What if Google Chose Your Next President For You?

What if the keys to the Oval Office could be found in Silicon Valley? Fifteen months from the American presidential election, the American psychologist Robert Epstein maintains that the directors of Google, if they wanted to, could choose the next president of the United States. In an article published recently in the scientific journal PNAS, the former editor of Psychology Today shows the importance of what he calls the Search Engine Manipulation Effect.

In plain English: The order of results offered to search engine users influences their opinions. The graduate from the prestigious Harvard University gives us an explanation during an interview with Rue89.

“By virtue of its nature, the search engine has an influence since it orders things. In the case of an election, it therefore puts one candidate in front of another, which isn’t in and of itself a surprise. What we have discovered, however, is that that can alter the vote of undecided voters.* The voting preferences of undecided voters can be easily shifted by 20 percent or more — up to 80 percent in some demographic groups.”

Chosen by the Algorithm and Not the Voters

In the last months before the Indian elections, the future Prime Minister Narendra Modi outscored his rivals in Google search activity by more than 25 percent, according to numbers published at the time by the California firm, says the psychologist. Knowing that the first articles suggested by the search engine were by far the most clicked on, means the connection is made quickly. If we stuck to the activity revealed on Google to guess who will be the 45th president of the United States, the name of Donald Trump, the real estate magnate and troll of the start of the Republican primary, might come up …

In short, according to Robert Epstein, if Google wants to, it can. Even if the influence of traditional media — clearly biased in the United States — no longer needs to be proved, that of Google is more insidious and thus more dangerous, continues the American researcher, who highlights the near-monopoly of the search engine:

“There is only one Google, one search engine for most of the country. In France, about 90 percent of searches are done on Google. I should add to that the extreme confidence that users have in the search engine, which offers them results that they consider objective. And all of that constitutes a very serious problem.

“In the case of close elections, the winner could be chosen by Google’s algorithm and not by the voters. The people don’t even realize. Regulators don’t either.”*

Which has him pondering in an opinion column published on Politico in August “How Google Could Rig the 2016 Election.”

Democratic Leaning

However, the Google algorithm’s impartiality has been suspected by regulatory authorities. The California company is notably in the sights of the European Commission, which suspects it of abusing a dominant position. Accused of promoting its own products in the search results, Google risks a fine of up to 10 percent of its revenue, as much as $6.6 billion. The Silicon Valley giant, which is also the target of an inquiry by an Indian regulator — which could fine it the same amount — denied last week any anti-competition practices.

If Google uses an algorithm to feature its company products or services, why wouldn’t it do the same to support a candidate that would ensure a certain tranquility for the company, asks Robert Epstein. The researcher, who has already had trouble with Google in the past when the search engine suspended his website while it was infected with a virus, judges that the links between Google and the Obama administration are clear. Many people responsible for technology have, in fact, joined the American president’s team, including his director of technology, passing directly from the Mountain View firm to the White House. The brand new director of technology for Hillary Clinton, Stephanie Hannon, was also recruited from the heart of the California giant. And that is in addition to Google’s wide financial support, which, it should be said, is perfectly legal in the United States.

“A Flawed Elections Conspiracy Theory” According to Google

Faced with these thinly veiled accusations of manipulation, Google reacted last week through the voice of Amit Signal, Google “fellow” — a title the California firm awards to its most deserving employees — and head of Google Search. Denouncing a “flawed elections conspiracy theory,” the search engine employee responded to Robert Epstein’s declarations in an opinion column also published on Politico.

“There is absolutely no truth to Epstein’s hypothesis that Google could work secretly to influence election outcomes. Google has never ever re-ranked search results on any topic (including elections) to manipulate user sentiment … From the beginning, our approach to search has been to provide the most relevant answers and results to our users, and it would undermine people’s trust in our results, and our company, if we were to change course.”

In his right to reply, Amit Signal, incidentally of Indian origin himself, reminds us that the British newspaper The Guardian took apart the American psychologist and author’s arguments about the presumed influence of Google on the Indian elections. The Guardian highlighted a discrepancy between the American psychologist’s positive assertions and the content of his study, as well as his method.

Proving the Effect of Rankings Bias

Robert Epstein hasn’t actually proved that Google manipulated the results of elections; in his study with his colleague Ronald Robertson, he has tried to prove that it was possible for them to do it.

They conducted two studies with potential American voters, one at a local level and the other at the national level. The participants were recruited through Amazon’s “Mechanical Turk,” the platform that lets you find cheap labor — as it happens, a dollar per person — for quick tasks. The subjects were first asked to make a judgment on candidates they had never heard of, after having read a brief presentation from each one of them. They were asked a second time, after having been able to do a search on a fake search engine called “Kadoodle,” which sent them to articles that were real but were presented in an order that was more or less biased.

A third study was then conducted in India, during the elections of the lower house of parliament, following the same proceedings. Each time, the proportion of people saying they supported a certain candidate when he or she was the one favored by Kadoodle increased — and more moderately when the subjects already knew the candidates.

The two researchers had even launched a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter, “Save Democracy” in order to raise the necessary money, $3850, to publish the study in the PNAS journal. Now that the article has been approved and published, the campaign has ended.

Not So Crazy

In Silicon Valley, where the aura of Google and its directors is beyond compare, the American psychologist’s theory, notoriously opposed to the methods of the California firm, was received with suspicion, even disdain. The power of the web giant no longer needs to be proved and since we’re always hearing that the election will be decided on social networks, the idea that voters could be so influenced by Google results doesn’t seem so crazy.

This is especially since the American presidential elections often turn out to be close and the system of electors has in the past shown the importance of each voice: In 2000, George W. Bush won the election over Al Gore even though he convinced fewer individual voters than his Democrat competitor.

After being interviewed by Fox News channel, which, with its accepted pro-Republican leanings, enjoyed this controversy, Robert Epstein was gently mocked by the site Uproxx. In a parody news broadcast called “The Desk,” an old school newscaster maintains that he hasn’t used any search engines but Ask Jeeves — the site with the butler, old glory of the Internet, which had to abandon the search game — since the ’90s and invites the viewer to find information about candidates for themselves, rather than just typing “Who should I vote for?” into the browser.

*Editor’s Note: This quote, though accurately translated, could not be verified