Slashdot Mirror
Internet Search Engines May Be Influencing Elections
sciencehabit writes: Thomas Epstein, a research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research in Vista, California, has found that the higher a politician ranks on a page of Internet search results, the more likely you are to vote for them — 80% more likely in some cases. The story also suggests that the folks at Google may already be influencing elections. "Google's algorithm has been determining the outcome of close elections around the world," says Epstein. As predicted, subjects spent far more time reading Web pages near the top of the list (abstract). But what surprised researchers was the difference those rankings made: Biased search results increased the number of undecided voters choosing the favored candidate by 48% compared with a control group that saw an equal mix of both candidates throughout the list.
The researchers saw the most pronounced effects, as you'd expect, when their study included candidates that the subjects had no prior knowledge on. In their first study, they asked Californians about 2010 candidates for PM of Australia.
In their followup, they again note that it's only really effective on people who don't know what's going on (and aren't likely voters anyway): "Divorcees, Republicans, and subjects who reported low familiarity with the candidates were among the easiest groups to influence, whereas participants who were better informed, married, or reported an annual household income between $40,000 and $50,000 were harder to sway. Moderate Republicans were the most susceptible of any group: The manipulated search results increased the number of undecided voters who said they would choose the favored candidate by 80%."
When they tried a third study in India, about Indian elections, that impressive 80% figure dropped to only 12% (of undecided voters).
Donald Trump it is.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
and door knocks, too. and the answer is, heck yes, they damn well better influence elections, we're spending a tubload of money for it.
something else that influences elections... if you see a candidate that is batwing insane babbling total bullshit, remember that. don't vote for them.
there, now I'm evil, too. bwa-ha-haaaa, vote for tweedeldum.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Yes. Letting them decide for themselves ends in a random decision worst case, canceling each other out. Letting Google decide for them basically gives Google their votes- which is enough to tip a close election. That's way too much power to give 1 company. Giving it to the media at least spread it out among a dozen.
Now if you want to argue that they shouldn't vote at all in that case, you have a good argument.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
First "Correlation is not causation" post!
Righteo. Specifically, assuming Google's PageRank algorithm is at work, a more "popular" candidate presumably would get linked more. So, is the popularity creating the links, or are the links producing the popularity?
As someone whose websites have experienced link spamming (by misguided bots that weren't smart enough to realize that my sites aren't popular enough to bother with), I can imagine a future political scandal in which some politician - or more likely a bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed aide - gets caught hiring a bot farm for this very purpose. For those who would like to play: maybe Hilliary Clinton's former email administrator could get that set up for you. (Chris Christie, are you listening?)
"Internet Search Engines May Be Influencing Elections". It's the media's job to influence elections!
These low information voters usually stay out and do not vote at all. Or they vote based on inertia, "we always vote for DMK or BJP or CPI-M".If they take the trouble do a minimal google search before voting it is a step in the right direction. Do not make the perfect the enemy of the good. They may have a long way to go. But at least they have started the process.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It's also likely that their ranking is higher because people are searching for those candidates more. A simple case of reverse causation.
That is all.
An internal system operation returned the error "The operation completed successfully.".
From TFA:
Except that it is an exaggeration.
So if someone searched for material on Abbott ... it would show sites for Gillard?
Like if you did a search for how to do something in Linux ... but all you got back were Microsoft pages.
I'd dump that browser. Is that an option? If not, then your "research" is flawed.
More likely that they didn't care enough to void your "research".
So someone who cannot be bothered to do any research on the people who are actually running is 12% more likely to vote the way a computer suggests s/he should?
How about another experiment where something positive is compared to something negative? How would you go about manipulating the search results to that "kick me in the face" is chosen over "give me ice cream"?
Undecided voters are undecided because:
a. there isn't any real difference between politicians.
b. THEY DO NOT CARE WHO WINS.
Give them a reason to care and see if the results are the same.
...Biased search results increased the number of undecided voters choosing the favored candidate by 48% compared with a control group that saw an equal mix of both candidates throughout the list....
The article seems to paint the search engines as some sort of evil, brain-washing entity. Beware, the search engines can make you vote the way they want you to vote!
.
Yet the article offers no evidence that the search engines are intentionally skewing their results. Indeed, the article actually does say, "Presumably Google isn’t intentionally tweaking its algorithms to favor certain presidential candidates, but Epstein says it would extremely difficult to tell if it were."
So it looks like yet another researcher in search (no pun intended) of headlines.
First "Correlation is not causation" post!
Righteo. Specifically, assuming Google's PageRank algorithm is at work, a more "popular" candidate presumably would get linked more. So, is the popularity creating the links, or are the links producing the popularity?
But it's not just "creating" popularity -- it's SUSTAINING it. If something is linked a lot, those links don't die overnight -- but election dynamics change. Do search engine link rankings change fast enough to keep up? Or do they end up reinforcing the status quo?
It's the reason I stopped using Google back in 2012. I had heard about the filter bubble effects, but I saw it firsthand. Some people may remember the Ron Paul fiascos in some of the Republican primaries back in 2012. I wasn't really a Ron Paul supporter, but I got interested in the story. So, I'd periodically Google "Ron Paul" or whatever to see what new things might have happened or commentary might be out there.
After a few weeks, I suddenly started to see Ron Paul links show up higher in my search results. Google News would start showing me a lot of Ron Paul headlines, even if I just browsed the Google News homepage (without any search terms at all). I compared my results with a friend and saw that my hits and link rankings were being tailored to what Google thought must be "what I want to see."
I didn't want my news skewed in that way, but Google "helpfully" tried to appease me (without asking and without a transparent way to control it).
So, the effects on elections won't just be swaying voters toward more popular candidates. With "personalization" and "history-based" rankings, search engines can become a sort of personal feedback loop for political views... what you're interested in becomes reinforced.
To me, that process is perhaps even more dangerous in elections than random ranking effects in search engines. It leads to polarization and extremism. It leads to people always seeing "what they want to see" and not having to confront conflicting perspectives on issues and candidates who don't agree with them. That generally isn't a good path to nuanced political discussion.
Good Morning America spent like 10 minutes discussing that Donald Trump was the most searched for of the GOP candidates, like that is news in itself.
Thus begins the downward spiral, feeding in on itself...
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
Wouldn't be the biggest asshole of the more recent past.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
in Britain the higher a politician ranks on a search engine the more likely it is because s/he is somehow involved or implicated in allegations of serious child abuse.
Do you want a paedophile running the country?
(apparently there has been at least one (Edward Heath)).
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Biased search results increased the number of undecided voters choosing the favored candidate by 48% compared with a control group that saw an equal mix of both candidates throughout the list.
Causation == causation.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
If a candidate is popular, articles will be written about them, and their SEO will increase. (Yes, this may further increase their popularity, but they were already popular.) If anything, their original popularity is driving their Google rank *and* their likelihood of winning the election. I think the researcher takes two "effects," and says one is actually causing the other.
This study is really only interesting for its focus on "undecided voters," but in many electorates this is a really small sliver of the general electorate, so it's hard to say what exactly is swaying them. I mean, are people really Googling "Who should I vote for?", and then just reading the first few articles and deciding "Okay, this first one sounds good.,,"
Thomas Epstein, a research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research in Vista, California, might make a great Janitor but completely lacks the ability to understand cause and effect.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
The reason American elections usually go to the candidate with the most money is you need to win the bidding war for the media. The current trend is for people to replace the media with AI that selects their entertainment and news and filters out everything else. Currently that AI is owned by Google, but that will change.
Then that would be okay.
No it would not...
But hey let us VOTE on it!
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
You failed: if you had made first post with "correlation does not imply causation" you would win 1000 internets.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
So the argument is that a politicians placement in google search results influences election results.
I think it's quaint that the authors imagine that American voters are curious enough to look up politicians online in order to inform their vote yet too lazy to read past the first few entries in Google.
"Post proc, ergo propter hoc"
The top results in Google are the stories flying around social media, and the stories flying around social media are the only stories most Americans are exposed to.
Ken
Page rank ranks a site based on how many sites links to it. If A candidate is popular, there will likely be a lot written about him/her.
There is a lot written about the politician who's name began with H and who died in 1945 (avoiding Godwin). So he is popular?