[rdtsc]

> On Election Day in 2018, the “Go Vote” reminder Google displayed on its home page gave one political party between 800,000 and 4.6 million more votes than it gave the other party

Interesting. I assumed they displayed those for everyone. Did any whistleblowers come up saying how they decided who to show that and who to not show that message? Because if they only picked out voters they assumed would vote Democrat that would be troubling. Though, I guess it is tempting to say, they are using their resources however they see fit, but even then I'd at least hope they are transparent and clear were they stand, and not try to pretend to be unbiased.

> A growing body of evidence suggests that Google employees deliberately engineer ephemeral experiences to change people’s thinking.

Does anyone from Google here even knows about or heard the phrase "ephemeral experiences"? Search suggestions I guess could change people's opinions, but I am not sure about the deliberate manipulation part, and that it's concerted internal effort.

[gundmc]

Google did show it to everyone. If you follow the link and read his "analysis", his argument boils down to the assertion that Google users overall are left of center so reminding Google users to vote unfairly benefits Democrats. Furthermore, he argues that Google could theoretically remind only subsections of the population and in doing so skew the vote more significantly at some point in the future.

Frankly the whole letter and article is quite conspiratorial and backed up only by references to his own equally bombastic claims.

[prepend]

It is quite conspiratorial. It’s really hard for Google to prove they didn’t do this as it’s proving a negative.

I think the argument boils down to since they are capable of doing so, and no one would be able to tell if they did; therefore search must be open to prevent such potential actions.

Google has been caught doing things like favoring inferior shopping searches to point to their own products. So maybe it is possible to detect and not as much of a risk.

[holy_city]

>Interesting. I assumed they displayed those for everyone

They did. Epstein's argument is this:

1. Google is run by liberals

2. Higher voter turnout is better for Democrats than Republicans.

3. The liberals that run Google used their position to increase voter turnout.

4. He uses some hand waving to approximate actual numbers

Most importantly, none of that claim is peer reviewed and he is citing himself for it, with no real way to verify if his numbers or conclusion is accurate or even realistic.

fwiw, here's his cited source:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/another-way-google-manipulates...

[superseeplus]

He is essentially claiming that encouraging voter turnout is a partisan act biased towards the Democratic Party (rather than something which makes elections fairer) and hence Google engaged in a partisan act by simply encouraging higher turnout.

[UncleMeat]

If encouraging voting is electioneering then surely withholding information about voting is as well.

And if "go vote" is a threat to democracy then I shudder to think of what newspaper endorsements, superpac advertisements and opinion news channels are. Heck, election day isn't a federal holiday so flexible work hours (which favor the professional class and therefore Republicans) must be a conspiracy to sway elections!

It's baffling that anybody takes this seriously.

[senectus1]

so he's complaining that this is a kind of digital gerrymandering?

they should just do what we do in Australia and make voting mandatory for everyone.

Fixes this issue immediately :-P and arguably is MORE democratic. (But I suspect that's going to make him unhappy as well)

[rdtsc]

> they should just do what we do in Australia and make voting mandatory for everyone.

I could see that. Or at least make it a national holiday so people can get off work.

[judge2020]

It is more democratic, but you won't see the ruling party pass laws that actively ruin their future chances of winning elections.

[i_am_nomad]

It could be that “get out the vote” drives generally benefit Democrats more than Republicans - I seem to recall reading a few studies that support this.

[mrep]

> I assumed they displayed those for everyone.

They presumably did. If you follow the link for that [0] he extrapolitaed a bunch of numbers with "more people who use Google search lean left than right" and thus telling people to go vote influences more people who vote left.

[0]: https://m.theepochtimes.com/another-way-google-manipulates-v...