To the Editor:
I googled, “2016 election meddling.” What came up was “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the goal of harming the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump.” A truer statement that should have come up would be Google meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election more than all other organizations and all other countries with the goal of harming the campaign of Donald Trump, boosting the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.
Google has been the world’s largest search engine since 2000. Google owns YouTube and has a monopoly on information. According to Pastor Steve Cioccolanti before the 2016 election Julian Assange said, “Google is Hillary Clinton’s secret weapon.” Google did work hard to help Hillary Clinton. Cioccolanti said, the Daily Mail reported leaked e-mails reveal Hillary Clinton’s campaign had Google founder Eric Schmidt leading a team to develop what would become the Hillary Clinton website. The chief technology officer of Clinton’s campaign, Stephanie Hannon, was also hired from Google. Pastor Cioccolanti said Google gave dishonest biased search results and used bait and switch tricks. When googling Trump, Google would give as the top choices what opposition groups say about Trump. Cioccolanti said, “If you are concerned about search neutrality, privacy, propaganda, censorship it may be time to switch out of Google.” Cioccolanti is now using and recommending “Bing” as the best search engine.
According to www.prageru.com broad-based studies by the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology and by Northwestern University have confirmed what examples clearly suggest: bias against conservatives at Google and other big tech sites. Google, Facebook and Twitter all at various times refused to carry political ads from Tennessee Republican candidate Marsha Blackburn promoting her conservative views. The same has happened to other conservatives candidates. Former Google software engineer James Damore was fired for disagreeing with Google’s (left-wing) political position. James said, “woman and men are different” and was fired for holding this one conservative position.
During a June 2019 congressional hearing, research psychologist Dr. Robert Epstein (a former high-ranking Google employee) testified that the inaccuracies spewed forth by tech giants (such as Google, YouTube, Facebook and others) are potent enough to influence elections. Dr. Epstein said, “in 2016 biased search results generated by Google’s search algorithm likely impacted undecided voters in a way that gave at least 2.6 million votes to Hillary Clinton.” Disinformation is real, and it has tangible consequences.
With the 2020 election approaching, voters must take extra caution to not accept claims on their face but instead search for themselves whether the promises, accusations, and charges made by those running for office are really true. If we do not exercise this diligence, Dr. Epstein warns: “(Our research leaves) little doubt about whether Google has the ability to control voters. In laboratory and online experiments conducted in the United States, we were able to boost the proportion of people who favored any candidates by between 37 and 63 percent after just one search session.”
We can’t afford to be misinformed voting public. A lot of what is said on the internet isn’t true and many people aren’t who they say they are. Some Democrats have said they will role play as Trump supporters on the internet to get people mad at Trump. One of the best ways to be informed is read the party platforms of both parties. We must always seek for truth and pray for wisdom and discernment. James 1:5 says, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God, that gives to all men liberally…; and it shall be given him.” Also Colossians 2:8 “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ (Jesus).” At next year’s election don’t be tricked by lies and misinformation. At Halloween time Google is more scary than ghost and goblins because they are the most serious threat to fair elections and democracy in American history!

D.D. Nave
Elizabethton