Googles skewed search results in 2016 accused of aiding Clinton campaign

streiff:

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What the study shows, or purports to show–I’m not a mathematician and I don’t play one on the internet–is that no matter who you were or your political preferences, Google and Yahoo, but particularly Google, was going to serve up stories which were favorable to Hillary Clinton and they did it for at least six months prior to the election.

This is the kicker:

9) Issue: Could the pro-Clinton bias in search results have shifted votes to Mrs. Clinton? A comprehensive study published in 2015 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that biased search rankings can easily shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20% or more – up to 80% in some demographic groups. Extrapolating from the mathematics introduced in this report, in articles published in February 2016 and thereafter, the lead author of the PNAS study predicted that a pro-Clinton bias in Google’s search results would, over time, shift at least 2.6 million votes to Clinton. She won the popular vote in the November election by 2,864,974 votes. Without the pro-Clinton bias in Google’s search results, her win margin in the popular vote might have been negligible.

The implication of this, if it can be replicated, is pretty clear. Google acted as a political actor n 2016 to fluff for Hillary Clinton. The skewing of search results is clearly a donation in kind to the Clinton campaign and should be investigated by the FEC. But Justice should take a hint from what his happening in Europe and conduct an anti-trust investigation of Google and if warranted, break it up. It is Google, not a horde of young people in Eastern Europe, who poses the direct threat to our form of government.

This is an interesting theory.  Whether it has the making of an anti-trust case is open to question.  Those cases usually involve commercial advantage because of market share manipulation.  What this alleges is actually much more sinister, if true.  It presents a threat to democracy, but it also shows one of the advantages the liberal near monopoly of mainstream news has.