Mainstream media outlets this week moved to discount Donald Trump’s allegation that Google manipulated search results to favor Hillary Clinton, and called it a “conspiracy” contrived by the Russian media, ignoring similar reports that appeared in American media and discounting the fact that the researcher behind the claim supports Clinton.
The media effort began on Wednesday evening, when Donald Trump cited an opinion survey from Google that showed him leading the presidential race, and alleged that the result was remarkable because Google had manipulated search results to favor Clinton.
“The Google poll has us leading Hillary Clinton by 2 points nationwide,” Trump noted in a speech, “despite the fact that Google search engine was suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton.”
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The claim infuriated mainstream media outlets. “Donald Trump Pushes Debunked Theory That Google Suppressed Rival’s Bad News,” said the headline of a New York Times piece published shortly after the event. “Trump peddles Google conspiracy theory,” echoed an article by CNN published on Thursday.
The issue dates back to a June report by SourceFed alleging manipulation of Google’s “autocomplete” feature, which included a video that appeared to show Google trying to prevent users from searching for negative terms associated with Clinton. Democrats were quick to dismiss the report, arguing that Google makes at least some effort to suppress negative content for candidates on both sides of the aisle.
Responding to Trump’s claim on Wednesday, the Times insisted the issue had been debunked until it was “resurrected” by a Sept. 12 column in Sputnik, noting the outlet is “a website run by the Russian government-controlled news agency Rossiya Segodnya.”
The author of the report is a Harvard-educated researcher, Dr. Robert Epstein, founder and director emeritus of the Massachusetts-based Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies. In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Epstein rebuked the Times for its casual dismissal, noting that he both supports Hillary Clinton and tried to publish his research findings in Politico before taking them to a different outlet.
“I wrote a comprehensive article that I originally submitted to Politico,” he said. “Politico had me make a number of changes I was uncomfortable with, and ultimately some higher up killed the article.
“So I offered it to Sputnik News, but I first made them promise not to change anything to guarantee the accuracy of the report,” Epstein said. “They agreed to that. They also promised worldwide coverage, which I thought was a good idea.”
The column detailed research findings of a nine-person team led by Epstein over the summer, including his claim that Google holds the ability to influence between 800,000 and 3.2 million votes nationwide by manipulating search suggestions.
Epstein noted that he has made similar claims through Politico in the past, including in an August 2015 column that made similar estimations about the power Google potentially wields.
“I think that the New York Times was irresponsible in dismissing this article without ever looking at it and seeing who wrote it,” Epstein said. “They simply dismissed a lengthy, detailed, scientific report, just because it appeared in Sputnik, as if someone on Mr. Putin’s staff wrote this.”
Reports in the Examiner this year have also noted critiques and allegations of Google engaging in politicking. Those include claims of search manipulation, its work with a Democratic law firm to provide election data and the apparent revelation from Clinton’s emails that the company worked with the State Department to covertly undermine Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Epstein added that in the media’s rush to dismiss his claims, it missed a legitimate opportunity to argue Trump was in error.
“It’s kind of ironic if you think of the timing of the claims. He’s claiming right now that Google search suggestions are biased. Right now, actually, they’re no longer biased … A few days after my article came out in Sputnik, Google discontinued its pro-Hillary bias in autocomplete. It discontinued it completely. Now you’ll see as many negatives for Hillary Clinton as you do for Donald Trump or anyone else.”
Epstein said it was Google’s power that concerned him more than its potentially brief manipulation in the current election cycle. “I find this new event to be very disturbing, because if Google can turn bias like this on and off as easily as flipping a light switch, that’s very troubling to me,” he said. “That’s more troubling to me than the bias.”
Epstein said the media may not have discounted him as quickly if reporters had read his work, noting, “I happen to be a Hillary Clinton supporter, which I said in the article.”
