Dr. Robert Epstein found that Google “suppresses [and] depresses websites such as Breitbart News” in accordance with the company’s left-wing and partisan Democrat biases, offering his analysis on last Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with host Rebecca Mansour and special guest host Rick Manning.
Epstein reflected on a research study he led examining people’s reactions to Internet search results.
“We measured bias in web pages and especially in the news sources that those web pages were on,” explained Epstein. “And, again, we wanted to see whether there was any liberal or conservative bias in search rankings of Google, Bing, and Yahoo.”
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Epstein continued, “We found substantial bias in Google’s search results, and if there was any bias at all in Bing and Yahoo, it was tilted towards the conservative side, but they can’t have much influence on an election because very few people use them. … Bing and Yahoo just can’t exert much influence, but Google sure can.”
Epstein added, “If they’re just giving people what they want to see and not doing anything else, then you should see conservative search results [if you are conservative]. But that’s not what actually happens. So they’re not just giving people what they want to see. They’re also trying to nudge people in a particular direction. That’s, of course, the direction of their own political preferences.”
“They’re sending everyone, pretty much everyone, results that are biased in a liberal direction,” stated Epstein. “And, by the way, we found this is all ten search positions of search results, which is the whole first page of Google search results, which covers everyone because hardly anyone goes beyond that first page.”
Google’s search results prioritize “liberal” news media outlets, explained Epstein.
“We looked at the news sources that these search results were taking you to, and the bias of news sources has been fairly precisely measured by several teams but most recently by this team at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center,” Epstein said. “So we used those bias ratings, like New York Times rates extremely liberal, Breitbart rates more conservative, obviously, and we looked at bias from that perspective, and we found — again, looking at Google — they’re generally taking you to liberal news sources.”
Epstein went on to say, “So Breitbart doesn’t even appear in the top five news sources where they send people. With Bing and Yahoo, Breitbart is in the top five. There’s a little more variety [and] a little more balance, but Google seems to depress or suppress websites such as Breitbart News.”
Epstein noted Google’s power in driving — or reducing — Internet traffic to websites.
“Most major websites draw at least 25 — sometimes 30 percent or more — of their traffic from Google,” stated Epstein. “That’s true for the New York Times. It’s true for the Wall Street Journal, which, by way, has a much smaller level of traffic than Breitbart does. I looked it up.”
Epstein concluded, “But if you look up Breitbart, Breitbart gets only ten percent of its traffic from Google, which is extremely low. That’s very, very rare, and that implies suppression, and if you doubt that there’s suppression, just look at some of the leaks. Of course, there’s suppression, and you suppress in a way that’s going to meet your financial goals, of course — if you’re a for-profit company — but also in a way that’s going to meet your political goals. I mean, why not? Why wouldn’t you do that?”
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