Days after the Trump administration instituted a controversial travel ban in January 2017, Google employees discussed ways they might be able to tweak the company's search-related functions to show users how to contribute to pro-immigration organizations and contact lawmakers and government agencies, according to internal company emails.
The email traffic, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, shows that employees proposed ways to "leverage" search functions and take steps to counter what they considered to be "islamophobic, algorithmically biased results from search terms 'Islam', 'Muslim', 'Iran', etc." and "prejudiced, algorithmically biased search results from search terms 'Mexico', 'Hispanic', 'Latino', etc."
The email chain, while sprinkled with cautionary notes about engaging in political activity, suggests employees considered ways to harness the company's vast influence on the internet in response to the travel ban. Google said none of the ideas discussed were implemented.
"These emails were just a brainstorm of ideas, none of which were ever implemented," a company spokeswoman said in a statement. "Google has never manipulated its search results or modified any of its products to promote a particular political ideology—not in the current campaign season, not during the 2016 election, and not in the aftermath of President Trump's executive order on immigration. Our processes and policies would not have allowed for any manipulation of search results to promote political ideologies."
wsj.com/articles/google-workers-discussed-tweaking-search-function-to-counter-travel-ban-1537488472
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @11:00PM
Google:
#1 official website
#2 official twitter
#3 wikipedia article
#4 biography.com bio
#5 ABC news section for her
#6 official facebook
#7 Guardian news section for her
#8 NYT news section
#9 Hillary Clinton: American Democracy Is in Crisis - The Atlantic [theatlantic.com]
#10 What Is Hillary Clinton Afraid Of? - POLITICO Magazine [politico.com]
Duck:
#1 official website
#2 wikipedia article
#3 official twitter
#4 Politico news section for her
#5 biography.com bio
#6 official facebook
#7 official instagram
#8 NYT news section
#9 HuffPo news section
*clicks Load More*
#10 official website's issues section
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3 news results displayed on the search page (ellipses preserved):
Google:
#1 Hillary Clinton’s Upcoming TV Project Provokes More Negative Reaction Th... [deadline.com]
#2 Democratic Pollster: Hillary Clinton's Support Is Too Weak To Win A Presidential Election [townhall.com]
#3 Kavanaugh takes a crisis-management cue from the Clintons [cnn.com]
Duck:
#1 Hillary Clinton’s attack on the Electoral College is only her latest act of desper... [foxnews.com]
#2 Hillary Clinton says Trump will 'wholesale fire people' after midterm elections [foxnews.com]
#3 Hillary Clinton calls out Republican Party: 'Why are they so intimidated?' [go.com]