This article discusses general political bias in Google search results. “Google’s bias towards left-wing media outlets has been laid bare by an algorithm which detected that it favors sites including CNN and The New York Times over others. According to data compiled by researchers from Northwestern University, the search engine promoted those sites over others repeatedly in November 2017.”
Such interference has had a massive impact on sites such as Jihad Watch.
This is additional to the simple manual faking of results beyond the algorithms that I shared 2.5 years ago here.
The bias of Google providing content from nearly all Left Wing sources is actually on a scale far more than I expected. Google has insisted repeatedly that is does not interfere with search engine results, but I have proven that is indeed the case for this site specifically; and we can see here a pattern of similar abuse broadly directing their users to their preferred results. That is not what you would expect from an “organic” search result. It’s manipulated process. It’s social engineering on a global scale.
This news is based on Google’s specific bad practices only. We know there is similar bias with other search engines and social media. A growing proportion of people consider Facebook and Twitter to be their primary news sources, sources which I assume (when someone quantifies the bias) will be far greater, on top of the bannings and shadow-bannings we have seen in our communities.
“Google’s left-leaning media bias revealed: Academic study exposes how search engine massively over-promotes results from liberal news websites over right”, by Jennifer Smith, Daily Mail, May 12, 2019:
Google‘s bias towards left-wing media outlets has been laid bare by an algorithm which detected that it favors sites including CNN and The New York Times over others.
According to data compiled by researchers from Northwestern University, the search engine promoted those sites over others repeatedly in November 2017.
Of the 6,302 articles that appeared in Google’s ‘top stories’ page that month after a term was searched, more than 10 percent were by CNN.
The New York Times was the second most favored and accounted for 6.5 percent of articles. The Washington Post was third with 5.6 percent.
By contrast, Fox News, the most right-wing outlet in mainstream media, was the source of just three percent of the stories which appeared.
Of the 6,302 articles that appeared in Google’s ‘top stories’ page that month after a term was searched, more than 10 percent were by CNN
Nearly all (86 percent) of the stories came from just 20 sources and of them, 62 percent were considered to be left-leaning.
The research sheds new light on the unprecedented power the search engine has in influencing the external traffic to news sites, a hot topic in the worlds of media and politics given Facebook’s recently reduced output.
For example, the researchers found that CNN got a 24 percent bump in traffic as a result of having its stories featured in the ‘Top Stories’ box.
The most featured sources, in order, were CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fox News, BBC, USA Today, LA Times, The Guardian, Politico, ABC News, CBS News, NPR, NBC News, CNBC, Reuters, Huffington Post, The Verge, Al Jazeera, The Hill and People.
For some stories there was a shortage of sources but a search for Rex Tillerson, the former Secretary of State, turfed up stories from 38 sources.
Despite the plethora of sources, 75 percent of the promoted stories about Tillerson came from The New York Times and CNN, the researchers found.
Newer articles that were only a few hours old or even less than an hour old were promoted over older ones
The data also revealed that while left-leaning sites produced more articles on any given subject (2.2 times as many as those on the right), Google’s Top Stories selection seemed to inflate the difference.
‘In Google Top Stories, that ratio was 3.2, indicating that the curation algorithm was slightly magnifying the left-leaning skew,’ Nicholas Diakopoulos, one of the two researchers, writes in The Columbia Journalism Review.
The issue of search engine and social media bias towards media has long been a source of contention in the news industry but it became a mainstream point of concern during the 2016 election when Facebook banned right-wing media outlets that were favored by Trump supporters.
Google decides what goes into its Top Stories slot by using an algorithm which it insists is not bias.
Since then, amid a crisis of allowing fake and nefarious news sites perpetuated largely by Russian bots, Facebook has announced that it will focus less on news articles and more on its users personal interactions.
The decision sent shockwaves through media outlets which had relied on the traffic Facebook sent its way and it afforded even more power to Google…….

mortimer says
The facts are in and they are irrefutable:
1)GOOGLE IS CENSORING CONSERVATIVES ON A MASSIVE SCALE.
2)GOOGLE IS CENSORING CRITICISM OF ISLAM ON A MASSIVE SCALE.
Note: Islam has a lot to criticize. Only a FOOL would fail to see that Islam is a misogynistic, xenophobic DEATH CULT.
If GOOGLE does not allow criticism of ISLAM, then Islam will eventually TAKE OVER GOOGLE and ISLAM will become the OFFICIAL RELIGION of GOOGLE.
A little bit of Sharia in the begin will become COMPLETE SHARIA in the end.
CRUSADER says
“… groups seen as right of centre targeted, but very rarely do we see any of the political left’s “causes” being victimised in the same way. It is obvious that while one side plays fair with freedom of speech, the other does not.”
https://freespeechdefense.net/about/
The Impact on the Public
” When someone in the US, perhaps wanting to educate themself on the subject, searches for “Jihad” and sees the Islamic Supreme Council as the top-ranked site, the perception is that this is the global, unbiased and authoritative view. If they click on that first, seemingly most popular link, their perception of Jihad will be skewed by the beliefs and doctrine of this peaceful group of people…. ”
INTERESTING !!!!
marc says
@CRUSADER
It’s common for people to think their personal challenge is the most important, as i only see things from my perspective, background in cybersec, I see this issue is of the highest importance. Copied from an email I sent to a friend earlier today expressing my frustration.
“It’s too complex an issue for people to understand, and is widely ignored because of that.
There are lower hanging fruit that bloggers and commentators are picking at, all worthy, but without addressing this search engine bias issue first, much of the other work is undone quickly if you see what I mean.”
Vlad Tepes says
Non far-leftists, which is what the majority are, unless they speak, then they become “Right wing extremists”, are in serious danger world-wide right now. This is no small thing. This is the totalitarianism of information. The forbidding of people to make decisions in their own interests by denying or otherwise manipulating information required to do so.
As we can see in the UK and New Zealand and any bloody minute now, Canada, informational totalitarianism becomes police knocking at your door for ‘wrong-think’.
People in the West are in a state of denial that is nearly as frightening as the reality they deny. That is probably not an accident. Like the legend of the Amer-Indians who could not see the giant boats on the horizon of the European settlers because it was too much to believe was real.
I don’t know if that story is true at all as Amer-Indians couldn’t write and even if they could, who writes about what they can’t see. But the analogy works.
Growing up I was taught about the4 Holocaust and watched the movies like most people. And like most people I asked myself ‘how could these millions of Jews let this happen to them?’
Now I know.
gravenimage says
Grimly true, Vlad Tepes.
b.a. freeman says
+1
marc says
@Vlad Tepes thats a great way of looking at this threat, trying to quantify it as the DM has done here helps people understand, but we’re now in a situation where no one will get to read this important bit of news.
CRUSADER says
Paying too much attention to tactics being done (the low fruit to pick or to peck at), but missing the overall strategy being done (gigantic threat which overrides most anything else)….
….Bruce Lee would often mention about the foolish tendency to look at the fingertip which points at the moon, but not to the object of what’s being pointed out: the moon !
R Russell says
I usually use duckduckgo search engine. They don’t track
marc says
this would be unrelated to their atrocious breach of privacy practice, this is bias of the news that affects people globally. you or me using duckduckgo will not change that.
gravenimage says
True, Marc.
And Google is a default now that “google” is used generically, like “kleenex”.
For new people to find Jihad Watch–and not just old hands–it has to be findable on Google and other major search engines like Yahoo.
CRUSADER says
On-line Dictionaries….
Next time some says to you: “Go Look It Up….”
Notice now when searching for a word’s meaning or spelling….
when you go online to search, and often these days the meaning will have the word used in a sentence, frequently pulled from a news article or a magazine story ….
Invariably it will have a negative slant toward anything conservative….
And if it is put in good light, it will have some reference to liberal/left “politically correct” acceptability ….
Another way to control/influence minds….
Simone Fields says
I never used to have any problem finding Islam The Religion of Peace website but last year found it almost impossible to see it appear on a search engine. Also, I was shocked to find Electronic Intifada appearing directly beneath when TROP did finally materialise.
I emailed TROP this message:
I am shocked. Whenever I used to type in the name of your website it was the first one that appeared. Now, I have to scroll down for pages and pages until it shows.
Can’t you fight this madness.
Is there nothing you can do to about this?
Reply:
I don’t think there is much that I can do. Google is a private company, capable of censoring ideas they disagree with. Even though I feel this poses a very large threat to free society, there is not much I can do about it – other than make sure that my site is not hateful.
Guy Forester says
This is where someone with better expertise than I have at cyber-sleuthing would be helpful and appreciated. It would be interesting to know who owns large shares of stock in the “news” agencies like CNN and NYT if they are publically traded. It would also be interesting to find out if these so called search engines worked more like your big chain grocery stores. In other words, instead of being purveyors of what is really happening out in the world, are these search engines being rewarded for displaying certain merchandise?
I had wondered why certain products in a store would command so much shelf space, and why other competing stores shelves looked very similar. Why did drug stores seem to carry pretty much the same stuff, even with competing chains? I found out that many of the stores out there do not stock their own shelves, or at least not all of them. Certain shelves are stocked by “jobbers.” A third party company that will stock certain areas of the store. I found this out when I would ask for help looking for something and I would be told, “I do not work here, I only stock this area.” I also watched various trucks by a certain bakery, or a company like Frito-Lay or Peps, come in, stock the shelves with certain products, and leave. These shelves are actually “rented” by the purveyor. In other words, a pay to play system.
So that gets me back to my original concern. Are we seeing certain things show up not just because of ideology, but are certain players paying to see certain things show up? if others are not willing or able to cough up some payola, are they therefore not covered or at least marginalized? It would be interesting to find this out.
CRUSADER says
Seems as though the future will be less like “Star Trek”
and more like “Terminator”…..
gravenimage says
Daily Mail quantifies Google’s shocking political bias, and how sites like Jihad Watch are massively affected
………………….
And this is getting steadily worse. Jihad Watch does not have a great internal search engine (it’s OK–this is simply not JWs strong point) so I just used to use Google to find older stories using a few remembered keywords. Now unless I have the exact title it is almost impossible to find stories–even current ones.
Even putting “Jihad Watch” in the search often brings up no JW stories at all. And others–such as Yahoo–are even worse. Often nothing from JW is findable–even with the exact story title. Very disturbing.
CRUSADER says
Have you put the opposite to the test in your test-searches?
Such as searches for old SPLC references or old references from Muslim/Islamist-based origins?
gravenimage says
CRUSADER, I just googles “Jihad” on Google, and found things like the Wikipedia entry and the definition by Mirriam-Webster–this is fine.
But what also comes up on top are things like “Jihad: A Misunderstood Concept from Islam – What Jihad is, and is no”, from the Islamic Supreme Council, and “Jihad’ is not a dirty word” from The Washington Post, and anther bit of apologia, “Muslim Americans on What ‘Jihad’ Actually Mean”, which spouts such bs as this: “If you’re a regular Fox News viewer, perhaps you think the word ‘jihad’ means ‘a looming holy war that’s coming soon to your suburban home.’ Well, you’d be wrong”.
And it is not just whitewash–one of the things that comes up in the first few pages is *this* disturbing thing: “Jihad: The forgotten obligation”, that actually urges Muslims to wage violent Jihad.
Not a lot there that is anti-Jihad.
CRUSADER says
Thought Control creeping through such basic activity…
wondering says
Try startpage.com they use also google but with NO Cookies and tracking.
I tried google with jihadwatch ilhan and the first ones are all from jihadwatch…i use a VPN location from Switzerland….
also you can try duckduckgo-also with no cookies…
DogOnPorch says
Typing……”The Rel…The Religion…of…(damnit)…Peace”….into Google…
Welcome to the religion of Peru.
gravenimage says
🙂
CRUSADER says
“12 Rules for Life” — Professor and author Jordan Peterson joins Bill to discuss
political correctness and free speech.
P.C. = Elevation of moral posturing about sensitivity over truth. We have become so fragile because of the social sciences at universities, post-modernism.
To think, you have to risk being offensive in pursuit of truth….
JDow says
Google’s censorship behavior is legal. Where they apparently step over into illegal is their claims that they do not censor or preferentially bias their results. This becomes an FTC issue for advertising claims vs reality.
{^_^}
nosmo king says
Get GOOGLE NEWS UK and one finds that most of the stories are from left outlets like the Guardian, the Independent and so on. The bias is very marked.
marc says
Yes, it’s regional, the UK (and most of the EU) are far worse, on top of that many ISPs block sites such as this as “adult content”.
gravenimage says
Crazy.
UNCLE VLADDI says
Google’s charter of incorporation probably claimed it would be a neutral search engine. If so, then their actions are in breach of their contractual obligations with government, and as such, said charters of incorporation should be revoked and the company should be shuttered in the USA ASAP.
R Russell says
Some time ago I read about a relatively new search engine which is said not to track users. duckduckgo.
Habit often gets me to use Google but as times goes past I have been finding it more difficult to find, usually Islamic things I know have happened. They just don’t appear as a result of the Google search. When I use duckduckgo I am much more likely to find what I am looking for.