With its “direct answers” service, search engine Google aims to cut down on the amount of time users spend seeking information by algorithmically answering common queries.

Unfortunately, sometimes it goes wrong:

Josh Fruhlinger (@jfruh) uhhhhh hey google you might wanna check your algorithm pic.twitter.com/vc0KSKK9LZ

A search for “who runs Hollywood” automatically brings up the answer “Jews”, with a link to a news story from July 2014 on the New Observer, a website “designed to present current affairs without the spin of the controlled media”. The site runs articles about the “nonwhite invasion of Europe” and the “third world flood”, as well as reporting antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Worse, as seen at the top of this article, the answer is also presented as an auto-complete on mobile devices, saving users the trouble of even hitting the search button.

Unlike some embarrassing Google search results, the info-box does not appear to be the result of a “Googlebomb”, where a number of sites make a concerted effort to alter the results for a particular term. Instead, it looks like it arose organically due to the nature of articles written about groups “running Hollywood”.

Even outside the infobox, of the ten articles on the first page of the Google search results for the query, five say “Jews” run Hollywood, one says “the illuminati” runs it, and one says “gay Jews” do.

It’s not the first time the direct answers have prominently displayed embarrassingly incorrect results. Until May this year, a search for “what happened to the dinosaurs” pulled in information from a creationist website arguing that “dinosaurs are used more than almost anything else to indoctrinate children and adults in the idea of millions of years of earth history”. Oddly, the search now pulls in the same information, but links to a website criticising the oversight.

Google told the Guardian that the direct answer was being removed as quickly as possible, and explained that the site had been linked to by many others, giving it perceived “authority” under the company’s page-rank algorithm. A spokesperson added: “We assure you that the views expressed by such sites are not in any way endorsed by Google.”