HACKER Q&A
📣 mike847

Does Google censor search suggestions?


When I search 'Joe Biden' on DuckDuckGo, the first search suggestion is 'Joe Biden dementia'. On Google, if I search 'Joe Biden' or even 'Joe Biden dementi', it still won't suggest it.

In contrast, Google suggests the result "Trump Derangement Syndrome" upon typing "Trump Dera" into the search box.

Does this imply that Google is manipulating search suggestions in a way that could influence the 2020 election? This could be an unintentional side effect of their algorithm, but seeing that search engines are able to greatly impact voters [1], it seems like an important conversation to have.

Is there a more systematic way that this bias could be investigated rather than just sampling a few potential search queries?

[1] https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/how-google-c...


  👤 logicslave Accepted Answer ✓
Absolutely the results are biased. If you bring this up though, you get publicly shamed and called a conspiracy theorist. When covid 19 was spreading in China, fringe information about the virus that implied it would be a world wide pandemic was suppressed and removed from search results as well as reddit. All major conduits of information, google search, reddit front page, youtube, facebook, etc are heavily moderated. Information that is raw still sits in the long tails and corners of these websites, but the majority of what you see is hand curated.

👤 SamReidHughes
Yes, it does, this is well covered in the news.