It is known worldwide as, arguably, the best search engine in cybersphere, but Google, can actually swing the results of the US presidential elections, says Robert Epstein, senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioural Research and Technology and the former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today.
“America’s next president could be eased into office not just by TV ads or speeches, but by Google’s secret decisions, and no one—except for me and perhaps a few other obscure researchers—would know how this was accomplished,” Epstein says in an op-ed published on politico.com on August 19, 2015.
Epstein said his position was based on the outcomes of an experiment he carried out with his his colleague, Ronald E. Robertson.
To carry out the experiment, “participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups in which search rankings favoured either Candidate A, Candidate B or neither candidate. Participants were given brief descriptions of each candidate and then asked how much they liked and trusted each candidate and whom they would vote for. Then they were allowed up to 15 minutes to conduct online research on the candidates using a Google-like search engine we created called Kadoodle.”
