well hello there!

*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by enoch.

I was just reading about this on snopes today.
http://www.snopes.com/google-manipulate-hillary-clinton/

Here was google's response:

Google Autocomplete does not favor any candidate or cause. Claims to the contrary simply misunderstand how Autocomplete works. Our Autocomplete algorithm will not show a predicted query that is offensive or disparaging when displayed in conjunction with a person’s name. More generally, our autocomplete predictions are produced based on a number of factors including the popularity of search terms.

Hmmmm. I must call BS on their claim.
I just tried Donald Trump rac....and sure enough Donald trump racist are the only 4 auto completes you get....so if it just doesn't suggest scandals, how do they explain that all you get for him is auto completed scandal stories?
"Hillary Clinton Criminal Investigation" should certainly come up if you put in Hillary Clinton Cri, but I wrote the entire phrase and it came up with nothing, not a single suggestion after I got to "crimi", but 5180000 results when I hit enter.
It sure seems like different algorithms are being used for different candidates.

It's funny now if you google "hillary clinton cri" now...you get articles about this video.

Creepy.

Try "Donald Trump crim "

Bing autocomplete has "criminal charges" and "criminal record" second and third in the search.
Google doesn't return any of those results.

Try "Donald Trump moro " or "idio "
Bing and Yahoo have predictable autocomplete hits.
Google won't complete those words at all.

This doesn't look like a scandal.

Or let me put it in terms that some people will understand better:

OMG! Marissa Mayer is the CEO of Yahoo! Yahoo backs ALEC which is a right wing public policy organization that's also backed by the Koch Brothers and Walmart.

Yahoo! autocomplete returns disparaging results when you search Hillary Clinton. Now Marissa Mayer, due to her political associations, has to prove that she has not used her influence at Yahoo to manipulate autocomplete results to negatively bias against Hillary Clinton.

Back and to the left...

Yeah, this takes a whole three seconds to investigate and prove to yourself that it's bullshit. I'm about as far from a Hillary supporter as one can get, but making up or spreading disinformation and easily-disproven conspiracy theories is nothing short of reprehensible.

Voter manipulation from on high.


Fuck Google

"evidence", "undeniable".

These words clearly have a different meaning to SourceFed.

God help us if this is the new standard for journalism.

It's also worth taking into account that google (and bing and yahoo) take your previous searches and perceived preferences into account in an attempt to guess what you're searching for.

If they think you're pro-Democrat anti-Republican your searches and auto-completes are going to be skewed that way.

Of course, that doesn't explain pro-Bernie anti-Hillary, but it could depend on the implementation on google's side... which could be a justifiable management decision... which could be voter manipulation with an excuse. Or not.

https://imgur.com/a/l9N9B