The Political Bias of Google’s Search Results

 
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Benny Marty / Shutterstock.com

This past election season, Gallup found that Americans’ trust in mass media — newspapers, TV, and radio — had fallen to an all-time low. And that much should come as a surprise to no one (except, apparently, to members of the media).

But the electorate as a whole tends to view search engines — Google, Bing, and company — as distinct from the rest of the mass media. In fact, according to recent Google findings, 87 percent of the population turns to online search first when they have a question.

I’d posit that this implicit trust in search engines is due to the illusion of control that you feel when you conduct a web search. You feel like you have agency over which sources you view. You feel like you’re getting a balanced picture of reality by reviewing several results on the first page of the search engine results.

But are you in control? Are you getting a balanced view of the questions you search?

It turns out that the top five search results account for over two-thirds of all clicks, with the first three results garnering 55 percent of all clicks. This suggests that whatever Google’s algorithm propels to the top of the search results is what the public will perceive as being the most accurate and authoritative.

And that represents a huge vulnerability for a healthy democracy.

In their 2015 study, Robert Epstein and Ronald Robertson concluded that the order of search results can have an outsized influence on voter behavior — and in the event of a close election, the effect of this influence could even be profound enough to determine the entire outcome of the election.

All that was the impetus behind online-search marketer CanIRank’s new research into the question of whether there is a detectable political bias in Google search results, which was covered yesterday in The Wall Street Journal. [Full disclosure: I work with CanIRank and participated in the study.]

To conduct the study, CanIRank collected the top 40 search results (i.e., the first four pages of results) for a set of 50 politically relevant search terms such as “gun control,” “abortion,” “TPP,” “ISIS,” “Hillary Clinton,” “Donald Trump,” etc. In the months leading up to the election, these search terms garnered over 20 million monthly searches.

Next, we had a bipartisan panel of scorers rank each of the 2,000 search results on a 1-5 scale, where 1 represents content that demonstrates a heavy bias toward views aligned with the Democrat party or a progressive ideology; 5 represents content that demonstrates a heavy bias toward views aligned with the Republican party or a conservative ideology; and a 3 representing balanced or neutral content.

Some of the more unsettling findings from CanIRank’s research:

  • Web searchers are 41 percent more likely to encounter a page with a Left or Far Left viewpoint in the top Google results, and 66 percent more likely to find left-leaning sites on page 1.
  • 56 percent of page 1 results and 53 percent of overall results demonstrated a political bias.
  • 11 of the 50 search terms analyzed contained no right-leaning results on page 1 of Google’s results. Those terms: abortion; minimum wage; nafta; Iraq war; campaign finance reform; global warming; marijuana legalization; tax loopholes; tpp; budget deficit.

political slant of Google search results

No company in the history of the republic has ever wielded as much influence over how the public perceives important political issues. As CanIRank founder Matt Bentley writes, “This trend is particularly troubling when one considers that the employees of this private company do not reflect the ideological diversity of the country at large, and have consistently been amongst the largest donors to Democratic party candidates.”

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  1. Paul A. Rahe Member
    Paul A. Rahe
    @PaulARahe

    This dovetails with my own experience. I use Google Alerts. Every time my surname shows up on some website in India, I get an alert. When a book of mine is reviewed in Commentary and the review appears online, I get nothing. When I post on Ricochet, I get nothing. When that post is mentioned and I am named on Instapundit, I get nothing. The fix is in, and my guess is that it will stay in.

    • #31
  2. David Carroll Thatcher
    David Carroll
    @DavidCarroll

    Fascinating post.  As I understand it, one tests the search engines using what Chrome calls incognito mode (each browser has a different name for it) which eliminates the past-search factor in each new Google search.

    However, given the past-search factor, I’m unclear on how alarming the OP information really is.  Progressives are more likely to return progressive sites and conservatives more likely to return conservative sites based upon the history of past searches.

    Assuming it is really a problem, @dianeellis, is there a solution that you propose? Changing our search engine does not really solve the larger problem that you see, does it?

    Have you done any similar studies of any of the lesser search engines, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo?  Unlikely, I suppose, given their small user bases.

    • #32
  3. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    Z in MT:I agree with Casey here.

    Yes the media is biased, yes it is possible that search engines are biased. However, if we all we conservatives do is complain about biases we are never going to win the culture. What we need to do is make the media and popular search engines biased toward conservatism. We need to strive to make conservatism and conservative ideas popular. That should be the end game.

    To that end, I raise a Thanksgiving toast to Andrew Klaven, for whom I am thankful.  My toast:  “Take that, Jon Stewart!”

    • #33
  4. Rick Harlan Inactive
    Rick Harlan
    @Rick Harlan

    Z in MT:I agree with Casey here.

    Yes the media is biased, yes it is possible that search engines are biased. However, if we all we conservatives do is complain about biases we are never going to win the culture. What we need to do is make the media and popular search engines biased toward conservatism. We need to strive to make conservatism and conservative ideas popular. That should be the end game.

    There was a cover story in NR a few years ago about the need for a Conservative counter-culture (or maybe it was just to be engaged in the culture at large). I doubt anyone just a couple of years back would have said we need a Conservative tech sector (we also thought there was no Republican or Democrat way to clear the snow). A Conservative search engine might not seem to threaten Google, but if it shaved off 10% of their market share (and revenue) it would force them to make some changes.

    • #34
  5. Gluteus Maximus of Latissimus Dorsi Inactive
    Gluteus Maximus of Latissimus Dorsi
    @Pseudodionysius

    “At my signal, unleash Hell.”

    • #35
  6. Rick Harlan Inactive
    Rick Harlan
    @Rick Harlan

    Paul A. Rahe:This dovetails with my own experience. I use Google Alerts. Every time my surname shows up on some website in India, I get an alert. When a book of mine is reviewed in Commentary and the review appears online, I get nothing. When I post on Ricochet, I get nothing. When that post is mentioned and I am named on Instapundit, I get nothing. The fix is in, and my guess is that it will stay in.

    Ooh, this makes me think my “biased training set” hypothesis is on the mark! I’ll bet the number of Google programmers who read (and contribute to) websites in India is huge, while none read (much less appear in) Commentary or Ricochet.

    • #36
  7. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    TooShy: Imagine a future in which it is not just that progressives and conservatives tend to read different sites, but they are using different search engines.

    We already have that future when a search engine tries to tailor its search results to what it knows about you. I don’t like it.

    • #37
  8. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Paul A. Rahe:This dovetails with my own experience. I use Google Alerts. Every time my surname shows up on some website in India, I get an alert. When a book of mine is reviewed in Commentary and the review appears online, I get nothing. When I post on Ricochet, I get nothing. When that post is mentioned and I am named on Instapundit, I get nothing. The fix is in, and my guess is that it will stay in.

    Paul,

    Your anecdotal evidence is very troubling. If this is true it needs to be documented and brought up to statistical significance by Diane’s method or some other rubric. People are already getting most of their information from the net. Google and other major players are involved in the vast majority of what is being viewed. This will only increase and rapidly in the next few years. Google must be confronted even to the extent of a lawsuit.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #38
  9. skipsul Inactive
    skipsul
    @skipsul

    WELCOME BACK!

    • #39
  10. PsychLynne Inactive
    PsychLynne
    @PsychLynne

    Hi @dianeellis

    I haven’t read the post or the comments yet, but I’m so excited to see you back!  (or maybe I’ve been too busy late and missed you…whatever)

    Bookmarking to read later!

     

    • #40
  11. Flagg Taylor Member
    Flagg Taylor
    @FlaggTaylor

    Very happy to see you back Diane!

    • #41
  12. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    James Gawron: Your anecdotal evidence is very troubling.

    But why?

    Ricochet is struggling to get 10,000 subscribers and Commentary has 25,000 print & digital subscribers.  India Today English (according to wikipedia) has 1.6 million subscribers.  So if the search engine is completely mathematical and unbiased, then a mention in India Today that got 2% clicks would overwhelm a Commentary mention getting 100% clicks.

    Isn’t that the result we should then expect?

    • #42
  13. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Casey:

    James Gawron: Your anecdotal evidence is very troubling.

    But why?

    Ricochet is struggling to get 10,000 subscribers and Commentary has 25,000 print & digital subscribers. India Today English (according to wikipedia) has 1.6 million subscribers. So if the search engine is completely mathematical and unbiased, then a mention in India Today that got 2% clicks would overwhelm a Commentary mention getting 100% clicks.

    Isn’t that the result we should then expect?

    Not that this isn’t a good point, but remember that he was talking about Google Alerts, not the search engine.

    • #43
  14. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    The Reticulator: Not that this isn’t a good point, but remember that he was talking about Google Alerts, not the search engine.

    Ret,

    I gather Google Alerts  just notifies you of whenever your “search term” appears on the web. Paul should have got notifications whenever his name or article was mentioned. Presumably, this has nothing to do with the number of hits.

    What if Paul contacts Google and asks this very question. Might be an interesting way to shed some light on the black box.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #44
  15. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    The Reticulator: talking about Google Alerts

    I’m not familiar with Alerts so perhaps I’m misunderstanding.  Is it not intertwined with search?

    • #45
  16. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Casey:

    The Reticulator: talking about Google Alerts

    I’m not familiar with Alerts so perhaps I’m misunderstanding. Is it not intertwined with search?

    I don’t know the degree to which it is intertwined with search.  But its purpose is not the same.

    • #46
  17. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    The Reticulator:

    Casey:

    The Reticulator: talking about Google Alerts

    I’m not familiar with Alerts so perhaps I’m misunderstanding. Is it not intertwined with search?

    I don’t know the degree to which it is intertwined with search. But its purpose is not the same.

    I’m not sure what you mean.  On Google Alerts page it says “You can get emails when new results for a topic show up in Google Search.”

    So rather than searching for Beyonce every 3 minutes and seeing if there’s anything new, I create an alert and Google does that for me.

    • #47
  18. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Casey:

    The Reticulator:

    Casey:

    The Reticulator: talking about Google Alerts

    I’m not familiar with Alerts so perhaps I’m misunderstanding. Is it not intertwined with search?

    I don’t know the degree to which it is intertwined with search. But its purpose is not the same.

    I’m not sure what you mean. On Google Alerts page it says “You can get emails when new results for a topic show up in Google Search.”

    So rather than searching for Beyonce every 3 minutes and seeing if there’s anything new, I create an alert and Google does that for me.

    Well, showing up in search is a little different from showing up in the top search results.  It should be that if you go past the first page of results you should be able to find the stuff that Google isn’t overjoyed for you to see.  It used to work that way anyhow.

    • #48
  19. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    The Reticulator: the stuff that Google isn’t overjoyed for you to see.

    But again, where is the evidence that Google has an opinion on what I see?

    If we have a jar of 80 black jellybeans and 20 green jellybeans and I ask you to reach in and you pull out 9 black jellybeans and 1 green, is that your bias or a reasonable result?

    These results all seem to me to be about what one would expect.

    • #49
  20. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Casey:

    The Reticulator: the stuff that Google isn’t overjoyed for you to see.

    But again, where is the evidence that Google has an opinion on what I see?

    If we have a jar of 80 black jellybeans and 20 green jellybeans and I ask you to reach in and you pull out 9 black jellybeans and 1 green, is that your bias or a reasonable result?

    These results all seem to me to be about what one would expect.

    Casey,

    Google Alerts searches for a search term of your choice. If Dr. Rahe puts his own name in as the search term every instance of it showing up should trigger it. What does the number of hits on the website have to do with it. Even in your example, I’d still see the one green jellybean. I think what Dr. Rahe is saying is that he isn’t seeing anything. All black jellybeans.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #50
  21. Diane Ellis Member
    Diane Ellis
    @DianeEllis

    David Carroll

    Assuming it is really a problem, @dianeellis, is there a solution that you propose? Changing our search engine does not really solve the larger problem that you see, does it?

    I suppose I look at political bias within Google search results less as a problem to be solved, and more as an issue of which we should be aware. Many of us our on our guard when encountering mainstream media sources, but speaking for myself here — I have not traditionally exercised the same skepticism when conducting Google search. What I’ve learned from participating in this research is that a healthy suspicion of what you encounter in search is very much warranted.

    Not the most satisfying conclusion, I grant!

    • #51
  22. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    James Gawron: If Dr. Rahe puts his own name in as the search term every instance of it showing up should trigger it.

    Every instance? I don’t use the service so perhaps I’m mistaken about how it works. My understanding is that it was a perpetual search with notification of new relevant results.

    So Beyonce news would pop up but not every instance, which would be like a bazillion. or would every instance?

    • #52
  23. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Casey:

    James Gawron: If Dr. Rahe puts his own name in as the search term every instance of it showing up should trigger it.

    Every instance? I don’t use the service so perhaps I’m mistaken about how it works. My understanding is that it was a perpetual search with notification of new relevant results.

    So Beyonce news would pop up but not every instance, which would be like a bazillion. or would every instance?

    Every instance. Sometimes an author likes to see how his stuff is being used, check for copyright violations or gross misrepresentations, etc., or just see how his stuff is getting around. You don’t get that if you just get the top search results.

    On my own blog, which is nowhere near anybody’s top search results, I’ve had an author stop by and comment after I’ve written about his book.  And it happens pretty quickly. I’ve always presumed it comes about via Google Alerts.

    • #53
  24. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    The Reticulator:

    Casey:

    James Gawron: If Dr. Rahe puts his own name in as the search term every instance of it showing up should trigger it.

    Every instance? I don’t use the service so perhaps I’m mistaken about how it works. My understanding is that it was a perpetual search with notification of new relevant results.

    So Beyonce news would pop up but not every instance, which would be like a bazillion. or would every instance?

    Every instance. Sometimes an author likes to see how his stuff is being used, check for copyright violations or gross misrepresentations, etc., or just see how his stuff is getting around. You don’t get that if you just get the top search results.

    On my own blog, which is nowhere near anybody’s top search results, I’ve had an author stop by and comment after I’ve written about his book. And it happens pretty quickly. I’ve always presumed it comes about via Google Alerts.

    I’ve had the same happen when I’ve written about products I didn’t particularly care for. Somebody from the company will soon stop by and say it must have been a problem with X and I should have sent it back and asked for a replacement, blah, blah. This on my little blog which still ranked pretty low last time I checked its ranking.   I presume they are using Google Alerts, though maybe there are other services that do that, too.

    • #54
  25. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    OK, thanks. That’s not what I thought Alerts was. Then a non-notification is either poor search service or direct tampering. one would have to assume, right?

    • #55
  26. Gluteus Maximus of Latissimus Dorsi Inactive
    Gluteus Maximus of Latissimus Dorsi
    @Pseudodionysius

    ... portrayed maximus a man who had a similar fate in gladiator
    “What we post on Ricochet, echoes in obscurity.”

    • #56
  27. drlorentz Member
    drlorentz
    @drlorentz

    The Reticulator:

    TooShy: Imagine a future in which it is not just that progressives and conservatives tend to read different sites, but they are using different search engines.

    We already have that future when a search engine tries to tailor its search results to what it knows about you. I don’t like it.

    Use a search engine like DuckDuckGo to solve this problem. As they explain,

    When you search at DuckDuckGo, we don’t know who you are and there is no way to tie your searches together.

    There are other benefits you might like. Privacy-respecting search engines prevent search leakage:

    At other search engines, when you do a search and then click on a link, your search terms are sent to that site you clicked on (in the HTTP referrer header).

    • #57
  28. Larry Koler Inactive
    Larry Koler
    @LarryKoler

    drlorentz:

    The Reticulator:

    TooShy: Imagine a future in which it is not just that progressives and conservatives tend to read different sites, but they are using different search engines.

    We already have that future when a search engine tries to tailor its search results to what it knows about you. I don’t like it.

    Use a search engine like DuckDuckGo to solve this problem. As they explain,

    When you search at DuckDuckGo, we don’t know who you are and there is no way to tie your searches together.

    There are other benefits you might like. Privacy-respecting search engines prevent search leakage:

    At other search engines, when you do a search and then click on a link, your search terms are sent to that site you clicked on (in the HTTP referrer header).

    Thanks, Doc. I’ll give it a try.

    • #58
  29. nandapanjandrum Member
    nandapanjandrum
    @

    Hello, Diane!  Lovely to see and read you; that reunion sounds wonderful…You’ve always been the classy “Miss Kitty” to them smooth-talkin’, spur-janglin’ fellers.  (-:

    • #59
  30. Bereket Kelile Member
    Bereket Kelile
    @BereketKelile

    Diane Ellis:By the way, I owe a debt of gratitude to @bereketkelile for helping us find someone to round out our panel of scorers. As you might imagine, evaluating 2,000 web pages is no quick task!

    Consider the debt paid in full :-)

    • #60
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