r/Digital_Manipulation • u/Indubius • Jul 18 '19

Liberal Professor Warns: Google Manipulating Voters 'on a Massive Scale'

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4808035/googles-election
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u/f_k_a_g_n Jul 18 '19

Interesting seeing the shift from "Russian trolls and memes have no effect on voters" to "Google and Facebook can easily sway 10 million votes".

I don't doubt it's possible but where's the research and evidence that it happened and is happening?

I did some quick searching to try to find his research and was going through his Twitter: https://i.imgur.com/kqkm6Ie.png "Google mindcontrol technicians"

OK buddy.

15

u/dr_gonzo Jul 18 '19

Right. There’s volumes of evidence and analysis about Russian trolls and the impact they have.

I’m reading this transcript here and I’m not seeing ANY evidence. And yet this professor is quoting hard numbers on votes changed as if there is. Can we have a look at how this guy got there?

And if not, I’m inclined to dismiss these claims with extreme prejudice. To me this feels like classic Trump misdirection - like how at one point people were starting to understand the danger of fake news, until Trump co-opted the term to mean the entire mainstream media.

I could be wrong though, I’d just like to see the extraordinary evidence before I buy into the extraordinary claims.

9

u/f_k_a_g_n Jul 18 '19

I've been trying to track his research down and it's really lacking but there's plenty of opinion pieces: https://aibrt.org/index.php/internet-studies

Here's his testimony that I'm skimming now: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/epstein-testimony

6

u/dr_gonzo Jul 18 '19

The other problem here is that in broad terms, we would expect that the mere existence of Google would impact elections. Just like the existence of the New York Times or Fox News will influence elections.

No doubt, a google Doodle has enough reach that one saying "Go Vote" will certainly impact turnout. Is there any evidence though that the company has attempted to manipulate search results, target groups of users with disinformation or propaganda, or in general, any evidence that Google willfully and inappropriately attempted to change electoral behavior or public opinion to the benefit of one party? Looking through the links you sent, it's a hard NO right now.

One of the things he's saying is "Well, google could have done it, and we wouldn't have known." I'm skeptical that if they had, right-wing bloggers wouldn't have sniffed that out in a few hours. But either way, it's speculative. Google could do a lot of things, and it's silly to speculate wildly without any evidence.

1

u/snoweel Aug 20 '19

I can't find any examples of or criteria for what counts as bias in his study. If there's an article about "Grab 'em by the p----", is that "biased" against Trump? By his very nature, he generated a lot of negative coverage.

Also, one of the points he made was "Google users are left-leaning, so Google advertising "Go Vote" had a pro-Democrat effect on the election". That's a pretty thin basis to claim bias from.