Why Google Search Results Favor Democrats by By Daniel Trielli, Sean Mussenden, and Nicholas Diakopoulos.
From the post:
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As early as 2010, researchers at Harvard University started finding evidence that Google’s search rankings were not so objective, favoring its own products over those of competitors. A Federal Trade Commission investigation into the conglomerate in 2012 also indicated evidence that the company was using its monopoly power to help its own businesses. So it’s no secret that Google search results aren’t a font of objective and unbiased information. Now, as we enter into prime-time politics season in the U.S., the searching for candidates is heating up. So what do Google’s biased search results mean for the election and for democracy itself?
Google is not fair; it favors some candidates, and it opposes others. And so far, it seems to prefer Democrats.
Our crowdsourced analysis of Google search results on Dec. 1 for the names of 16 presidential candidates revealed that Democrats fared better than Republicans when it came to supportive and positive sites within the first page of results. Democrats had, on average, seven favorable search results in those top 10, whereas GOP candidates had only 5.9.
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You should search for some of the presidential candidates for yourself. My experience wasn’t the one reported by Trielli and friends. At least for the major candidates, Sanders, Clinton, Trump, Rubio, the first ten results had campaign homepages, twitter pages, wikipedia articles, etc.
Clinton did have an article on the latest from her email scandal and there was a recycled (Aug. 2015) link to a New Yorker piece on Trump trying to tie him to white extremists.
Clinton’s email scandal is a “truther” issue and not of interest to any sane person and people are voting for Trump because he may be a white extremist. I don’t see how either link, although “negative,” hurt either candidate.
Trielli and company go on to say how people trust Google search results and therefore Google has some special obligation play fair.
Google may feel that way but the criteria for search isn’t truth but satisfaction of the user’s search request. In some cases that may include accurate, factual information but only by happenstance.
I’m leery of anyone who wants to police the food I consume, the television channels (if any) I watch and to police search results on my behalf.
If you thought vendors have an agenda, you haven’t meet many “officious intermeddlers” recently. 😉
While I appreciate the concern over search content, I prefer to judge those results on my own.
You?