"Invisible Filters-Investigating Claims of Algorithmic Bias and Censorship against Google"

In an era where search engines forge pathways to mountainous piles of data, Google’s predominance in steering public opinion cannot be overstated. News diversity is crucial for the health of democratic processes. It allows for a wide range of opinions to be heard, which is essential for a well-informed public. In the digital age, part of that diversity comes from having an ecosystem of multiple outlets with different ideologies and framings to expose people to various viewpoints. However, this will only work if the content actually gets to readers. News distribution, therefore, plays a crucial role in this process.

Algorithms increasingly mediate the distribution of news. The digital age brought an uptick in the offering of information, and these systems are intermediaries in content discovery. Their behavior can have a significant impact on what people see. Google plays a crucial role in the business model of digital news outlets. Previous studies have identified a biased selection of news sources in Google’s systems. Analyzing the news aggregator Google News in Germany, the research found that Focus Online and Die Welt had substantial shares of exposures, which was disproportionate considering their actual reach in the country.

On  Election Day, Google faced significant backlash over allegations of biased search results, despite CEO Sundar Pichai's prior call for neutrality and trust. The tech giant has been accused of interfering with the elections after users searching for "Where can I vote for Trump?" received less helpful results compared to those searching for "Where can I vote for Harris?". Google acknowledged the discrepancy, attributing it to a glitch and promising a fix. Accusations from former President Donald Trump and his supporters, who have long claimed that Google favors a Democratic bias, gained new traction when users noticed a glaring discrepancy in search results. Social media users took to X to express how Google appeared to be suppressing or altering various search results to favor Vice President Kamala Harris.

In one set of tweets and news stories, journalists discovered that Google’s autocomplete feature would not autocomplete statements related to the attempted assassination of Trump. In a statement, Google said that no “manual action was taken on these predictions,” and that its systems include “protections against autocomplete predictions associated with political violence. We’re working on improvements to ensure our systems are more up to date.” This suggests that Google has some sort of policy that suppresses recent instances of political violence in its autocomplete. Older examples of political violence were autocompleted, including other presidential assassination attempts, the shootings of Rep. Gabby Giffords and Steve Scalise, and the attempted assassination of Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico in May 2024.

Posting on X, various users found multiple apparent cases of Google suppressing Trump. When searching for “President Donald Trump” autocomplete would not complete this search but would instead autocomplete President Donald Duck or Donald Regan, an apparent reference to former Treasury Secretary Donald Regan. All other presidents autocomplete normally. Strangely enough, searching for just “Donald Trump” would autocomplete in my searches.

When users would actually search for Donald Trump, Google would not provide normal news about Trump. Instead, Google appeared to alter the search so it was searching for and showing news about Kamala Harris and Trump. Searching for Kamala Harris, however, would turn up normal search results only focused on news about Harris. A study was conducted by students of Carnegie Mellon University and the International Computer Science Institute. The findings of the investigation highlighted how Google’s ad-targeting algorithm showed an emerging gender bias and pushed forward discrimination. In the study, the algorithm behind Google’s targeted ads was more likely to show male job seekers for a high-paid executive job than female job seeker counterparts (Simonite, 2015).

Another study that examined the influence of Google’s search algorithm on news diversity by analyzing search results in Brazil, the UK, and the US explored how Google’s system preferentially favors a limited number of news outlets. Utilizing algorithm auditing techniques, the research measures source concentration with the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) and Gini coefficient, revealing significant concentration trends.

Google is the most popular search engine in the world. Its search results are determined by Google’s top-secret algorithm, which is protected as a trade secret, and it completes more than 1 trillion searches every year. Google has one of the largest caches of user data in the world, potentially surpassing government agencies like the NSA, CIA, and FBI. It is the most widely used search engine in the world, which means Google is incredibly powerful in terms of information control

Google already influences about 25% of elections throughout the world including those in the United States. That means any country with Internet access is subject to the opinion-swaying potential of Google. The big tech has been caught manipulating search results multiple times and in multiple countries. In general, Google makes a change to its algorithm once or twice a day, at least according to their most famous senate testimony. Very few of those changes are actually publicized. Some of them have a big impact on search results, and others may have little to no impact at all.

Sometimes, these changes are reversed like they never happened. In other words, even with exceptional tools like Mozcast, there’s no way to tell what changes have happened to Google’s algorithm or how much those changes impact search results. Google fields billions of queries every day — 16% of which have never been asked before. This power to shape perception, resonant across nations and channels, triggers profound implications for democracy, the marketplace of ideas, and the autonomy of individuals. Navigating through the complex web of influence that Google weaves calls for a critical understanding of its capacity to control information dissemination.

A free and unbiased media is a cornerstone of any properly functioning democracy. It is the primary means of information transfer between the federal government and its constituents on policy matters. Most people want to be exposed to a range of views, especially around politics and other serious and important topics. They recognize the risk of giving exposure to extreme views or one side in the name of balance. In the analogue world, differences between news, analysis, and opinion were much clearer, with special labeling and clear sections, but in the digital, the divisions have blurred. For journalists, dilemmas around impartiality have also been tested by more informal formats such as social media, especially where news has become more emotive or controversial. Many fear that opinion and advocacy have become increasingly entwined with the news itself in a way that is often not transparent.

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