Media Research Center President Brent Bozell on Tuesday called for greater Big Tech accountability on Fox News’s America Reports as he highlighted MRC Free Speech America’s groundbreaking Google political search bias study.
"They are manipulating the data because they have political agendas," Bozell said of Big Tech companies. "It’s just as clear as day.”
Host John Roberts pointed out a key finding of the MRC report: “[MRC’s] analysis of twelve races shows that Republican websites in ten of those twelve races resulted in significantly fewer search results on Google.”
Bozell then explained that in seven of the 12 Senate races that MRC analyzed, “the Republicans had been pushed to page two.”
Google controls 92.4 percent of internet searches worldwide, yet less than 1 percent of Google searchers click beyond the first page of search results, Bozell noted. This means that most people who use Google to search for the same Republican candidates included in MRC's research will not find the candidates’ campaign websites.
“If you are somebody searching that Republican, that person doesn’t exist” because Google suppresses them, Bozell said. “For all intents and purposes, the Republican candidate is a non-person.”
MRC’s study mirrored the following methodology for its Senate study: “[Candidate’s name] Senate race 2022.”
But even when Roberts and his colleagues put in more basic Google searches comprising just the state, the Republican candidate’s last name and the year, “in five of those cases,” the Democrat appeared in search results, but the Republican did not, Roberts noted.
“So, it’s not just the way that [MRC is] searching” that’s bringing up skewed search results, Roberts said.
The Republican National Committee on Friday filed a lawsuit against Google for sending almost all GOP political fundraising emails to Gmail spam boxes at the end of the month, Bozell noted.
“Google has had an agenda against Republicans, against Donald Trump, going back to 2016,” Bozell said. “It’s been proven time and again. They have a liability protection. It needs to be addressed.”
Bozell noted that, in addition to Google, Twitter and Facebook are biased against conservatives. He cited their censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story just 2 1/2 weeks before the 2020 presidential election.
Had Big Tech allowed more people to be informed about the Hunter Biden story, 9.4 percent of Joe Biden’s voters would have abandoned him, according to an MRC poll completed in November 2020.
“Donald Trump would’ve won every single swing state in America, would’ve won 311 electoral votes – a landslide – if they’d only allowed the truth,” Bozell said. “That’s all.”
America Reports
10/25/2022
2:50PM ETJOHN ROBERTS: The Media Research Center says Google is manipulating search engine results to hurt Republicans in critical Senate races. The conservative group says its analysis of 12 races shows the Republican websites in 10 of those 12 races resulted in significantly fewer search results on Google. Let’s bring in Brent Bozell. He’s the founder and president of the Media Research Center. So, what did your investigation show here, Brent?
BRENT BOZELL: We looked at the top 12 races from RealClearPolitics. Put this in perspective. Google controls 92.4% of searches worldwide. Also, consider the fact that less than 1% of the population goes past the first page. So, in seven of the 12 cases, the Republicans had been pushed to page two, so that if you are somebody searching that Republican, that person doesn't exist. For all intents and purposes, the Republican candidate is a non-person and that's Google who deliberately, that deliberately put them on page two.
ROBERTS: We asked Google about this and Google suggests it’s the way that you searched. You didn’t just search a name. You searched Adam Laxalt, Senate, Arizona, 2022. Here’s what Google said. This report is designed to mislead, testing uncommon search terms people rarely use. Anyone who searches for the candidate names on Google can clear see that their campaign websites near the top of the results. All the candidates are in the top three and often the first part in Google search results. We did a little test ourselves. We searched just the name, and the campaign website for Democrats and Republicans in those 12 races did come up. But then we did a finer search, which is the way that I search on Google. I would search like Laxalt, Arizona, 2022, and in five of those cases the Democrat came up in terms of their campaign website, but the Republican didn't.
BOZELL: That's right.
ROBERTS: It's not just the way that you are searching.
BOZELL: We look at everything apples to apples, so it's fair. But their answer this afternoon is much better than on "Fox & friends" this morning, when they said they had not seen the study but it was wrong. Remember, Google just got sued on Friday by the RNC for throwing all of their fundraising appeals into spam and now they are learning their regular appeals, their regular messages are going into spam, have been going into spam as well. Google has had an agenda against Republicans, against Donald Trump, going back to 2016. It’s been proven time and again. They have a protection, a liability protection. It needs to be addressed. These tech companies need to be held to the same account as Fox News, to the same account as any journalist operation. They are not objective platforms, they are publishers, they have agendas, they are manipulating the data because they have political agendas. It's just as clear as day.
ROBERTS: We are this close to an election, whether it's Google and whether or not Google is doing anything actually nefarious, but the other social media sites as well. Is it any surprise that you see that results for conservatives are pushed aside? Look back to Twitter when the hunter Biden story broke and they banned the New York post from Twitter for reporting on something that oh, by the way, had the added benefit of being true.
BOZELL: And we looked at and Facebook admitted they had done it, because the Justice Department asked them not to give any oxygen to Hunter Biden, and so Zuckerberg admitted they had done it. But here’s the interesting thing. We took a survey in the swing states of all Biden voters and we asked them about Hunter Biden. 5.4%, 54% of Biden's voters had never heard of Hunter Biden. We then asked them had you known about Hunter Biden, 9.5% would not have voted for Biden, Donald Trump would have won every single swing state in America, would’ve won 311 electoral votes – a landslide – if they’d only allowed the truth. That’s all.
ROBERTS: And tomorrow, you’re reporting on House races in searches.
BOZELL: And we’re going to have another surprise in store for Google. Maybe they’ll deny this one as well.
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