Google Blames Vandalism After Search Engine Links Nazism To California Republican Party
Google says it’s not their fault that search results linked the California Republican Party with Nazism. After political strategist Eric Wilson discovered Google’s Knowledge Panel listing Nazism as an ideology of the California GOP, the giant search engine is being accused of political bias.
As next week’s California primary elections approach, people are increasingly searching for information about “California Republicans” or “California Republican Party.” Up until yesterday, users on Google found “Nazism,” “fiscal conservatism,” and “market liberalism” alongside information on the GOP in the Knowledge Panel, which provides a summary of supposed facts next to the search results.
After Vice News first reported the Nazism-California Republican Party link on Google, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy accused the search giant of attempting to weaken conservative opinions and values. The conservative politician blasted Google on Twitter.
“Sadly, this is just the latest incident in a disturbing trend to slander conservatives. These damaging actions must be held to account. #StopTheBias,” tweeted McCarthy.
According to Google, the Knowledge Panel gets information from a variety of sources, including Wikimedia Foundation’s Wikipedia. Through email, Fox News spoke with a Google spokesperson who claimed vandalism likely caused the erroneous information.
“This was not the result of any manual change by anyone at Google. We don’t bias our search results toward any political party. Sometimes people vandalize public information sources, like Wikipedia, which can impact the information that appears in search.”
Google’s spokesperson also claims their system would normally catch these kinds of errors, but for some reason, it failed to in this case. The company has since removed the Nazism reference that incorrectly appeared next to search results for the California GOP.
Dear @Google,
This is a disgrace ?? #StopTheBias pic.twitter.com/8EZhtOLcOD— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) May 31, 2018
Google is not alone as other tech giants are also being accused of political bias. Recently appearing before Congress, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was interrogated by Republican Senator Ted Cruz about the company’s alleged “persuasive pattern of bias and political censorship.”
As previously reported by Inquisitr, the questioning was explicitly about Facebook’s supposed ban of Fox News guests Diamond and Silk. Zuckerberg told the senator that the ban was an “enforcement error” and the decision was reversed.
Whether the Nazism link to the California Republican Party on Google is vandalism or on purpose, many conservatives fear the seemingly mounting influence large tech companies have on public opinion. This concern only increases when foreign and domestic entities are bent on rapidly spreading misinformation on various media platforms with the intent to discredit or sway political and social ideals.
