CW Alleges Google Manipulates Search Results Against Section 230 Bill, Which Company Denies
Google is manipulating search results over the issue of proposed legislation that would change Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (see 1708010011, 1708110022 and 1709070033), returning links that favor information from organizations that oppose the bill, alleged Consumer Watchdog…
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in a Monday news release. When searching for "Section 230," the consumer group said three of the top four links returned under the news tab were articles from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which opposes the bill. But competing search engines like Bing and DuckDuckGo provided "links to articles presenting all sides of the issue," CW said. Google appears "to be stacking the deck to favor their own purposes,” said CW Privacy Project Director John Simpson, whose organization backs the bill. "This claim is completely false," a company spokeswoman responded. "We have never re-ranked search results to manipulate political sentiment. We always strive to provide our users with the most authoritative, useful, relevant answers to their queries. A site’s ranking on Google Search is determined using hundreds of factors to calculate a page’s relevance to a given query." Proponents say the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (S-1693) would help victims get justice without affecting tech innovation, while the tech industry, including Google, and civil liberties groups say the bill would hold tech companies liable for user-generated content without curbing online sex trafficking.