Study Shows Leftist-Biased Google Searches Stuffing Ballot Boxes For Liberals In Swing States

Posted by freedomforall 2 years, 11 months ago to Politics
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Sorry of the link is behind a paywall.
Excerpt:
"A psychologist is accusing Google of manipulating American citizens to influence the outcome of the November midterm elections.

Robert Epstein and his research team from the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology have been monitoring online political content being sent to voters in swing states. As part of the research, the team is looking into search engine results on Google and Bing, messages displayed on Google’s homepage, tweets sent by Twitter, email suppression on Gmail, auto-play videos suggested on Google-owned YouTube, and so on.

The study found over 1.9 million “ephemeral experiences” that Google and other firms were using to “shift opinions and voting preferences,” Epstein wrote in a Nov. 6 article for the Daily Caller. “Ephemeral experiences” are short-lived content that immediately disappears without leaving a trace after user consumption.

The team expects such “ephemeral experiences” to number over 2.5 million by Election Day. Epstein has identified roughly a dozen new forms of online manipulation using ephemeral experiences which are almost exclusively controlled by Google and a few other tech firms.

The impact created by the experiences is “stunning,” Epstein says.

Search engine results that favor one political candidate were found to influence undecided voters so much that up to 80 percent of such people in some demographic groups shifted their voting preferences after only a single search.

“Carefully crafted search suggestions that flash at you while you are typing a search term can turn a 50/50 split among undecided voters into a 90/10 split with no one knowing they have been manipulated,” Epstein writes.

“A single question-and-answer interaction on a digital personal assistant can shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by more than 40 percent.”

Ahead of the 2022 election, “a high level of liberal bias” is being seen in Google search results in swing states like Arizona, Florida, and Wisconsin, Epstein wrote. Search results from Bing did not indicate such bias.

In multiple swing states, liberal news sources make up 92 percent of auto-play videos being sent to YouTube users, which can potentially shift “hundreds of thousands of votes” on Election Day, he warned.

Manufacturing Bias
Back in 2020, Epstein and his team collected 1.5 million ephemeral experiences from 1,735 field agents which were “sufficient, in theory,” to shift over 6 million votes to Joe Biden’s favor. Epstein had supported Biden at the time, he said.

He found that Google sent more voting reminders to moderates and liberals than conservatives, which Epstein calls a “brazen and powerful manipulation.”

Google also “turned off all manipulations” in the 2020 Georgia Senate races after three Republican senators sent a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai which discussed Epstein’s findings on manipulation (pdf). Political bias in Google search results “dropped to zero” after the letter, he pointed out.


In an April interview with EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders,” Epstein also talked about online platforms using surveys to “help” users decide whom to vote for. In such surveys, users are given a quiz and the platforms tell them how good a match they are for specific candidates.

In an experiment, Epstein’s team found that they were able to shift a significant number of people’s voting preferences to the candidate that was presented as being their best match.

“Opinion matching is a fantastic way to manipulate people because you can shift people very, very, very dramatically, and they have no clue. They do not suspect any kind of bias or manipulation.”

About 96 percent of donations from Silicon Valley firms, including Google, go toward the Democratic Party, he added."


All Comments

  • Posted by 2 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Just like Obamacare and every other thing that freedom loving People care about.
    DC is utterly corrupt. The only one there that cares about liberty and the Constitution is Rand Paul.
    The entire bureaucracy is corrupt and almost all is unconstitutional.
    NIFO.
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 2 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Their protections are ridiculous. Almost got rid of it, but the Republicans lost interest in killing it back under Trump.
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  • Posted by mccannon01 2 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I agree with killing 230 and let the bastards fight it out in court! It may be a two edged sword, but I, for one, am tired of this crap. Of course, from what I've seen of traitor commie judges lately it may not make a difference.
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  • Posted by mccannon01 2 years, 11 months ago
    I go to YouTube often enough to get information such as how-to videos and also to view clips of people like Gutfeld, Babylon Bee, and other videos usually of Republican or so called right wing commentators. Leading up to the election there were Neo Communist ads in front of all of them and virtually zero GOP ads. Hard to believe those kind of odds.
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 2 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I understand what you are saying, but don't understand what you are recommending.

    Fine Google for editing what is on their platform? Do we fine NTY or Epoch for what is on their platform? I'm sure neither prints articles they don't like that have been submitted.

    What is the regulation? Google is not the government. First Amendment limitations do not apply to them. What law are you recommending we make? There is no law limiting Google's behavior today. A law limiting the Federal Government from using Google to censor is ABSOLUTELY on the books. It is the First Amendment, and it is likely to get to SCOTUS for this. Unfortunately there won't be any even remotely proper compensation for the damages from the Government's obvious overreach.

    Regarding Google's own behavior, I do not disagree this is a problem. I do not know what to recommend, other than what I just did. No Section 230 protections if you censor your platform. That opens Google to MASSIVE lawsuits that would just bring them down... or ... they stop censoring.

    What legislation are you recommending?
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  • Posted by 2 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Google's freedom of speech can't be used to censor the freedom of others. That is a violation of the Amendment and Google should have been fined $2 trillion as a penalty.
    Let the assholes balance the federal budget since they use the feds to suppress competition and speech.
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 2 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    No, I think it is Google's freedom of speech.

    We have had this discussion. I think Section 230 protections should be eliminated, IF there is any censoring of the platform. If you censor, you are responsible for what is there. If you leave it, you can hide behind the protection, and pass the issue on to the individual posting.

    We have Freedom of Speech, but so does Google. The problem is Google is so powerful, that their freedom of speech is too big. Here we are talking about an issue like anti-trust again.
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  • Posted by CaptainKirk 2 years, 11 months ago
    Hence they are so upset about ELON...

    "He can't put his thumb on the scale of Democracy!

    That's OUR JOB!"
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 2 years, 11 months ago
    I read this too, but couldn't get anything out of it that wasn't just freedom of speech from Google. The title was VERY misleading. Epoch has a real problem writing something simple and clear. When I read convoluted things, I immediately presume obfuscation.
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