By definition, all search engines are biased. That statement shouldn’t be remotely controversial in the age of algorithms.
Most internet users behave as if the Google search engine contains the sum of ALL human knowledge and the keepers of this treasure are kind enough to share it all with us in a benevolent, neutral manner.
However, Google has bulldozed its way into a monopoly. We unselfconsciously use the name of a massive transnational corporation with CIA connections as a verb — synonymous with “search.”
So, I’ll save you the trouble of “Googling” all of this:
Google is currently worth $1.598 trillion and is the fifth most valuable company in the world
Two of its top three investors are Vanguard Group and Blackrock Inc. (click here to learn more about that)
Google has 4.3 billion users worldwide
Based on 4.72 billion internet users worldwide, Google has a market share of 92.24 percent
Google is the most visited website in the U.S. — with 335 percent more traffic than the second most visited site (YouTube)
With all that power and influence in mind, consider that Google gets over 40,000 search queries per second, over 3.5 billion searches per day, and 1.2 trillion searches per year.
Its search engine results can and do heavily impact what we accept as “fact.” For example, the first-place search result gets (on average) 144 percent more clicks than the second-place result.
If you were trying to create a mechanism through which a nefarious narrative could be constructed and imposed, you could do no better than Google.
Translation: You’re almost certainly WAY less informed and free-thinking than you imagine yourself to be.
Let’s change that, shall we?
I have been on Yandex since 2016, so good.
Google makes an excellent case study in perverse incentives as well as corruption, generally.