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Problems with the Google Knowledge Graph

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Google added the Knowledge Graph on 2012, May 16th. It was intended to give a quick summary of information for searches before you dived into a long search, or went down a rabbit hole. This feature had potential, but it was not implemented correctly.

The main problems include:

Lack of source attribution

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The main problem with the Knowledge Graph is the complete lack of source attribution. Information is given, but the source is most often never cited or even linked to.

Search engines like DuckDuckGo have alternatives to the Google Knowledge Graph that actually link to where the information is coming from. It is a single <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia">Wikipedia</a> tag away, come on Google, stop being so lazy!

Bias

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The Google Knowledge Graph has a history of giving biased information. Some notable incidents include:

• Recognizing the Kannada language as the "ugliest language in India" (2021)
• This list is incomplete.

It is literally just Wikipedia

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Most of the time, the results for the Google Knowledge Graph are just the summary section of the Wikipedia article on the search subject. To make this worse, Wikipedia isn't even cited as the source, so most people who use this feature have no idea that most of their knowledge is just Wikipedia. This in turn has hurt Wikipedia, as it caused a significant drop in readership and traffic. Most of the time, when someone says Source: Google what they should have said was Source: Wikipedia

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File info

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File type: Markdown (*.md *.mkd *.mdown *.markdown)

File version: 1 (2022, Friday, December 23rd at 3:58 pm PST)

Line count (including blank lines and compiler line): 103

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File history

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Version 1 (2022, Friday, December 23rd at 3:58 pm PST)

This version was made by: @seanpm2001

Changes:

• Started the file
• Added the title section
• Added the Lack of source attribution section
• Added the Bias section
• Added the It is literally just Wikipedia section
• Added the file info section
• • Added the version number
• • Added the version date
• • Added the line count
• Added the file history section
• • Added an entry for version 1
• No other changes in version 1

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