. https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Cristina-Fernandez-Score...

contact a lawyer immediately, do not post about this anymore online. specifically a lawyer that specializes in copyright/internet laws. do not go through any government agency to solve this or contact the BBB ; they will do nothing to help you.

What claim of harm can the OP make? The harm is primarily to other people - they need to sue Google, not the OP.

> was then replaced with the pastor in New York again

Get the first person who was attacked to be party to the lawsuit. It’s clearly lible as it’s harming their reputation leading to an attack and they are aware it was incorrect the second time they make that connection.

Perhaps EFF could at least advise.

I believe that this is a good idea – in this case it’s probably a good idea to consult a lawyer. At least to see what they say about your case.

In America the bigcorps have more power than the government (see: Twitter vs. Trump), and only the mob has some influence over the bigcorps. So good luck with lawyering up, but you're better off hacking the algorithm than going up against Google.

I guess this is short time solution. In the long run algorithm will adapt and improove untill you are powerless even with mob backing. Or more likely you would be unable ta gather any reasonably sized mob.

It's not supposed to be a libel-generating algorithm, if it improves then that would kind of solve the problem, right?

They don't call the USA a capitalist country for no reason.

It's pretty much intended that way, by design. Power to the people, who in turn gives money and clicks to megacorps that concentrate the power and obliged to answer to nobody except their P/L spreadsheet.

Well, this prompted me to check out Google's search results for my name. I have a common given and surname, so, it's no surprise there are a lot of people out there with my name. If you just type in my name, I'm nowhere to be found in the first few pages. Almost all of them seem like just regular people, but there's one unsavory character in the mix now who I'm going to be watching out for in the future.

Andrea, I know personally how frustrating this can be. I've dealt with something similar with a relative's Knowledge Panel, and dealt with this over and over with multiple people who've asked me to help them fix and update their Knowledge Panel.

The first thing that needs to be done is that YOU need to claim the KP. It appears that it's not claimed right now, and you can have control over what appears there (and suggest edits/changes/updates). If you haven't claimed the KP, then you can just leave feedback that seems to just go into a "black hole" and it's never addressed.

I know there are ways legally to deal with this, but the best way to deal with it is to claim the Knowledge Panel.

Then, there are ways to increase the knowledge that is in the Knowledge Graph so that the information there is not confusing--they're reaching for a photo, for example, and there are ways to overcome that. For example, you can use other photos (even they're not photos of yourself) to get them to populate on the KG and of someone else.

The issue here is the Knowledge Graph doesn't have enough information about you, so it's just taking the next most "prominent" data that it has. You can help define the information in the Knowledge Graph by feeding it information. You don't need to be "fighting" the KG, you should be doing quite the opposite: give it the right information so it's correct.

The Knowledge Graph is not all controlled by Google--other search engines use it, such as Bing. The issue appears to be with Google's Knowledge Panel, but the issue is actually with the Knowledge Graph itself, and not Google.

The Knowledge Graph is made up of sources (see the list here: https://kalicube.pro/trusted-sources) and by working on your own KG entry and feeding it more information, you'll be strengthening your own KG entry for your name, and all these issues with confusion and the wrong information being displayed will go away.

There's really no need to do anything legally around this, it's just a case that the KG doesn't have enough information about to make the right decisions on what to display. I don't see the FTC, BBB or IC3 helping in any way. Fastest way to correct this is to feed the KG the right information.

> The Knowledge Graph is made up of sources (see the list here: https://kalicube.pro/trusted-sources) and by working on your own KG entry and feeding it more information, you'll be strengthening your own KG entry for your name, and all these issues with confusion and the wrong information being displayed will go away.

> There's really no need to do anything legally around this, it's just a case that the KG doesn't have enough information about to make the right decisions on what to display. I don't see the FTC, BBB or IC3 helping in any way. Fastest way to correct this is to feed the KG the right information.

You may be right, but that procedure sounds an awful lot like, "If we make enough sacrifices to the sky god, maybe it will send rain, and the crops will grow again." Is this the future of having access to accurate knowledge? Throw text at a black-box AI and hope it changes its output?

> The first thing that needs to be done is that YOU need to claim the KP.

> I know there are ways legally to deal with this, but the best way to deal with it is to claim the Knowledge Panel.

Can't you even hear how ass-backwards this sounds?

The existence and wrongness of this shitty "panel" thing shouldn't be the OP's problem. She didn't build it, didn't order it, didn't ask for it, didn't want it. It is wholly, solely, only and alonely Google's problem, Google's fault, and Google's responsibility to clean up their mess.

Stop putting the onus on the OP; stop painting the "solution" in the terms -- on the terms -- of the perpetrator.

Thanks for your kind words but I just wanted to say that Google has to abide by the same rules as others who “publish” information.

For example, The New York Times cannot publish the wrong photo of a person inside of an article, then demand that someone turn over their driver’s license, a selfie, and other personal identifying information in order to have the false information deleted.

Btw, there was no guarantee they would have deleted it if I had claimed it- they said they would use their discretion. If you are going to publish something, the burden is on you to verify the information. If it cannot be verified, it cannot be published. That is not my opinion but basic journalistic ethics and the law. The problem is Google is claiming their Knowledge Panel is simply a random search result and they are not responsible for it.

I didn’t want to turn over my personal information to a corporation that had already been careless in this situation.

Furthermore, it was clear that me and the pastor were two different people as both of us have been written about in the press and have different LinkedIn accounts. Also, once they saw their knowledge graph had produced several different results, they should have deleted the the panel altogether since it was clearly not working. To leave false information up because I didn’t “claim” the knowledge panel is unethical and against the law. Forget about the fact that they are currently being sued by 36 states and the Department of Justice for unfair business practices. I wouldn’t advise anyone to give them a driver’s license and a selfie etc.

I agree with what you’re saying, but one could argue that Google is not a publisher or a nees organization. The knowledge graph isn’t owned by google, it’s a collection of data that many sources contribute to.

If google were a publisher or news or media organization it would be different.

This is the argument that needs to take place. Over the past several years, I was forced to understand what “publish” actually means in legal terms. Spoke with many lawyers. In the beginning, I was surprised to hear a lawyer refer to sending information in an email to a third party as “publishing” something.

Whenever you communicate information to a third party, you are in fact “publishing” that information, and you become liable if communicating the wrong facts. You don’t have to be a news organization to publish information or to be held liable—I just used the New York Times as an example to help someone imagine what they might think if they read a NYT article and later found out the wrong person was pictured inside of the article.

The truth is, the law applies to every single person/ entity who chooses to publish (communicate or make publicly known to an audience) information. Legally, we are all held to the same standard whether we realize it or not. Some just expect more from a company like Google, or an actual news organization. I hope this makes sense.

I suppose quite a lot of developers from Google read HN. Do you have any internal blog or some other social media to post this? Or google is so big you can't do anything even from inside? Because I worked in similarly big (although not so big) company and you can fix a lot just by posting such things internally. Because at the end of the day most people do care of such things.

It's really sad that we need to resort to shitstorms on twitter or hackernews to get simple problems fixed. Google is literally lying and spreading misinformation and causing harm to individuals, and we expect some random employee to raise it internally, because fixing one thing 4 times isn't enough.

Update: As of 10 am Chicago time, the problem has been fixed. Thank you guys so much for your comments!

I'm glad it's at least resolved for now. I'll repeat what I posted elsewhere - if it pops back up you might want to reach out to Robert Barnes - this sounds like something he would be very interested in.

https://www.barneslawllp.com/about

Random idea which probably doesn't work.

Let somebody create a pseudo realistic drawing of a imaginary person which is "not you" and try to make Google use that. The not the drawing looks like it could be a photo with a filter the better.

I have no idea if this will work, and it's not right that such a think might be needed but the idea is " if Google wants a picture give it a picture (of a person which doesn't exist)".

Or just grab one of those AI generated, "this person doesn't exist" photos .... although there might be copyright issues with it. But there is a Contact Me where you could ask for permission.

https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/

Google sometimes does these weird things. For my company that I own, Google started showing a different CEO name on the google search homepage on the right next to business name. After some digging, I found out that we have an article on our website where that person is named as the CEO (one of our clients) and google AI thought that makes them the CEO of our company lol.

In the name of connecting the dots Google's algorithm is eagerly connecting anything to anything in order to generate some output. This is interesting for a prof of concept but to rush this to production half baked is not a very smart thing to do.

Does it bring more clicks?

If it does, it's arguably a smart thing to do as long as the positives is greater than the negatives from the backlash due to wrong content...

It seems like the people most affected by this are the ones whose photos are being displayed. Why are they not dealing with this?

They are, by harassing OP; this strategy appears to be working out much better for them than anything OP has tried has for OP, since, unlike Google, OP actually responds to complaints.

In short term, how about using a AI generated face for her online profile picture, and let google assume that's her real picture? It's not the solution, but okay for time-being. In long term, I guess she could reach out to EFF or similar non-profit groups, or approach lawyers who had already fought similar cases against Google.

What a terrible situation. I would use AI to invent a photo of someone that does not exist. I don't know how you send it to Google though https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/

I know this is not at all the optimal solution, but could you set a stick-figure drawing as your "official" online photo? And then just tell google that this is the photo they should be using?

I don't know if it would work because I suspect Google has algorithms to detect faces and won't let you set something that doesn't look like a "real" face to your profile picture.

And setting a random stock image photo of someone seems like a bad idea. There's software out there that can generate a fake face that might pass the Google "real" face test, but for how long? When Google changes their algorithm, will that face get rejected and then you're back to square one.

How about you simply... provide them with a photo? Download a face here (https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/ - you may have to reload a few times to get a suitable face), and send it to Google to use as your avatar. Maybe set up a website where you feature the same photo and promote the books.

Doing ridiculous things is often the only way to deal with ridiculous problems. This seems to fit all your constraints (i.e. your face isn't visible online, and Google stops bothering innocent bystanders). That it isn't really you - who is to know? What is the harm?

Hi Andrea. Sorry that I didn’t post before. I thought our HN crowd was much smarter than anyone on this issue.

Two things: there needs to be a photo online, even something as simple “no photo for this person exists”.

Take this opportunity to put out an artwork. Something that takes your silhouette and paints in colors going across. With facial features changed to emphasize the subjects you write about. Make this the cover of your book or something. Put it up on Amazon profile.

I don’t know why this was not mentioned before. Ridiculous!

Thank you (and others) for taking the time to write suggestions but I’m more concerned with ethics and the law. Google doesn’t have the right to publish the photo of the wrong person next to my book and I hope they don’t do it again.

> I contacted the Federal Trade Commission and they told me to contact the BBB and IC3.gov. I received an automated response from BBB and I don’t understand the reasoning behind contacting IC3.gov. I am currently working on a second book which I assume will be added to this knowledge panel with the photo of the wrong woman.

I know this isn't a solution, but it might be worthwhile to reach out to your representatives and your state's Attorney General office.

There are members of congress aware of the issues algorithms and false profiling can cause for people, and working on laws to hold big tech accountable. One is Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. Perhaps contacting his office would be helpful.

https://www.meritalk.com/articles/sen-wyden-to-reintroduce-a...

Sorry to hear about your situation. It sounds awful.

Searching from the UK and I'm still seeing a picture of the reverend.

I've clicked the 'feedback' button and send a note to Google to flag the issue and suggest anyone else who wants to help does too.

It's not clear from your post whether this has already been tried, but I would expect the best thing to do is take ownership by clicking "Claim this knowledge panel" and working forward from there.

This happened to me also. Google's knowledge graph was conflating me with two other Tim McNamaras. I was surprised that they've actually fixed it.

Google cares a lot about negative PR. If you can convince people to report on the harm that gooogle has caused you might actually force them to take action.

Can relate, googling my name causes google to display the knowledge card of my college. My name and college name only share the same first two letters.

My sympathies to the OP. As others said the authority that the Google misknowledge panel implies is the most worrying of all.

Can one claim and opt out of knowledge panel at all?

My knowledge panel is bare except for my birth date which is correct but not something I want to go around sharing publicly.

Can I remove my birth date from the knowledge panel?

Should I claim the panel and try to add generic information or just ignore it? I would much prefer the 2nd option.

related article: "Google Turned me into a Serial Killer" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27622100&p=2

From the google knowledge graph wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Knowledge_Graph

> There is no official documentation of how the Google Knowledge Graph is implemented...It has been criticized for providing answers without source attribution or citation.

The Google Knowledge Graph is built on an internally defined semantics or ontology, which specifies different kinds of things represented online, like human beings. It's built on Leibniz-inspired companies like the ironically-named Freebase, which they acquired in 2010. They are cagey about the implementation, because they doubtless have some "secret-sauce" ontology. Feels weird when Google Engineers are in charge of defining essences.