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Google Software Politics Technology

Internet Search Engines May Be Influencing Elections 67

Posted by Soulskill from the searching-for-better-candidates dept.
sciencehabit writes: Thomas Epstein, a research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research in Vista, California, has found that the higher a politician ranks on a page of Internet search results, the more likely you are to vote for them — 80% more likely in some cases. The story also suggests that the folks at Google may already be influencing elections. "Google's algorithm has been determining the outcome of close elections around the world," says Epstein. As predicted, subjects spent far more time reading Web pages near the top of the list (abstract). But what surprised researchers was the difference those rankings made: Biased search results increased the number of undecided voters choosing the favored candidate by 48% compared with a control group that saw an equal mix of both candidates throughout the list.
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Internet Search Engines May Be Influencing Elections More

Internet Search Engines May Be Influencing Elections

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  • No-information voters (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fwipp ( 1473271 ) on Friday August 07, 2015 @04:06PM (#50271575)

    The researchers saw the most pronounced effects, as you'd expect, when their study included candidates that the subjects had no prior knowledge on. In their first study, they asked Californians about 2010 candidates for PM of Australia.

    In their followup, they again note that it's only really effective on people who don't know what's going on (and aren't likely voters anyway): "Divorcees, Republicans, and subjects who reported low familiarity with the candidates were among the easiest groups to influence, whereas participants who were better informed, married, or reported an annual household income between $40,000 and $50,000 were harder to sway. Moderate Republicans were the most susceptible of any group: The manipulated search results increased the number of undecided voters who said they would choose the favored candidate by 80%."

    When they tried a third study in India, about Indian elections, that impressive 80% figure dropped to only 12% (of undecided voters).

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by steelfood ( 895457 )

      Maybe the more notable result of the study is that those who consider themselves moderate Republicans are easier to manipulate via selective informing. It explains the success of Fox News anyway.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Calsar ( 1166209 )

        Or maybe the moderate Republicans are more open minded about who to vote for and aren't set on any one candidate.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Anguirel ( 58085 )

        As much as I enjoy a cheap shot at Fox News, it's more likely that Moderate Republicans haven't had a candidate they really like in years, so they need to evaluate all of them and switch between candidates constantly to find someone vaguely close to what they want.

    • From TFA:

      "What weâ(TM)re talking about here is a means of mind control on a massive scale that there is no precedent for in human history." That may sound hyperbolic, but Robert Epstein says itâ(TM)s not an exaggeration.

      Except that it is an exaggeration.

      What they didnâ(TM)t know was that the search engine had been rigged to display the results in an order biased toward one candidate or the other. For example, in the most extreme scenario, a subject would see 15 webpages with information about

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cederic ( 9623 )

        Undecided voters are undecided because:
        a. there isn't any real difference between politicians.
        b. THEY DO NOT CARE WHO WINS.

        Nonsense. Do you want military spending and illegal wars or do you want nationalised healthcare? Tough choice if you don't want either but the two primary candidates both promote one.

        In the UK it's far more nuanced, as there will be 4-8 candidates, with heavily overlapping views and policies.

        It's very possible to care deeply and still be undecided.

        • with heavily overlapping views and policies.

          With such a broad spectrum of humanity and many elections being decided by 49.999 to 50.001 victories.

    • So, in other words, it will affect mostly those that have no clue about the election at hand?

      Then yes. It will seriously affect pretty much any election on this planet.

      Quite frankly, do you think you could go out on the street today, or take a mall so you have a nice, impressive sample to work from, and ask random people about the agendas various candidates stand for? Provided they heard about the candidates, that is.

      It might be easier in the US where you only have to remember two candidates. But even there

      • This study is seriously flawed. The most glaring problem is the faulty premise. It assumes that undecided voters with no knowledge of the candidates will suddenly decide they care and then, as their first and only recourse, go to Google and search for something generic along the lines of 'presidential candidates.'

        • Care? No, they just don't want to look like uninformed voting sheeple, so they go online, type in the first thing that has something to do with the election at hand and consider themselves "informed" because they now know someone to vote for.

          I would by no means rule out that this has a serious impact on voter behaviour. People don't want to invest time into something like this, they just want to feel like they could make an informed decision, they don't want to actually be able to make one.

          You can easily te

          • Care? No, they j......... consider themselves "informed" because they now know someone to vote for. I would by no means rule out that this has a serious impact on voter behaviour.

            That's funny, because the more I know about any particular politician, and hear them speak, the less I like them. I would be more likely to vote for the one at the bottom of the Google hits. In fact I don't usually vote for any of the bastards.

            You can easily test this yourself. Take a topic that your listener has no information about. Feed him one sided information .... Watch him agree with you

            Not me, I would tend to react against the speaker. I am reacting against your opinion here for example. I do not see that happen very often among people I know either. Most people I know have the opposite fault - being contrary for the sake of it. But I'm prepare

    • In India, voters decide whom to vote based on many criterions, such as who is giving away freebies, who is paying me money, who belongs to my cast, who belongs to my religion, who is talking about giving children of my community a special reservation in school colleges and jobs,who helped me in corruption, who is going to help me to get away with those inefficiency and bribe charges etc.

      You see, Internet and Search Engines do not play big role here.

  • Well then. (Score:3)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Friday August 07, 2015 @04:06PM (#50271577) Homepage Journal

    Donald Trump [google.com] it is.

  • and door knocks, too. and the answer is, heck yes, they damn well better influence elections, we're spending a tubload of money for it.

    something else that influences elections... if you see a candidate that is batwing insane babbling total bullshit, remember that. don't vote for them.

    there, now I'm evil, too. bwa-ha-haaaa, vote for tweedeldum.

  • "Internet Search Engines May Be Influencing Elections". It's the media's job to influence elections!

  • It is still better than the alternative (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Friday August 07, 2015 @04:35PM (#50271689) Journal
    These low information voters usually stay out and do not vote at all. Or they vote based on inertia, "we always vote for DMK or BJP or CPI-M".If they take the trouble do a minimal google search before voting it is a step in the right direction. Do not make the perfect the enemy of the good. They may have a long way to go. But at least they have started the process.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by martas ( 1439879 )
      How is voting based on Google search rankings better than not voting at all? In fact I'd interpret this research as an argument against mandatory voting...

      • Re:It is still better than the alternative (Score:4, Interesting)

        by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Friday August 07, 2015 @07:09PM (#50272593) Journal
        The greatest enemy for democracy is not totalitarianism or communism or any thisism or thatism. It is apathy. The moment someone takes the trouble to look something up before voting it is good. Once they start some of them would eventually start using more reliable information. In that respect it is a good beginning. It is not perfect. It is barely better than random voting or inertia voting or not voting. But it is a good start, that is all I am saying.
  • It's also likely that their ranking is higher because people are searching for those candidates more. A simple case of reverse causation.
  • That is all.

  • ...Biased search results increased the number of undecided voters choosing the favored candidate by 48% compared with a control group that saw an equal mix of both candidates throughout the list....

    The article seems to paint the search engines as some sort of evil, brain-washing entity. Beware, the search engines can make you vote the way they want you to vote!

    .
    Yet the article offers no evidence that the search engines are intentionally skewing their results. Indeed, the article actually does say, "Presumably Google isn’t intentionally tweaking its algorithms to favor certain presidential candidates, but Epstein says it would extremely difficult to tell if it were."

    So it looks like yet

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      So it looks like yet another researcher in search (no pun intended) of headlines.

      It might look like that to you, but as someone who does science research I can tell you, it is the reporter trying to sex things up. It can be really hard to not say something they can take out of context and sensationalize. Then after the reporter is done, the editor writes the title. Usually the editor only skims the article and so you often end up with a title that is factually wrong and contradicts facts in the actual article. But sure, blame the researcher. Being anti-science is hip these days.

      • It might look like that to you, but as someone who does science research I can tell you, it is the reporter trying to sex things up.

        I sit corrected. thx.

    • Some politicians are more friendly to Google than others, they have a vested interest in "helping" the friendly ones.

  • Good Morning America spent like 10 minutes discussing that Donald Trump was the most searched for of the GOP candidates, like that is news in itself.

    Thus begins the downward spiral, feeding in on itself...

  • in Britain the higher a politician ranks on a search engine the more likely it is because s/he is somehow involved or implicated in allegations of serious child abuse.

    Do you want a paedophile running the country?

    (apparently there has been at least one (Edward Heath)).

    • in Britain the higher a politician ranks on a search engine the more likely it is because s/he is somehow involved or implicated in allegations of serious child abuse.

      Do you want a paedophile running the country?

      (apparently there has been at least one (Edward Heath)).

      You mean they aren't all paedophiles?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

        I wouldn't know, but the general assumption is tending toward the "yes, they're all filthy bastards" going by the disclosures by the mainstream press. There are now SEVEN police forces in Britain investigating Heath (funny how they only go after the dead ones - Clarke doesn't count at the moment because the first person who made a public accusation against him was himself immediately persecuted by the Crown simply because Clarke is a fucking Queen's Counsel. Things SHOULD change now there are more accusatio

  • If a candidate is popular, articles will be written about them, and their SEO will increase. (Yes, this may further increase their popularity, but they were already popular.) If anything, their original popularity is driving their Google rank *and* their likelihood of winning the election. I think the researcher takes two "effects," and says one is actually causing the other.

    This study is really only interesting for its focus on "undecided voters," but in many electorates this is a really small sliver
  • Thomas Epstein, a research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research in Vista, California, might make a great Janitor but completely lacks the ability to understand cause and effect.

  • So the argument is that a politicians placement in google search results influences election results.

    I think it's quaint that the authors imagine that American voters are curious enough to look up politicians online in order to inform their vote yet too lazy to read past the first few entries in Google.

    "Post proc, ergo propter hoc" [wikipedia.org]

    The top results in Google are the stories flying around social media, and the stories flying around social media are the only stories most Americans are exposed to.

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