(STORY UPDATED BELOW)
SourceFed, a news website with a very popular internet channel, has done an analysis of Google search recommendations only to find that it appears Google is whitewashing search recommendations for Hillary Clinton, as opposed to Bing and Yahoo!.
WASHINGTON TIMES – An explosive report released Thursday suggests that Google manipulated its search engine to boost Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton by burying unflattering stories about her.
A video posted by SourceFed, a news and pop-culture website, accused Google of attempting to boost secretly Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy.
“Thanks to the help of our editor Spencer Reed, SourceFed has discovered that Google has been actively altering search recommendations in favor of Hillary Clinton’s campaign so quietly that we were unable to see it for what it was until today,” said SourceFed’s Matt Lieberman in the video.
For example, when typing “Hillary Clinton cri,” Google’s auto-complete function brings up as its top choice “Hillary Clinton crime reform,” even though competing search engines Bing and Yahoo show the most popular search topics are “Hillary Clinton criminal charges” and “Hillary Clinton crime.”
Watch the full report below:
UPDATE: Google denies they are burying negative stories to Hillary Clinton:
Google denied on Friday allegations that it manipulated its algorithm to bury stories unflattering to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
“Google Autocomplete does not favor any candidate or cause,” said a Google spokesperson in an email to the Washington Times.
“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,” said the statement.