Trump bashes Google for biased search results against him
President Donald Trump used one Silicon Valley technology giant’s platform to slam another for bias – something for which both platforms have received heaps of criticism.
The president took to Twitter early Tuesday to slam Google because, according to a PJ Media report, the search giant almost always selects left-leaning sites when anyone searches for news about Trump.
“Google search results for ‘Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake New Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD,” Trump tweeted. “Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of results on “Trump News” are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good.
The president then appeared to say that some action would be taken against Google for the reported bias.
“They are controlling what we can & cannot see,” he added. “This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1034371152204967936
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1034373707047882759
PJ Media’s Paula Bolyard conducted a study of Google search results using the term “Trump.” She then analyzed the results in Google’s “News” tab to see which outlets were preferred by the behemoth’s secret algorithm.
I expected to see some skewing of the results based on my extensive experience with Google, but I was not prepared for the blatant prioritization of left-leaning and anti-Trump media outlets. Looking at the first page of search results, I discovered that CNN was the big winner, scoring two of the first ten results. Other left-leaning sites that appeared on the first page were CBS, The Atlantic, CNBC, The New Yorker, Politico, Reuters, and USA Today (the last two outlets on this list could arguably be considered more centrist than the others).
Not a single right-leaning site appeared on the first page of search results.
What’s even more shocking in the report is that CNN, the news outlet that was most recently shamed for failing to correct a false report about the president, showed up first and the most in the results.
Why would CNN.com rank above FoxNews.com which handed CNN a solid ratings defeat recently? More Americans trust anything other than CNN.com for news. CNN’s cable TV ratings are even worse.
If there is no implicit bias in Google’s algorithm, how would these results be explained? Enter “Trump” in Duckduckgo.com, an alternative search engine, click on the “News” tab and you get much different results. CNN.com makes it into the results, but not prominently. FoxNews.com, UPI, NBC News, BBC, New York Post, AFP all show up evenly. The articles from some left, some right and many centrist outlets provide a more accurate sample of the viewpoints present in the news and across America. Why wouldn’t Google want to display that same cross-section?
