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comment by deepflows
deepflows  ·  3161 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How Google could rig the 2016 election

Well of course (possible and factual) manipulation of elections isn't anything new. But much like I don't get how "Well Google and Facebook do it, too" makes Microsoft's behavior any better, I don't understand how "traditional media and manufacturers of voting machines need to be questioned critically, too" makes it any less important to understand what google is capable of.

Plus, you can't compare google to traditional media companies. Google is not a station or a paper. Google is the search engine. They are the provider of online videos. They are a huge part of most people's digital ecosystem. And people view google as this neutral provider of information on demand. People (at least those who aren't entirely beyond help) don't watch fox news with that attitude. People understand that when they read the NYT, there's a person behind that article and that guy has an opinion. That's not how we look at the order of our google search results, is it?