I appreciate your comment, Alan. The author agrees with your assessment of the author's naïvete ;)
Honestly, I wrestled over how to phrase that part, for exactly that reason - I worried it might imply that I thought something I don't think. I figured that the warping was covered by the references to filter bubbles and throttling. Of course Google isn't an impartial pass-through, but what I was trying to hit (and may very well have failed at making clear) was that I feel there's a qualitative difference between indexing sources and being a source. Even if Google selects what sources you see in a search result, you're still seeing third-party sources. When Google becomes the source, it's a different order of manipulation, even if manipulation is already present.
Anyway, I'm glad I warmed your heart, even for a moment. Thank you for reading, and for commenting.
I appreciate your comment, Alan. The author agrees with your assessment of the author's naïvete ;)
Honestly, I wrestled over how to phrase that part, for exactly that reason - I worried it might imply that I thought something I don't think. I figured that the warping was covered by the references to filter bubbles and throttling. Of course Google isn't an impartial pass-through, but what I was trying to hit (and may very well have failed at making clear) was that I feel there's a qualitative difference between indexing sources and being a source. Even if Google selects what sources you see in a search result, you're still seeing third-party sources. When Google becomes the source, it's a different order of manipulation, even if manipulation is already present.
Anyway, I'm glad I warmed your heart, even for a moment. Thank you for reading, and for commenting.