US immigration is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations
theguardian.comBefore: https://web.archive.org/web/20250123200741/https://www.ice.g...
After: https://web.archive.org/web/20250206151050/https://www.ice.g...
Search result:
> ICE arrests 85 during 4-day Colorado operation - Jan 24, 2025
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It would seem that this claim boils down to:
> ICE added a "this is old" banner and google used that event to mislead people into thinking that it's new.
Maybe so, or maybe they're just too incompetent to accurately extract the publication date. But if you click the link you immediately see the banner warning you that the content is old.
If this is evidence of a conspiracy, it's not exactly a dastardly one. I see it as evidence that we need to stop using mutable media for news so that it's neither feasible to carry out ministry-of-truth type shenanigans, nor is it reasonable to accuse people of ministry-of-truth type shenanigans.
The "Updated" seemingly refers to when anything on the page changes, not just something in the news release. In this case, the change was to add a banner to the top of the page indicating that the content is archived/old, which triggered the "Updated" to change.
The most recent change before this one was as recent as November 2024. The change made at that time was to switch a phone number in the footer out for an email address, which also triggered "Updated" to change.
TL;DR: not gaming Google, just made a regular change
Bulk updating old pages with a new timestamp isn't "gaming Google"? ICE didn't just add an "this is archived" message, they also added the date. Not just that, they did it across hundreds or thousand of pages as part of an administration changeover. And no other agency is doing the same.
Sounds like basic SEO, no?