4 ms·

I'm now regularly seeing search results bury political pages which seem to run counter bay area political views. I'll search the terms on Bing and DuckDuckGo a

I'm now regularly seeing search results bury political pages which seem to run counter bay area political views. I'll search the terms on Bing and DuckDuckGo and the page I'm expecting will be the first hit, but on Google it'll be on page 3 or 4. Clearly they keep the hit in the search results for plausible deniability, but they're trying to influence people by suppressing speech. Given that Google is becoming synonymous with the internet, like AOL, this is a very concerning trend.

hedora 8y ago
Any examples? (DDG fan here; curious to know if it is filter bubbling, or something else.)
- nekitamo 7y ago
  One example is the story of the sons of John Kerry and Joe Biden partnering together to form a private equity fund which received money from the Chinese government, and then using that money to acquire strategically sensitive assets, in some cases partnering with firms accused by the US government of hacking US companies for intellectual property: https://nypost.com/2018/03/15/inside-the-shady-private-equity-firm-run-by-kerry-and-bidens-kids/ https://nypost.com/2018/03/15/inside-the-shady-private-equit... They did all this while their fathers were undertaking sensitive high-level negotiations with the Chinese government. If you try Googling for keywords related to this story, Google will claim to have indexed thousands of related pages, but will only serve 33 search results: https://www.google.com/search?q=biden+kerry+Rosemont+Seneca+Henniges https://www.google.com/search?q=biden+kerry+Rosemont+Seneca+... If you enter the same keywords into Bing you will be served thousands upon thousands of search results without any of Google's limiting or censorship: https://www.bing.com/search?q=biden+kerry+rosemont+seneca+Henniges https://www.bing.com/search?q=biden+kerry+rosemont+seneca+He... One interesting thing to note is that most of the websites which picked up this story are right-wing, and that Google appears to simply be blacklisting non-mainstream right-wing websites from its search results. Whether or not this is due to any implicit ideological bias on Google's part is uncertain.
  - int_19h 7y ago
    I see an article covering this story with both links. Google serves The Hill first, while Bing serves NYPost. On the whole, Google results seem to be better, although this may have something to do with the more detailed profile they have on me as their user.
SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
>I’m now regularly seeing search results bury political pages which seem to run counter bay area political views. This has been a well known occurrence. I’m think about all those pictures of “Hillary Clinton is” [0] typed into each search engine and Google was polar opposite of all others. I think one needs to be pretty obtuse to not see Google is “curating” results to fit an ideology. Everyone should be mad at that even if they believe in the same things. EDIT: Well... apparently some people don't believe me, so I just re-tested. "Hillary Clinton i" in four engines. I couldn't use "Hillary Clinton is" because "for some reason" Google guessing completely stops working when you type "is" after her name - can someone find me another phrase besides "Hillary Clinton" that "breaks" the search fill when "is" gets added? No? Well.. That sure seems like Google is "curating" then. [0] https://i.postimg.cc/MTkdFb14/Hillary-Clinton-I.png https://i.postimg.cc/MTkdFb14/Hillary-Clinton-I.png
- Buge 7y ago
  Google has milder suggestions for Donald Trump, just like for Hillary Clinton: https://i.imgur.com/0KkKTpJ.png https://i.imgur.com/0KkKTpJ.png > can someone find me another phrase besides "Hillary Clinton" that "breaks" the search fill when "is" gets added? Jeb Bush: https://i.imgur.com/xrxrEy2.png https://i.imgur.com/xrxrEy2.png https://i.imgur.com/f9OBDDH.png https://i.imgur.com/f9OBDDH.png
  - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
    Good point on Trump. All the same though, it’s clear “the algorithm” gets a heavy hand.

hedora 8y ago

Any examples? (DDG fan here; curious to know if it is filter bubbling, or something else.)

nekitamo 7y ago
One example is the story of the sons of John Kerry and Joe Biden partnering together to form a private equity fund which received money from the Chinese government, and then using that money to acquire strategically sensitive assets, in some cases partnering with firms accused by the US government of hacking US companies for intellectual property: https://nypost.com/2018/03/15/inside-the-shady-private-equity-firm-run-by-kerry-and-bidens-kids/ https://nypost.com/2018/03/15/inside-the-shady-private-equit... They did all this while their fathers were undertaking sensitive high-level negotiations with the Chinese government. If you try Googling for keywords related to this story, Google will claim to have indexed thousands of related pages, but will only serve 33 search results: https://www.google.com/search?q=biden+kerry+Rosemont+Seneca+Henniges https://www.google.com/search?q=biden+kerry+Rosemont+Seneca+... If you enter the same keywords into Bing you will be served thousands upon thousands of search results without any of Google's limiting or censorship: https://www.bing.com/search?q=biden+kerry+rosemont+seneca+Henniges https://www.bing.com/search?q=biden+kerry+rosemont+seneca+He... One interesting thing to note is that most of the websites which picked up this story are right-wing, and that Google appears to simply be blacklisting non-mainstream right-wing websites from its search results. Whether or not this is due to any implicit ideological bias on Google's part is uncertain.
- int_19h 7y ago
  I see an article covering this story with both links. Google serves The Hill first, while Bing serves NYPost. On the whole, Google results seem to be better, although this may have something to do with the more detailed profile they have on me as their user.

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago

>I’m now regularly seeing search results bury political pages which seem to run counter bay area political views. This has been a well known occurrence. I’m think about all those pictures of “Hillary Clinton is” [0] typed into each search engine and Google was polar opposite of all others. I think one needs to be pretty obtuse to not see Google is “curating” results to fit an ideology. Everyone should be mad at that even if they believe in the same things. EDIT: Well... apparently some people don't believe me, so I just re-tested. "Hillary Clinton i" in four engines. I couldn't use "Hillary Clinton is" because "for some reason" Google guessing completely stops working when you type "is" after her name - can someone find me another phrase besides "Hillary Clinton" that "breaks" the search fill when "is" gets added? No? Well.. That sure seems like Google is "curating" then. [0] https://i.postimg.cc/MTkdFb14/Hillary-Clinton-I.png https://i.postimg.cc/MTkdFb14/Hillary-Clinton-I.png

Buge 7y ago
Google has milder suggestions for Donald Trump, just like for Hillary Clinton: https://i.imgur.com/0KkKTpJ.png https://i.imgur.com/0KkKTpJ.png > can someone find me another phrase besides "Hillary Clinton" that "breaks" the search fill when "is" gets added? Jeb Bush: https://i.imgur.com/xrxrEy2.png https://i.imgur.com/xrxrEy2.png https://i.imgur.com/f9OBDDH.png https://i.imgur.com/f9OBDDH.png
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  Good point on Trump. All the same though, it’s clear “the algorithm” gets a heavy hand.