Althouse: "Could Google tilt a close election?"

March 30, 2013

"Could Google tilt a close election?"

"That’s the question psychologist Robert Epstein has been asking in a series of experiments testing the impact of a fictitious search engine — he called it 'Kadoodle' — that manipulated search rankings, giving an edge to a favored political candidate by pushing up flattering links and pushing down unflattering ones."

16 comments:

pm317 said...: That author is a day late and a dollar short.

I wrote about it during the 2008 primary.. (pardon the amateur blog writing).

But embedded in that article is this article.. and this , read it if you like.

Also, while you're at it.. check this video by the great Flineo.; 3/30/13, 8:57 AM
Unknown said...: Almost anything could tilt a close election. As we have recently experienced. I'm not a stolen election birthed, but I no longer trust the integrity of the election process, and I don't think anyone wants to seriously work on correcting the problem.; 3/30/13, 8:58 AM
Unknown said...: birther; 3/30/13, 8:59 AM
Oso Negro said...: Wyo Sis - sadly agree.; 3/30/13, 9:04 AM
pm317 said...: From here, written in Dec, 2008 :

An example is if “thousands of people” were to knock a search result off a search page, they’d be likely to make a change.”

Now what, you may be thinking, is an “obvious change”? Is it one that is frivolous? (Thereby introducing a Google Frivolitimeter™ [Beta]). Or is it one that goes against the grain of the consensus? If so, then who decides what the consensus must be? Make no mistake, Google is moving into new territory: not only making arbitrary, editorial choices – really no different to Fox News, say, or any other media organization. It’s now in the business of validating and manufacturing consent: not only reporting what people say, but how you should think.; 3/30/13, 9:06 AM
pm317 said...: OFA, Obama army of foot soldiers for manufacturing consent.; 3/30/13, 9:07 AM
pm317 said...: The one good thing is that Obama does not want to share his magic with any other Democrat. So the party as a whole may not be able to capitalize on this corruption forever.; 3/30/13, 9:09 AM
virgil xenophon said...: "Could?"; 3/30/13, 9:11 AM
edutcher said...: It won't have a chance.

The vote fraud will get there first.; 3/30/13, 9:27 AM
Big Mike said...: "Could Google tilt a close election?"

Anyone who works with Big Data can confidently assert that it already has.

@edutcher, I grew up in Cook County, Illinois. Voter fraud is a key principle of the Democrat party.; 3/30/13, 9:36 AM
pm317 said...: Big Mike, I personally crunched numbers for Cook county (from all available records) for primary 2008. It was crazy -- robbery in daylight under your very own nose.; 3/30/13, 9:45 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: One problem with politically biasing a search engine is that that will ultimately result in the search engine losing market share, and, thus, revenues. Surprisingly, the users figure it out, and the rumors get around to those who use them most intensely.

Another problem with this whole idea is that someone using a search engine is at least somewhat curious. If the last election was stolen last time, it was with low information voters who get whatever information they do get from TV, from either comedy shows, or highly biased "news" shows. Throw in a bit of political bias in the regular programming, and then augment that with a huge amount of data mining.

I was a bit stunned a couple months ago when I talked with a friend of mine, who, while a long time "taker", was a long-time squishy Republican, and he admitted to voting for Obama/Biden this last November, because Obama was a "nice guy". Seems he was unable to steal WiFi over the critical August-October time frame resulted in his missing all the Romney and Ryan testimenaries, and an lack of curiosity resulted in his taking too much of his news from left leaning sites, that studiously ignored all the evidence that Obama really isn't all that nice of a person, but is rather personally vendictive. And, then he wants help because he is long time unemployed, after my repeated mention of the past 4 years of the Obama Recession. Still unemployed, and still not appologizing for voting for Obama, or admitting that that vote just helped to make his long term plight even worse.; 3/30/13, 11:20 AM
jr565 said...: Having precints that vote 108% for one party can also tilt elections.; 3/30/13, 5:49 PM
jr565 said...: pm317 wrote:
The one good thing is that Obama does not want to share his magic with any other Democrat. So the party as a whole may not be able to capitalize on this corruption forever.

The other good thing is there can only be one "the first black president". In other words, it was a historic election. you can't redo that.
Granted, Hilary could be the first woman president, so history could be remade. But in reality, I doint think Hilary has any of the benefits that Obama has. She is a known quantity, she is an old woman and she has a ton of baggage, none of which could be set about Obama the first time around (well, he had plenty of baggage, but the media and the dems poo poohed it, so it's as if he didn't); 3/30/13, 5:53 PM
jr565 said...: Bruce hayden wrote:
And, then he wants help because he is long time unemployed, after my repeated mention of the past 4 years of the Obama Recession. Still unemployed, and still not appologizing for voting for Obama, or admitting that that vote just helped to make his long term plight even worse.

And he's a republican? F him.Hope he stays unemployed. sorry, but your friend is an ass, and he deserves the obama economy more than others.; 3/30/13, 5:55 PM
n.n said...: The most effective means to tilt an election are bribery (e.g. redistributive change) and fraud (e.g. unverified voter eligibility).; 3/30/13, 6:20 PM