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There's No Evidence That Google Is Manipulating Searches To Help Hillary Clinton (vox.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the conspiracy-theory dept.

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Vox: A recent report via SourceFed surfaced suggesting that Google is suppressing the phrase "Hillary Clinton crimes" from autocomplete results, thus helping her candidacy. In the video, it shows that if you type "Donald Trump rac," Google will suggest the word "racist" to complete the phrase. However, if you type "Hillary Clinton cri," Google will suggest "crime reform" and "crisis" but not "crimes," despite the fact that Google Trend results show that people search for "Hillary Clinton crimes" a lot more than "Hillary Clinton crime reform." The video suggests some sort of reliance between the Clinton campaign and Eric Schmidt. But Vox reports there's a simpler explanation: "Choose any famous American who has been accused of a serious crime and Google their name followed by the letters "cri," and in no case does Google suggest the word "crimes." Apparently, Google has a policy of not suggesting that customers do searches on people's crimes. I have no inside knowledge of why it runs its search engine this way. Maybe Google is just uncomfortable with having an algorithm suggesting that people search for other people's crimes. In any event, there's no evidence that this is specific to Hillary Clinton, and therefore no reason to think this is a conspiracy by Google to help Clinton win the election." Earlier this week, Julian Assange stated Google is "directly engaged" with the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. It goes hand-in-hand with SourceFed's report, as they both mention Eric Schmidt's role in helping the Clinton campaign. Assange said, "The chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, set up a company to run the digital component of Hillary Clinton's campaign."

31 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Not quite true by Ulfilas2000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That isn't quite true - doing a search for Clinton FBI similarly does not return the FBI probe links, but crime is not in the phrase. Google is biased, and may be ok for technical searches but no longer for news or loaded searches.

    1. Re:Not quite true by HiThere · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well, if I search for "Hillary Clinton FBI probe" it returns the expected responses, and if I search for "Richard Nixon FBI" it doesn't suggest probe, but if I add probe it returns news of Watergate. So there's no evidence indicating that you are correct. I'd guess they probably don't link off of really short words, but I haven't really checked.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  2. Not in other languages by johanneswilm · · Score: 5, Informative

    That poilcy doesn't work in other languages. Try searching for "Hillary Clinton kri" in Germany and one of the suggestions is "Hillary Clinton Kriegsverbrecher" (war criminal). Same in Norwegian with general secretary of NATO: "Jens Stoltenberg kri" gives both "krigsforbryter" (war criminal) and "kriminell" (criminal).

    1. Re:Not in other languages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      If he hadn't been beaten, shot, and sodomized with a bayonet during his capture by opposition forces, Muammar Gaddafi might disagree with your sentiment. He isn't saying much these days, mostly on account of Hillary Clinton's quote: "We Came, We Saw, He Died." -PCP

    2. Re:Not in other languages by Kohath · · Score: 2

      What motive would they have for hiding information from Germans? Do you think people who search the web in German are a significant voting bloc in the US?

      You might want to try searching for New Year's Eve sexual assault by migrants though. Try it in English.

  3. Google favors Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I searched "Donald Trump ban" and bankruptcy was not one of the top results. Your turn...

  4. Case closed by Kohath · · Score: 5, Funny

    I searched Google for "secret plan to manipulate search results to help Hillary" and got zero hits on documents detailing their secret plans. Hence no evidence. Case closed. Glad I could definitively debunk this paranoid conspiracy so fast.

    1. Re:Case closed by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I searched duckduckgo for "secret plan to manipulate search results to help Hillary" - and all the results start with "Did Google..."

      The results for the same search on Google start with "There's No Evidence..." or "Google denies", but to be fair there is also a link to the whack jobs at zerohedge...

      --
      This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
  5. Usual "quality" editing by chipschap · · Score: 3, Interesting

    From TFS:

    "The video suggests some sort of reliance between the Clinton campaign and Eric Schmidt."

    Um, could that be alliance? Or do Schmidt and Clinton rely upon one another?

    Does anybody out there edit this stuff any longer?

  6. There are TEN examples by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The article gives TEN, count 'em, TEN examples of Google's tampering, not just the one silly example cited in this silly Vox blog post. And I'm sure there are many, many, many more.

  7. so what... by The_Rook · · Score: 4, Interesting

    if republicans were so concerned about biased political reporting from media outlets, they could always restore the fairness doctrine.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine

    --
    when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
    1. Re:so what... by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 4, Informative

      If they're so concerned with biased 'reporting', I'm sure they went batshit crazy when the CEO of the largest supplier of voting machines promised to Deliver Ohio to a presidential candidate

      Oh wait, that was a Republican for Bush so that wasn't a problem...

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    2. Re:so what... by ScentCone · · Score: 3, Interesting

      if republicans were so concerned about biased political reporting from media outlets, they could always restore the fairness doctrine

      Republicans don't mind media outlets and news sources having an editorial slant. They just like to point out that when people claim that, for example, the New York Times isn't backing the Democrats, they're wrong.

      No, they're not going to be looking to bring back what the liberals want: counter-constitutional government censorship of political expression. That's the left's game, they love that crap.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    3. Re:so what... by Kohath · · Score: 2

      Read the link you just posted. It's about broadcast TV and radio stations. Is Google a broadcast TV or radio station?

      Also, the Fairness Doctrine has been gone for almost 30 years now. Try coming up with a complaint that's less than a quarter century out of date.

    4. Re:so what... by ScentCone · · Score: 2

      I'll take legally mandated fairness over a small handful of people telling the majority what to think via their media empires.

      You've got it backwards. The "fairness doctrine" is government control of political speech (a direct violation of the first amendment) that exactly IS a "small handful of people" deciding who can say what. It's an agency of the federal government run by one of the president's political appointees deciding what is or isn't "fair" about someone expressing their opinion. Or, you could have what we have now: countless media outlets, millions of blogs and feeds, and endless innovation giving more and more platforms to anyone who wants to produce videos or string two words together in support or criticism of any person, party, idea or cause. But YOU would rather that a government bureaucrat notice that your YouTube musings aren't balanced enough in favor of Donald Trump, and so you must either support him as much as you support your preferred candidate, or be silenced by the government?

      History tells us that doesn't end well.

      No, history tells us EXACTLY why the founders of this nation made the first amendment so succinct. Because they didn't want people like you giving up someone else's liberty so you don't have to feel like someone else's thoughts are out there making your nanny state Safe Space a place where you might have to actually think for yourself and express yourself.

      There's never been a time when people could more easily be heard and hear expression from every part of the ideological spectrum. The people who want the "fairness doctrine" back are transparently yearning for the power to silence those they don't like. It's as simple as that. Lefty totalitarians stamping their feet because even though they run the majority of the traditional broadcast and print outlets, they're offended that anyone might have a different opinion.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  8. Negative Terms Blocked by Luthair · · Score: 5, Informative

    I thought that they started blocking suggesting negative terms as it was too easy to google bomb names?

    1. Re:Negative Terms Blocked by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      It's also a libel issue. Courts don't tend to buy the "it's an algorithm" argument because Google clearly controls and continually optimises it. They seem to consider people innocent until proven guilty.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  9. So I tried...and it's odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Instead of just using the autocomplete, I typed "Hillary Clinton Crimes" into Google, Bing and Duck duck go.
    Both Bing and DDG show up similar results about HC's crimes.
    Google shows all top results with "HC and Google not cooperating to hide crimes" and "HC did not commit any crimes.

    I suspect that no matter how your sugar coat it, Google returns positive results about HC while everyone else does not. Odd.

  10. It's true by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

    There's No Evidence That Google Is Manipulating Searches To Help Hillary Clinton

    It's true. I searched for evidence on Google and couldn't find any.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  11. And yet... by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 2

    And yet if you search for things like "Trump" and "racist" like SourceFed did, you sure get results from Google. Ditto for stuff on Bernie. To me, the damning evidence is the "trending" searches on each candidate. Hillary searches are very much linked with things like Benghazi and her email scandal, yet those results just aren't showing like "racist Trump," even though searches for those terms are just as popular.

    If Google has a policy about pushing down search results for ANYTHING, regardless of who or what it is, that's a bad thing. Search engines should be as neutral as humanly and algorithmically possible. Otherwise, even if this is a perfectly innocent "mistake" by Google, it gives the APPEARANCE of bias.

    --
    In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  12. Re:Nice Try by matbury · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That article is extremely narrowly framed. Essentially, they're saying, "Hey look, Google aren't manipulating public opinion about Hillary Clinton in this one, very specific way!" Looks like a straw-man argument to me.

  13. deeper than google... by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 3, Interesting

    About 1.5 hours ago I could reproduce the results of this video

    And now, mysteriously (even non-google) searches for "hillary clinton ind" are mostly coming up with "indiana" instead of "indictment"... weird.

    of course, maybe in the last hour, zillions of sock puppets are searching and clicking thru on indiana...

    --
    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
  14. All politicians lie by reboot246 · · Score: 2

    Bill and Hillary just do it better than most.

    Now that Google is in the political game, there's no reason to believe that Google doesn't lie, too. "There's no evidence" is clearly a lie of the first order. Hey, they're pretty good at it! Just like Bill and Hillary, they've learned to deny, deny, deny.

    If you say something often enough, a lot of people will believe it whether it's true or not.

  15. The evidence was in the video by steveha · · Score: 5, Informative

    The headline is "There's No Evidence" but there was evidence presented in the video. Decisive evidence? Persuasive evidence? You decide.

    For me, the most persuasive part was where they used Google Trends to see how popular the autocompleted searches actually were. The autocomplete suggested "hillary clinton crime reform" yet Google Trends said that search didn't happen often enough to graph. It was super rare and yet it was the most popular completion to "hillary clinton cri"?

    Okay, let's ask Google Trends what is popular. I am providing you with clickable links so you can see the graphs for yourself. "hillary clinton indicted" vs. "hillary clinton indiana"
    https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=hillary%20clinton%20indicted%2C%20hillary%20clinton%20indiana&cmpt=q

    Hmm, "indiana" was roughly as searched for in May as "indicted" but searches for "indiana" have dropped to near zero while "indicted" shot way up. So Google Trends says "indicted" is much more searched for than "indiana".

    Here, let's add in "hillary clinton india" as another item on the graph.
    https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=hillary%20clinton%20indicted%2C%20hillary%20clinton%20indiana%2C%20hillary%20clinton%20india&cmpt=q

    Nope, "hillary clinton india" clearly isn't a popular search.

    Okay, for "hillary clinton cri" what is the more searched-for completion, "hillary clinton criminal" or "hillary clinton crime reform"?

    https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=hillary%20clinton%20criminal%2C%20hillary%20clinton%20crime%20reform&cmpt=q

    When they tried it they couldn't even get a graph for "crime reform" but by asking for a comparison of the two I got a graph. And wow, slam-dunk win for "criminal", way more searches.

    Okay, I decided to try one on my own. I went to Bing and typed "hillary clinton cor" and the top suggestion was "hillary clinton corruption" Google? The top suggestions were "hillary clinton corporate" and "hillary clinton correct the record"

    Okay, Google Trends, which of those three is the most popular?

    https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=hillary%20clinton%20corruption%2C%20hillary%20clinton%20corporate%2C%20hillary%20clinton%20correct%20the%20record&cmpt=q

    And it's "corruption" by a large margin.

    Interestingly, there is a completely different autocomplete for Google News results.

    "hillary clinton cri" -> "hillary clinton criminal prosecution", "hillary clinton criminal video"

    "hillary clinton ind" -> "hillary clinton indictment for emails", "hillary clinton indiana", "hillary clinton indianapolis"

    "hillary clinton cor" -> "hillary clinton correct the record", "hillary clinton cory booker", "hillary clinton corruption reddit"

    Now, Google claims that what is going on is just a standard thing where they block certain terms like "criminal" from searches. This story from The Verge argues, persuasively, that Google is telling the truth. http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/10/11906912/google-denies-autocomplete-search-manipulation-hillary-clinton

    The most interesting point: most of the people searching for dirt on Hillary Clinton don't bother to type her full name, and the autocomplete gives more negative results if you just search for "hillary". Let's try that.

    "hillar

    --
    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
    1. Re:The evidence was in the video by Cytotoxic · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There seems to be more going on than google's first blush take. (this ends up being long as I try search terms, but stick with me, it might go somewhere)

      There are several terms from the 90's about the Clintons that should be of relevance to people wanting to research that period.

      Rose Law Billing records. Vince Foster. Or how about a generic politician term: Corruption.

      Searches for "Hillary Clinton billing records" autosuggest on bing after you get to "bill", but on Google the autocomplete not only doesn't suggest that, it goes blank after you type "billi"

      Same for Vince Foster. "Vin" gets the suggestion on bing. But you get to "Vinc" on Google and suggest goes blank.

      Corruption: Just type the "C" on bing and "Corruption", "Crimes" and "Cattle Futures" come up. On google you have to go all the way to "Corr" to get the suggestion of "corruption reddit". Something that doesn't appear on Bing at all.

      For Trump - on Bing type in "Donald Trump R" and get the number one suggestion, "racist". On Google you have to go to "Rac" to get a list of Donald Trump racist suggestions.

      Trump on Bing - Bankruptcy comes up after "B", on google it comes up after "Bancr"

      Trump and Lie - Bing suggests after li, Google gives two related suggestions after "Lie" Since those are generic politician terms, let's check Hillary. Bing suggests after the "L". Google gives a suggestion to a youtube video "lies for 13 minutes" after the word "lie".

      Some of this could be some algorithm to fight googlebombing. But it sure seems targeted to whitewash Hillary Clinton's background - Vince Foster and the Rose Law Billing Records were pretty big news stories back in the 90's. The Vince Foster stuff is probably full of really nutty conspiracy theorists, but the Billing Records was not really in the realm of the tinfoil hat crowd. And it would be odd for this to be algorithmically removed at this late date - there would be a decade of relevant web articles before the art of googlebombing became a thing.

      To bolster this supposition, I tried Bush and w, looking for war crimes. After "W" Bing suggested "Worst President Ever". Hey, that was the original google-bomb! So I tried it on Google. Totally suppressed. You go to "worst pr" and google suggest goes dark.

      So that would suggest that this phenomenon is the result of the anti-googlebomb tech, whatever that is. With Eric Schmidt having set up "The Groundwork" to handle tech issues - perhaps this is a service they offer. Using knowledge of Google's procedures and tech, they could be providing SEO services to wipe out things that campaigns don't want seen.

  16. No Evidence?! by ichthus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The evidence is presented in their video. It's there. It's real, and clearly irrefutable -- anyone can test it. And, it's pretty damning. The fact that VOX is now trying to do damage control makes it obvious that they, too, are complicit. Fuck you VOX!

    --
    sig: sauer
  17. Re:Nice Try by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Exactly!

    Here are 10 more examples of blocked searches:

    http://freebeacon.com/politics/here-are-10-more-examples-of-google-search-results-favorable-to-hillary/

    Picking one and saying "no evidence" is crap. Slashdot is better than that.

  18. Re: Nice Try by UsuallyReasonable · · Score: 2

    I'm not sure which Google you're talking about, but the one I'm aware of regularly antagonizes huge percentages of its users, between contentious Google doodles, their various political stances, the omnipresence of Google on one side of political campaigns, etc. I agree with you that it "would be foolish"; what you seem to be missing is that they are doing it in spite of that fact.

  19. Re:Seriously? Autocomplete? by Cytotoxic · · Score: 2

    There was actually a study published in PNAS about search engine manipulation being able to change election outcomes. They tested subtle manipulations in the results order, but presumably changing suggestions would have similar effects.

    This doesn't address intent or the existence of any such plot, but it does suggest that the take that this is all ridiculous and can have no impact is not correct.

  20. Vox!? by blogagog · · Score: 3, Informative

    I can't believe someone at Slashdot is using Vox as a legitimate source for anything involving Hillary. Vox is practically a spokesperson for the Democratic party. O course they won't be able to see the search manipulation that is right before their eyes.

    Here are more examples of how Google skewed the search results involving Clinton. Don't trust sources. Trust factual information that you can test yourself. http://freebeacon.com/politics...

  21. Propaganda from the campaign by redbaran360 · · Score: 2

    It's pretty clear what is going on this is just more search engine manipulation http://m.pnas.org/content/112/...