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Google and Rigged Elections

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  • Google and Rigged Elections

    So, I've considered the possibility before that Google and other companies are in a position to influence elections, but I wasn't aware people have been doing research into the matter. I haven't yet looked into the people making the claims, but the concept is rather alarming to me.

    http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...lection-121548

    And, it doesn't help that Google's reply wasn't all that sophisticated. Thoughts?
    "If you believe, take the first step, it leads to Jesus Christ. If you don't believe, take the first step all the same, for you are bidden to take it. No one wants to know about your faith or unbelief, your orders are to perform the act of obedience on the spot. Then you will find yourself in the situation where faith becomes possible and where faith exists in the true sense of the word." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

  • #2
    Funny you should post this, as I googled "Kim Davis" a couple of hours ago, and was surprised to see a little display on the right of the screen telling me "People also search for: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee"... I was a bit taken aback by that as I felt recommending candidates to search was getting a bit politically dangerous.

    I do find it quite concerning. However, media companies influencing voters has long been a serious issue. The power of a tech company like google to influence voters is probably not as great as the power of a propaganda company like Fox News.
    "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
    "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
    "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

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    • #3
      It's not google's influence on the masses that's the problem. The problem is that people are generally low information idiots. When you're smart, or better, informative, that type of persuasion has little influence on you. The more informative you are, the less the power of influence has on you. As SL pointed out, MSM influencing their little political niche audiences on certain topics that are politically proper for the particular niche they cater to is just as damning.

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      • #4
        I look at some skepticism with the term "low-information", especially as it was used here the other day in the case where it clearly did not apply, though I can't deny that many people are not informed at all about the choices they make.

        I think one of the issues here is when one particular search engine dominates the market so much. But I'll be honest, I do use Google because other search engines simply don't measure up. I actually took the blind Google vs. Bing test a couple years ago, and one of the test searches I did was Bible scholar I.H. Marshall. Google gave me relevant hits, whereas Bing gave me hits about Baltimore's Thurgood Marshall Airport.
        "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

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        • #5
          Originally posted by seanD View Post
          It's not google's influence on the masses that's the problem. The problem is that people are generally low information idiots. When you're smart, or better, informative, that type of persuasion has little influence on you. The more informative you are, the less the power of influence has on you. As SL pointed out, MSM influencing their little political niche audiences on certain topics that are politically proper for the particular niche they cater to is just as damning.
          I get what you're saying, but I don't think 'informative' is the word you want, or it doesn't mean what you think it means.
          The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Starlight View Post
            Funny you should post this, as I googled "Kim Davis" a couple of hours ago, and was surprised to see a little display on the right of the screen telling me "People also search for: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee"... I was a bit taken aback by that as I felt recommending candidates to search was getting a bit politically dangerous.

            I do find it quite concerning. However, media companies influencing voters has long been a serious issue. The power of a tech company like google to influence voters is probably not as great as the power of a propaganda company like Fox News.
            Funny you picked Fox News. From the article (page 2):

            The problem is that for all practical purposes, there is just one search engine. More than 75 percent of online search in the United States is conducted on Google, and in most other countries that proportion is 90 percent. That means that if Google’s CEO, a rogue employee or even just the search algorithm itself favors one candidate, there is no way to counteract that influence. It would be as if Fox News were the only television channel in the country. As Internet penetration grows and more people get their information about candidates online, SEME will become an increasingly powerful form of influence, which means that the programmers and executives who control search engines will also become more powerful.

            Worse still, our research shows that even when people do notice they are seeing biased search rankings, their voting preferences still shift in the desired directions—even more than the preferences of people who are oblivious to the bias. In our national study in the United States, 36 percent of people who were unaware of the rankings bias shifted toward the candidate we chose for them, but 45 percent of those who were aware of the bias also shifted. It’s as if the bias was serving as a form of social proof; the search engine clearly prefers one candidate, so that candidate must be the best. (Search results are supposed to be biased, after all; they’re supposed to show us what’s best, second best, and so on.)

            Biased rankings are hard for individuals to detect, but what about regulators or election watchdogs? Unfortunately, SEME is easy to hide. The best way to wield this type of influence is to do what Google is becoming better at doing every day: send out customized search results. If search results favoring one candidate were sent only to vulnerable individuals, regulators and watchdogs would be especially hard pressed to find them.
            So one of the scary things about this concept is that its very difficult to notice the bias, and when people do notice the bias, 45% of them still let it sway their decision!
            "If you believe, take the first step, it leads to Jesus Christ. If you don't believe, take the first step all the same, for you are bidden to take it. No one wants to know about your faith or unbelief, your orders are to perform the act of obedience on the spot. Then you will find yourself in the situation where faith becomes possible and where faith exists in the true sense of the word." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

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            • #7
              Low information morons, lobotomized zombies, etc...








              It's actually worse than you think. This is just a very tiny miniscule of examples. You could probably get people like this to vote for the Easter Bunny if they thought it came from an "authoritative" or "scientific" source.

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