IMAGINE AN ELECTION\u2014A close one. You\u2019re undecided. So you type the name of one of the candidates into your search engine of choice. (Actually, let\u2019s not be coy here. In most of the world, one search engine dominates; in Europe and North America, it\u2019s Google.) And Google coughs up, in fractions of a second, articles and facts about that candidate. Great! Now you are an informed voter, right? But a study published this week says that the order of those results, the ranking of positive or negative stories on the screen, can have an enormous influence on the way you vote. And if the election is close enough, the effect could be profound enough to change the outcome.<\/p>\n
In other words: Google\u2019s ranking algorithm for search results could accidentally steal the presidency. \u201cWe estimate, based on win margins in national elections around the world,\u201d says Robert Epstein, a psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology and one of the study\u2019s authors, \u201cthat Google could determine the outcome of upwards of 25 percent of all national elections.\u201d<\/p>\n
Epstein\u2019s paper combines a few years\u2019 worth of experiments in which Epstein and his colleague Ronald Robertson gave people access to information about the race for prime minister in Australia in 2010, two years prior, and then let the mock-voters learn about the candidates via a simulated search engine that displayed real articles.<\/p>\n
One group saw positive articles about one candidate first; the other saw positive articles about the other candidate. (A control group saw a random assortment.) The result: Whichever side people saw the positive results for, they were more likely to vote for\u2014by more than 48 percent. The team calls that number the \u201cvote manipulation power,\u201d or VMP. The effect held\u2014strengthened, even\u2014when the researchers swapped in a single negative story into the number-four and number-three spots. Apparently it made the results seem even more neutral and therefore more trustworthy.<\/p>\n