[librvf]

I doubt they're manipulating this sort of thing.

But, when you're engineering search results to manipulate public perception, you don't just obliterate all of the undesirable content with hamfisted obviousness. You just weight the content differently. Maybe you ensure that anyone already looking for that content can find it, but ensure that a more generic search is favorable. Maybe you just manipulate the heap to ensure the top result is the good one. Maybe you merely aim for a favorable ratio of desirable to undesirable content.

Consider: "best search engine"

The results are full of discussions about alternate search engines. Both duckduckgo and dogpile make the front page. Yet, the #1 result is an article about how Google is the most popular search engine: https://www.reliablesoft.net/top-10-search-engines-in-the-wo...

Is that true? Sure. Is the result manipulated? Probably not. But if I was google and I was going to manipulate a search result, that's exactly how I'd do it. I'd maintain the illusion of impartiality by presenting lots of alternatives, but I'd ensure the most prominent result was the one I wanted.

In any case: a quick search is insufficient to detect search bias and proves nothing.