The Indiscretions of Mr. Google

Type, for example, Antonio Hodgers (Green Party/Geneva) or Pierre Maudet (FDP/The Liberals/Geneva) into the Google search engine, and the word “gay” appears automatically. For the federal councillor Doris Leuthard, it’s “divorce.” For Christoph Blocher, it’s “Jewish.” Nothing is insulting, but all these implications suggested by Google are false!

It is, to a certain extent, the collective unconscious of the web. Google tallies up the searches most frequently associated with a word and suggest them to users. The semi-automatic data entry tool is so instinctive that it becomes nearly invisible, but it has its limits and misfires, and politicians are the first to suffer the consequences. They see themselves bearing qualifiers that may give information that is erroneous, sometimes disagreeable and even degrading, based on their alleged sexual orientation, their religion, the state of their health, their origins or their private life.