| >In 2016, biased search results generated by Google’s search algorithm likely impacted undecided voters in a way that gave at least 2.6 million votes to Hillary Clinton. This is the most important claim that he makes, and as far as I can tell, he gives zero backing for it. He has two citations. The first citation is a paper showing that re-ordering search results to show links to articles that favor candidate A will cause readers to favor candidate A. The second citation does not give any explanation for the 2.6 million figure. ---- Let's take a look at the second citation: https://www.theepochtimes.com/10-ways-big-tech-can-shift-mil... >I found pro-Clinton bias in all 10 search positions on the first page of Google’s search results. [...] Because, as I noted earlier, Google’s search algorithm is not constrained by equal-time rules, it almost certainly ends up favoring one candidate over another in most political races, and that shifts opinions and votes. This is literally true but realistically meaningless. Suppose that there are two candidates for office, A and B. Days before the election, it is revealed that candidate A fucks dogs. The news publishes many articles about candidate A fucking dogs. Google places those articles highly in search results, and many voters see them. Has Google shown pro-candidate B bias by showing those articles? Obviously not. Unless Epstein can show that a viewpoint-neutral ranking would have produced a different result, what he has is meaningless. |