A Flawed Elections Conspiracy Theory - POLITICO Magazine

Last week, Robert Epstein claimed that “Google’s search algorithm can easily shift the voting preferences of undecided voters” and thereby “rig” elections. Mr. Epstein has publicized this hypothetical notion over the past two years, including during the 2014 India election cycle when The Guardian responded to his claims with a definitive article entitled “ No, Google did not rig Indian elections.” In this latest media blitz, Epstein even calls for unspecified “government regulation” to protect against his theory.

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. Moreover, we do not make any ranking tweaks that are specific to elections or political candidates. 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.

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We have a great track record of providing open access to election information. Our work with the Voting Information Project in collaboration with the Pew Charitable Trusts has helped millions of voters since 2008 get access to details on where to vote, when to vote, and who will be on their ballot. We have made this information freely available via the Google Civic Information API, which has allowed other developers to create useful applications, such as the work by Mobile Commons in 2012 that allowed voters displaced by Hurricane Sandy to find their polling place by texting. We will roll out even more useful search information tools during this U.S. presidential election cycle as well.

Just as any electoral system must be trusted to be considered valid, so too must our search results. We know that; it’s essential to who we are, and a necessary part of our success as company. So, as a result, we work very hard to earn and keep the trust of everyone who comes to our site looking for answers.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/google-2016-election-121766