Not the ‘fair and balanced arbiter of facts’ it claims to be
“…An indepth study of Google search results found that despite the tech giant’s claim to be “a fair and balanced arbiter of facts,” 40 percent more searches produce material that leans politically either to the “left” or the “far left” rather than the “right.”
The researchers for CanIRank concluded Google’s “ranking algorithms aren’t designed to provide a fairly balanced or completely honest representation of controversial issues.”
To assess how fairly search engine results portray political candidates and controversial issues, the study collected more than 1,200 URLs ranking highly in Google.com for politically-charged keywords such as “gun control,” “abortion” and “Black Lives Matter.”
To assess the “political slant,” the researchers used politically active individuals from both the left and right as well as special software.
Along with finding 40 percent of search results are more likely to lean left, 16 percent of political keywords contained no right-leaning pages at all within the first page of results.
The analysis concluded “factors within the Google algorithm itself may make it easier for sites with a left-leaning or centrist viewpoint to rank higher in Google search results compared to sites with a politically conservative viewpoint.”…”