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10 Jun, 2016 04:09

Did Clinton’s campaign boost her image with a Google bomb?

Did Clinton’s campaign boost her image with a Google bomb?

A report claims that Google’s autocomplete function may have been a tool in Hillary Clinton’s campaign. While Google denies skewing results to autocomplete options in favor for any presidential candidate, the results for Clinton seem very favorable.

Learning more about Hillary Clinton could prove harder for those using Google. A report from SourceFed explains that typing “Hillary Clinton cri” into Google yields some very different autocorrect guesses than their competitors, Bing and Yahoo.

Google directs users typing “Hillary Clinton cri” to “Hillary Clinton on crime reform,” and “Hillary Clinton crisis” but nothing about the FBI’s criminal investigation that the former secretary of state has had looming over her head for months.

Although the same words will also prompt “Hillary Clinton crime bill 1994,” a now very unpopular bill that many believe is responsible for the massive incarceration problem the nation faces.

However, entering a search of “Hillary Clinton cri” into Yahoo and Bing suggests queries that focus almost exclusively on her criminal investigation and crimes.

A Google spokeswoman told MarketWatch that the company was not manipulating results to favor any presidential candidate. The company’s statement on the Autocomplete function claims that “Autocomplete predictions are produced based on a number of factors including the popularity of search terms. Our systems are periodically updated to improve search, and our users’ search activity varies, so the terms that appear in autocomplete may change over time,” adding, “our systems automatically filter a small set of offensive or inappropriate content from autocomplete predictions.

However, SourceFed used Google Trends to point out that “Hillary Clinton indictment” has been a more popular search term than “Hillary Clinton” and “Indiana,” “India,” “independent voters,” “Indiana campaign” and “Indiana polls” – Google’s autocomplete search suggestions.

It is worth noting that it takes until “Donald Trump laws” to start seeing anything on Google about his 3,500 lawsuits.

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