Could Google Influence Election Results? Part 1 of a 3 Part Series

Welcome to Twenty-First Century Politics where Google may hold far more power than the White House Press Secretary and Cable News Coverage, combined. For the multitudes of Americans conducting political news and information searches on the internet everyday, it may never occur to them that the search results could possibly be skewed or even sending a political message. Is it possible that Google could have the largest influence ever held in history over a United States Presidential Election? The answer is possibly yes.

For every web page or news article that moves to the top of its search result list there must be, by necessity, a page or news result moved down the list. It is no secret that most searchers select from the first results listed.

The current rumor swirling among the technology community is that Google may be eliminating certain political information from its search results. No one at this point is publicly accusing the company of any wrongdoing or of using its power over the political webpage search results for any corporate gain.

Clearly Google already is influencing the 2008 Presidential Election. That does not mean it is intentional. It does mean that by becoming a leading gatekeeper of information and deciding which information passes through the gate, they are inevitably having influence over the topic, in this case the election.

In a quote obtained from an article published in the New York Times entitled, "A New Campaign Tactic: Manipulating Google Data," Ricardo Reyes, a Google spokesman, stated in part: "A site's ranking in Google's search results is automatically determined by computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page's relevance to a given query."

What are the thousands of factors that are determining the political search results? Consider that they must already filter their search results under the default search settings to eliminate pornography, some illegal activity, and other unsatisfactory content. What if they are also filtering the exact political information a searcher wants to obtain? Could it be happening now? How would the Google user know?

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