Image Credit: Paweł Czerwiński rom Unsplash

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past,” wrote George Orwell in his infamous book, 1984. In light of the Project Veritas video exposing a clear bias in Google’s algorithm, it is more important than ever to confront reality. Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., has an enormous influence on the dissemination of information and given the corporation’s bias, it is unconscionable to allow this Internet giant to continue unchecked.

The Process Behind Google’s Algorithms

Google’s original motto was “don’t be evil.” According to Gizmodo, Google’s code of conduct stated that “don’t be evil” should guide how the corporation provides users with information. Google’s code of conduct: “It’s about providing our users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can. But it’s also about doing the right thing more generally.” Passive observers will find little fault with such a positive motto for conducting business. In fact, many will find this cause noble for a corporate entity, especially one dedicated to democratizing information for all.

Google and its affiliates currently account for roughly 90 percent of all Internet searches. According to Google’s Search page, Google organizes information about webpages in a search index, which contains more information than “all of the world’s libraries put together.” In a fraction of a second, the algorithm sorts through hundreds of billions of webpages to find the most relevant results for the user. The search algorithm works by using a ranking system, which is made up by “a whole series of algorithms.” The algorithms look at many factors, such as the words of the query, “relevance and usability of pages, expertise of sources, and your location and settings.”

These algorithms take into account the nature of the query, such as the current relevance or the quality of the content. Google’s systems “are designed to identify signals that can help determine which pages demonstrate expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness on a given topic.” This is done by referencing sites that other users value for similar queries, a process known as PageRank. Google’s PageRank document outlines the extensive process for determining how a query is classified.

Google employee and Head of Responsible Innovation, Jen Gennai, says, “We’re also training our algorithms, like, if 2016 happened again, would we have, would the outcome be different?”

So far, there appears to be little to gripe with; however, determining the algorithms is a difficult task for any neutral programmer. Project Veritas’ recent video exposes this problem. Programmers can exhibit either implicit or explicit bias. In the video, Google employee and Head of Responsible Innovation, Jen Gennai, says, “We’re also training our algorithms, like, if 2016 happened again, would we have, would the outcome be different?” Herein lies the problem with a search engine dedicated to biasing their content.

In “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,” Google founders, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, outlined their mission for Google, which was to improve the quality and scalability of web search engines. Fast forward to 2019 where Google’s Head of Responsible Innovation discusses efforts to deliberately alter algorithms so as to bias search results. Additionally, Project Veritas provides documents leaked by a Google informant that provide details on “Machine Learning Fairness” and “algorithmic unfairness.” Google’s document defines “algorithmic unfairness” to mean “unjust or prejudicial treatment of people that is related to sensitive characteristics such as race, income, sexual orientation, or gender, through algorithmic systems or algorithmically aided decision-making.” In the video, Jen Gennai states that Google believed it was their mission, as a big company, to determine what is “fair” and “equitable.” Gennai even admits that Google’s definition of fairness diverges from a typical conservative definition, a phenomenon described at length in Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind.

There are numerous issues with Google’s algorithms, but the corporation understands the notion of “unconscious bias,” as labeled in a document titled, “Fair is Not the Default.” Unconscious bias is a prejudice in favor of or against something over another. The default conservative attack on Google has been that many of the programmers reside in Silicon Valley, a very progressive-leaning area, thus the prevailing unconscious bias tends to lean to the left. Unfortunately, Project Veritas’ work has demonstrated that many conservatives’ fears are indeed true. With all politicians, any issue that affects their personal electability becomes the subject of strict scrutiny.

Research and Reporting Identifying Google’s Bias

Robert Epstein, a senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, is no conservative or even a supporter of the President, but his research suggests that Google can “shift millions of votes in the midterm elections with no one knowing they’re doing so and without leaving a paper trail for authorities to trace.” Epstein notes that the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME) and the Search Suggestion Effect (SSE) are among the most powerful influences ever. His research on SSE suggests that Google can flip “a 50/50 split among undecided voters into an astonishing 90/10 split.” Even the European Union has noted Google’s wrongdoings with a $2.7 billion fine for systematically favoring its own services and demoting its rivals in search results. Although the E.U.’s fine does not explicitly call out political bias, the European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager claims that Google “denied European consumers a genuine choice of services and the full benefits of innovation.”

Of course, Google denies any sense of wrongdoing. With reporters uncritically defending Google’s denials, it is important to note the scale of Google’s bias. As Robert Epstein notes, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt supervised President Obama’s campaign tech operations in 2008 and 2012. The Obama White House’s relationship with Google frequently seemed more “like calls to the IT Help Desk.” Additionally, Schmidt sought to ensure Hillary Clinton had sufficient engineering talent to win the 2016 presidential election with a project called, The Groundwork. This project is symbolic of the “shrinking distance between Google and the Democratic Party.” As The Intercept points out in an article titled, “The Android Administration,” “no other public company approaches this degree of intimacy with government.”

Schmidt is one of the Democratic Party’s most powerful donors, but not only for his wealth. To the advantage of Democrats, Schmidt’s operations have been able to convince highly-talented engineers to join “the rough-and-tumble pressure cooker of a presidential campaign.” Much to Senator Mitt Romney’s chagrin, Obama staffer, Elan Kriegel, suggested that technology may have accounted for roughly half of the four percent popular vote margin of victory in the 2012 presidential election. FiveThirtyEight shows that roughly 95 percent of the corporation’s political donations have gone to Democrat candidates.

Voter Influence and Election Interference

“The illusion of choice is the most important illusion, the main trick of Western democracy especially,” writes Vladislav Surkov

Each corporation has a political bias and each corporation’s leadership prefers specific political policies for various reasons. The real problem with Google is “election interference.” While the mainstream news channels have derided Russia and Facebook for so-called “election interference,” there has been little talk about Google’s ability to shift voters preferences. For reasons unknown, the ability of a publicly-traded corporate entity to sway the vote so significantly has received little publicity. There was a time when progressive politicians would have abhorred such an idea, but it appears that the time is past so long as it benefits their party’s agenda and corporate donors. “The illusion of choice is the most important illusion, the main trick of Western democracy especially,” writes Vladislav Surkov, an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Progressives, in turn, will claim that politicians like Senator Elizabeth Warren seek to use early 1900’s antitrust law to “break up” Google, but their rationale has little to do with “election interference.” Even Google’s Jen Gennai called Warren’s proposals “misguided.” Instead it appears that progressives welcome such interference so long as it benefits their candidates and policies. There appears to be some hope on the horizon as the Justice Department is preparing an antitrust investigation of Google over its market share and scope. Conservatives have alleged the “stifling of conservative speech online,” which Senator Ted Cruz says, “raises real antitrust issues.”

While Google’s search tools and products like YouTube remain popular among the public, debate about Google’s ability to sway user preferences lingers. Politicians have joined the bipartisan firing squad, so as to protect their partisan electorate’s interests. It remains to be seen what the outcome of this publicity will bring, but it is certain that change is coming, as “more firms haven’t criticized Google publicly but privately stand ready to provide information to U.S. authorities about practices they view as potentially anticompetitive.” Whether change comes in the form of further regulatory scrutiny or media scrutiny, it is clear that Google’s control over information must, in some way, change. This is no declaration for federal intervention, but instead a plea that Google will understand the peril of their ability to interfere in elections and sway the votes in favor of their own biases.