Google controls what the vast majority of the world finds on the internet. Being put at the top of the Google results for search is not only immensely lucrative, it is also almost mind-bogglingly powerful in global affairs.
Since 2016, according to multiple reports, Google’s algorithm has been increasingly manipulated to bury and elevate specific information, especially politically charged information. This appears to have strong effects on what people believe and therefore how they vote and respond to polls that inform what politicians do with their power.
A 2018 Wall Street Journal investigation concluded, “The internet giant uses blacklists, algorithm tweaks and an army of contractors to shape what you see.” It reported, among other things:
More than 100 interviews and the Journal’s own testing of Google’s search results reveal:
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Google made algorithmic changes to its search results that favor big businesses over smaller ones, and in at least one case made changes on behalf of a major advertiser, eBay Inc., contrary to its public position that it never takes that type of action. The company also boosts some major websites, such as Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.
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…Despite publicly denying doing so, Google keeps blacklists to remove certain sites or prevent others from surfacing in certain types of results…
In 2016, American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology psychologist Robert Epstein published research showing Google hid negative information about Hillary Clinton. The self-described center-left researcher has also published research showing that hiding information like this influences election results. He testified before the Senate in 2019 about this subject.
The “search engine manipulation effect (SEME)” Epstein has studied, he told Congress, ” is one of the most powerful forms of influence ever discovered in the behavioral sciences, and it is especially dangerous because it is invisible to people – ‘subliminal,; in effect. It leaves people thinking they have made up their own minds, which is very much an illusion… Bottom line: biased search results can easily produce shifts in the opinions and voting preference of undecided voters by 20 percent or more – up to 80 percent in some demographic groups.”
Further, he testified, “A growing body of evidence suggests that Google employees deliberately engineer ephemeral experiences to change people’s thinking.” The appendix of his testimony notes “The methodology of SEME experiments adheres to the highest standards of research in the social and behavioral sciences. All experiments are randomized, controlled, double-blind,
and counterbalanced.”
Due to his research, Epstein was interviewed in the 2020 election cycle by Tucker Carlson and Fox News’s “The Five.” A search on YouTube, which Google owns, of the phrase “robert epstein tucker carlson” surfaced their interview at item No. 9 in the results, four or five scrolls down the list, after eight other videos containing either Tucker or Epstein but not both together.
It is very simple to fix this problem of Google tampering with your thinking: Stop using Google’s search engine and start using something else…
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