Who will guard the search engines?

How search engines operate should be considered of great importance by anyone who claims to take democracy seriously, regardless of one’s political sympathies.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

– Juvenal (Who will watch the watchmen? )

In mid-July, numerous media outlets reported on the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. FBI Director Christopher Wray stated later that same month that what hit the former president Trump was a bullet. A few days later, it was reported from various sources that search engines no longer acknowledged that an assassination attempt on ex-President Trump had taken place. When users used automatic completion in Google and Bing (91% respectively 4% market share), these search engines only suggested earlier presidents such as Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt, along with Russian President Vladimir Putin as people who could have been subjected to assassination attempts.

The reports were comprehensive enough for the Republican district attorney of Missouri to say that he would investigate the matter. The senator from Kansas - also a Republican - planned to make an official request to Google. Google has responded through a spokesman to the New York Post that the company had not “manually changed” search results, but its system includes “protection” against search results “connected to political violence.”

A similar phenomenon occurred during the 2016 presidential election. At the time, reports emerged of Google, unlike other less widely used search engines, rarely or never suggesting negative search results for Hillary Clinton. The company however provided negative search results for then-candidate Trump. Then, as today, the company denied deliberately favouring any specific political candidate.

These occurrences led to research on how such search suggestions can influence public opinion and voting preferences. For example, the impact of simply removing negative search suggestions has been investigated. A study published in June 2024 reports that such search results can dramatically affect undecided voters. Reducing negative search suggestions can turn a 50/50 split into a 90/10 split in favour of the candidate for whom negative search suggestions were suppressed. The researchers concluded that search suggestions can have “a dramatic impact,” that this can “shift a large number of votes” and do so without leaving “any trace for authorities to follow.” How search engines operate should therefore be considered of great importance by anyone who claims to take democracy seriously. And this regardless of one’s political sympathies.

A well-known thought experiment in philosophy asks: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” Translated to today’s media landscape: If an assassination attempt took place on a former president, but search engines don’t want to acknowledge it, did it really happen?

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Cover image created with Grok