Kerby Anderson
Executives at Google may claim that they are not biased against conservatives, but information from engineers who worked for Google tell a different story. One of those engineers is Greg Coppola. He went public last month in an interview with Project Veritas. After that interview, he was put on administrative leave.
He explains that the algorithms used by Google “don’t write themselves.” Software programmers “write them to do what we want them to do.” That makes sense to me. I wrote computer programs years ago and don’t claim to have the expertise of those writing programs at Google. But it seems like even machine language and machine learning can be easily manipulated to give biased results.
Another Google engineer that has come forward is Zachary Vorhies. He also leaked documents from Google to Project Veritas. One of those documents provided evidence of what he called “algorithmic unfairness.”
Once Google figured out he was the person who leaked the documents, they took two actions. First, they demanded the material be returned. Then they sent law enforcement officials to his home to perform a “wellness check.” That was a blatant attempt at intimidating him.
The one document he leaked that got my attention was the news blacklist used by Google. Lots of organizations and websites that we use to get information and educate our listeners were on that list. Christian Post, Daily Caller, LifeNews, and American Thinker are just a few of the long list of sites on the Google blacklist.
Another leaked document from Google ranked news sources in the order of their credibility. ABC, CBS, PBS, CNN, and MSNBC were all ranked higher than Fox News.
The investigative report by Project Veritas and the publication of these Google documents from insiders illustrate that there is indeed a bias in the way this company aggregates and displays data.