The MRC vs. Google: Bad Research, Biased Results
The Media Research Center's claim that Google has "interfered" in U.S. elections is based on its previous shoddy and partisan attacks on the company.
The Media Research Center constantly launches bogus partisan attacks on Google in order to intimidate it into giving right-wing lies and misinformation a pass. That’s pretty much what a March 18 report by Gabriela Pariseau and Dan Schneider — largely a rehash of its previous bogus attacks — is about, complete with dubious research and inflated numbers:
Google has been getting away with election interference for at least 16 years, and it is showing no signs of stopping.
MRC Free Speech America researchers compiled 41 times Google was caught interfering in U.S. elections, beginning in 2008, intensifying in 2016 and continuing into 2024. MRC researchers found carefully crafted studies and numerous reports (from 2008 through February 2024) that have consistently demonstrated the tech behemoth’s election meddling.
MRC founder and President Brent Bozell highlighted just how dangerous Google’s election interference is. “Google’s massive and deliberate efforts to interfere in U.S. elections for the past 16 years is unacceptable and the biggest threat to American democracy today,” said Bozell.
Over the years, Google has repeatedly used its power to help push the most liberal candidates to electoral victory while targeting their opponents. In 2008, the company used a light touch helping then-Senator Barack Hussein Obama (D-IL), its favored primary candidate, and undermining his opponent, then-Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY).
But after Democrats took a devastating loss in the 2016 election, evidence collected by MRC shows that election interference became part of its mission. As one Google executive let slip in a secretly recorded interview, the company was working to actively “prevent[] the next Trump situation.”
After Donald Trump became president, the tech behemoth’s election interference went from making an appearance every four years to rearing its ugly head every two years. Each time it attempted to dismiss the issue and downplay its nefarious actions. But when viewed together as a historical whole, Google’s election interference has been consistent and has only grown more and more expansive.
Pariseau don’t explain why they felt the need to use Obama’s middle name, something conservatives have been periodically obsessed with. This kind of gratuitous partisanship exists throughout their so-called report — and they appear not to realize that doing so destroys any credibility the report might have outside their right-wing bubble. Their first example was an obscure one:
In 2008, Google endorsed the radical, young Sen. Obama and censored support for Sen. Clinton. Journalist Simon Owens reported at the time that the tech giant suspended the accounts of writers who wrote pro-Clinton blogs critical of Obama. “[N]early all of [the censored bloggers] had three things in common,” Owens wrote. “Most were pro-Hillary Clinton blogs, all were anti-Barack Obama, and several were listed on justsaynodeal.com, an anti-Obama website.”
In fact, this temporary blockage was caused by a reaction by spam detection tools to spam emails referencing the “Just Say No Deal” campaign that affected only blogs using Google’s Blogger tool, not all internet content — something Pariseau and Schneider refused to make clear. They also offer no evidence whatsoever that this was done deliberately; this sort of evidence-free inference of malicious intent would continue throughout the report.
The report also rehashed claims by “data scientist and research psychologist Robert Epstein” regarding “2.6 million votes that Google shifted in 2016,” which censored the fact that Epstein’s work has been discredited since it relied on just 21 undecided voters.
Another claim the report hyped:
Researchers uncovered clear evidence of election interference in 2018. Research showed Google’s “significant pro-liberal bias” would be “enough, quite easily, to have flipped all three congressional districts in Orange County from Republican to Democrat.” Indeed, all three flipped blue. That same election cycle, Google labeled “Nazism” as one of the California GOP’s ideologies when users searched for the political party. AllSides, a firm that rates news outlets for political bias, found that just five percent of the stories that Google linked on its Google News homepage came from right-leaning media outlets. In turn, the platform pushed 15 times as much content from media outlets that AllSides identifies as left-leaning.
This is another Robert Epstein work, so it’s dubious at best, and it ignores the fact that Google actually rewards reputable reporting instead of explicitly “left-leaning” outlets.
The report rehashed a claim that Google was “accused of blocking GOP fundraising emails from reaching users’ inboxes and sending out “go vote” reminders only to Democrats” — but Pariseau and Schneider censored the fact that the researchers the MRC had cited as the basis of this claim pointed out that user preferences eliminate the bias it claims exists.
Pariseau and Schneider rehashed yet another bogus claim:
In 2022, Google placed its thumb on the scale by censoring candidates in key races, and it continued censoring media. An MRC Free Speech America study found that Google buried 83 percent of the Republican campaign websites for the most competitive Senate races. Ten of the 12 candidates did not make the top 6 search results and 7 did not appear on the first page of search results at all. In similar searches, MRC Free Speech America examined how Google treated 10 politicians known for criticizing Big Tech, either legislatively or vocally. Researchers found that Google buried the campaign websites of all 10 politicians and seven of them did not appear at all on the first page of the results. MRC Free Speech America analyzed searches conducted in Georgia during the 2022 Senate run-off race between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) and Herschel Walker (R). In a very telling revelation, Google’s results favored Warnock in a swing precinct where greater proportions of undecided voters likely reside. The platform scrubbed Walker’s website from the first page of results altogether. AllSides also once again found Google News bias in 2020. The firm found that 61 percent of the stories included on the Google News homepage linked to leftist media outlets. Meanwhile, only three percent linked to right-leaning media outlets–a 20 to 1 disparity.
As ConWebWatch has documented, the MRC used search terms no normal human would use — suggesting an effort to game the search results for partisan purposes — and have refused to publicly release the results they generated.
Despite their flawed and blatantly partisan work, Pariseau and Schneider demanded that right-wing legislators harass Google to punish them:
Given the consistent nature of Google’s election interference and censorship prowess, the Big Tech giant must be made to come to heel. MRC Free Speech America recommends that Congress, State legislatures and American citizens take action to investigate Google and begin curbing its power to interfere in American democracy.
Because this the MRC we’re talking about, the truth doesn’t matter — only advancing the narrative does, and we know the right-wing media bubble doesn’t care that much about the truth if the narrative works. Indeed, both WorldNetDaily and Newsmax did their own stories regurgitating the MRC’s biased work.
When Google responded to the MRC’s attack on it, Luis Cornelio penned a sneering response in a March 18 post:
Big Tech censorship giant and chronic election meddler Google issued a pathetic response to an MRC Free Speech America report exposing its 16-year scheme manipulating U.S. elections to benefit the most liberal candidates.
After Fox News reported on the Media Research Center’s findings, a Google spokesperson claimed that there was “absolutely nothing new” in the report. The tech giant described the findings as a “recycled list of baseless” and “inaccurate complaints,” but cited scant evidence to dispute them. Nice try, Google.
In response to Google’s claims, MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider declared: “Google has censored every candidate, from both sides of the aisle, seeking to replace Joe Biden a whopping 112 times, but it has not censored Biden a single time. And now Google wants us to believe that the same company that manipulated search prompts to create a black George Washington or an Asian Adolph Hitler does not manipulate its search results. Google used to get away with this obfuscation, but the American public is now wise to its ways. Nobody is buying Google’s claims anymore.”
[...]
Google told Fox News that it has an “incentive” to keep the whole political spectrum of users happy. “We have a clear business incentive to keep everyone using our products, so we have no desire to make them biased or inaccurate and have safeguards in place to ensure this,” the spokesperson claimed.
Yet Google’s assertions directly contradict growing evidence demonstrating that the tech company has indeed manipulated its products to be used as weapons favoring the most liberal candidates and ideals.
Again, Cornelio offered no actual proof that Google did any of the things the MRC has accused it of doing deliberately — more shoddy research. Also, the MRC report served up largely rehashed attacks that Google has presumably responded to already, so there is little reason to make new comments about old, discredited work.
From there, it was on to the self-congratulatory phase of the PR promotion. Gabriela Pariseau devoted a March 19 post to gushing over Fox News’ uncritical coverage of the report:
Fox Business’s Mornings with Maria and Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends provided extensive coverage of MRC Free Speech America’s latest study digging up Google’s election interference efforts over the last 16 years. Guests on both shows lambasted the leftist tech giant and called for it to finally be held accountable.
MRC researchers found 41 examples revealing Google’s election interference efforts between 2008 and 2024 to benefit the most liberal candidates including former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden. Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo and her guests discussed whether Google should have to disclose its apparent in-kind donations to the political candidates it appears to favor. Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt and guest commentator Kurt “The Cyberguy” Knuttsson stressed the significance of Google’s autofill search suggestions that seemed to favor one candidate.
[…]
Bartiromo also noted that Google’s response to MRC’s report “pushing back, saying it has [a] business incentive to keep both sides happy and safeguards ensure non-biased and accurate search results,” despite evidence to the contrary.
Again: the report offers no evidence whatsoever that Google’s purported “election interference” was done deliberately.
Tim Graham gushed for his employer in his March 20 podcast, with the help of guest and report co-author Dan Schneider. Their boss, meanwhile, ran to a right-wing radio show to spew anti-Google hate:
MRC President Brent Bozell responded to Google’s weak attempt to save face amid the release of a Media Research Center bombshell showing that the tech giant has interfered in U.S. elections a staggering 41 times since 2008.
In a Tuesday interview with WMAL-FM host Larry O’Connor, Bozell challenged Google to debunk where MRC Free Speech America showed how the tech giant exerted its power to help the most left-wing candidates.
“Mr. and Mrs. Google out there, I challenge you to debunk a single one of the 41 examples we came up with — just one!” Bozell told O’Connor about the impact Google had on elections in each example listed in the MRC study. “I’ll buy you lunch or I’ll buy stock.”
Bozell’s response came after Google chastised MRC, albeit unsuccessfully, for its findings, asserting that the information presented was “nothing new” and a “recycled list of baseless, inaccurate complaints that have been debunked by third parties.”
Despite its assertions, Google has not disproved the report’s finding. “The fact of the matter is that they can’t because the evidence is there,” Bozell added. “They’re doing it repeatedly.”
Again: There’s no reason for Google to debunk something that’s already been debunked. Bozell ranted further on another right-wing radio show:
The MRC president accused Google of making undisclosed contributions through the technological advantages it offers certain candidates. “One could argue – and I would definitely argue – that these constitute illegal campaign contributions because a corporation is not allowed to make a campaign contribution to a federal campaign,” Bozell said. “So indeed these are deliberate blatant attempts to put the thumb down on the election process in the United States.”
He went on to shred Google and the double standard set out for similar tech companies that make such contributions. “If you had a government that truly wanted to uphold the rule of law, where you have campaign contribution laws on the books, where if your radio station gave money to Donald Trump, it would be breaking the law,” he said. “And yet Google is deliberately participating in this by doing the kind of censorship they’re doing, which is a campaign activity, and they’re getting away with it.”
Bozell then popped up on a TV show on a station owned by right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group to further press his partisan spiel:
Speaking to WICS ABC 20 on Thursday, Bozell delivered a straightforward and unequivocal fact on Google: “Their algorithms are being tinkered with so that they can advance the left in America. ... Google has the power to define what is and what isn’t truth.”
Bozell’s remarks came during a significant segment with ABC 20, an Illinois-based television station affiliated with ABC and owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of the largest broadcasting companies in the U.S. with 185 television stations in 86 markets affiliated with all the major broadcast networks.
Kayla Gaskins, a Capitol Hill-based national correspondent for Sinclair, succinctly explained the crux of the MRC findings:
With such a friendly interviewer, Bozell knew he would be served only softball questions — no wonder the MRC praised her for doing its PR by “succinctly explain[ing] the crux of the MRC findings.”
We should perhaps be thankful that Bozell somehow managed to restrain himself from smearing Google as Nazis.
Meanwhile, Schneider appeared on a right-wing podcast:
MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider addressed Google censorship in the wake of a new bombshell MRC report exposing the tech giant’s years-long election interference to benefit Democrats.
Schneider ripped Google apart for putting its thumb on the election scales during an appearance on Washington Watch with Tony Perkins on March 21. “One of the really dangerous things about Google is how it does it, all of this censorship, behind the wall within its dark box of algorithms,” Schneider commented. “When Facebook or Twitter has deplatformed people, it’s been obvious to others. Google is far more effective at doing this in secret ways.”
MRC Free Speech America uncovered 41 instances of Google manipulating its algorithms to benefit the most left-wing candidates in elections going back to 2008. It is also actively involved in using its monopolistic control of the search engine market to help President Joe Biden in the 2024 election.
Schneider unsurprisingly offered no proof that anything Google allegedly did was deliberate.
Note that all of these media appearances are with right-wing outlets that would never offer any sort of meaningful challenge to Bozell or Schneider. And they have never challenged ConWebWatch’s repeated debunking of their so-called research.
Bozell served up even more grandstanding, with Luis Cornelio serving as his boss’ dutiful stenographer in a March 26 post:
The Media Research Center has put Google on notice: Enough is enough.
MRC President Brent Bozell is calling on the CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, to disprove MRC Free Speech America’s findings that the tech giant has meddled in U.S. elections at least 41 times in the past 16 years to favor the most left-wing candidates.
In a Tuesday letter addressed to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Bozell posed a simple but critical demand: Provide “concrete proof” Google is not interfering in U.S. elections or face the consequences.
“Americans demand answers, and either way, I will make sure they have them,” Bozell wrote in the one-page letter. “If I do not hear from you by April 9, I will have no choice but to make your recalcitrance public.”
Bozell’s remarks came after the publication of a scorching Special Report by MRC Free Speech America that compiled at least 41 times when Google interfered in U.S. elections since 2008 when Barack Obama and his radical left-wing agenda were first propelled to power. Fast forward to 2024 and Google is now helping President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, the MRC report unveiled.
Despite the growing condemnation aimed at Google, the tech giant has yet to provide concrete proof that dispels MRC’s findings. “We have waited over a week for Google to provide a substantive rebuttal,” Bozell added, referencing Google’s weak response to the MRC’s findings a week prior.
There’s no need for Google to provide a “concrete rebuttal” to a junk study — the report offers no concrete proof to rebut.
More shoddy ‘studies’
In addition to this shoddy study, the MRC cranked out its usual dubious and biased attacks on Google as well at the start of this year. Gabriela Pariseau wrote in a Jan. 20 post:
On the day of the national March for Life in Washington D.C., anti-life Google pushed pro-choice news content to marchers.
MRC Free Speech America analyzed search results from Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo for the words “march for life” filtering specifically for new and using a “clean environment” the day of the March for Life. MRC also conducted an investigation at the March for Life rally, where 30 on-site marchers volunteered for the study and conducted the same Google search on their own phones. The findings were telling.
In both investigations, Google buried results from outlets like Fox News, Catholic News Agency and The Washington Examiner and instead elevated liberal news sources like The Hill, Axios, The Washington Post and The Associated Press. These sources vilified pro-life marchers as “abortion rights opponents” and “anti-abortion activists.” In contrast, Bing and DuckDuckGo instead elevated articles from a mix of different perspectives.
Note that Pariseau refused to hang a partisan identifier on Fox News, Catholic News Agency and The Washington Examiner, even though they have a clear right-wing bias that’s even more pronounced than the “liberal” bias she claims The Hill, Axios, The Washington Post and the AP have. Pariseau also whined that non-right-wing outlets didn’t use conservatively correct language:
A short write-up from The Hill topped the search results with the headline “Abortion-rights opponents rally at annual March for Life in DC: Watch live.” The article itself repeatedly referred to peaceful pro-life marchers as “anti-abortion” or “opponents of abortion.” The initial four results also included The Post and AP. Although each used headlines that were less inflammatory and presented some of pro-life perspective, both outlets also deployed pro-choice language to describe the pro-life event.
But “pro-life” protesters are indisputably, anti-abortion, and it’s not biased, or even “pro-choice language,” to identify them as such.
Joseph Vazquez touted a dubious outside study in a Feb. 23 post:
“Be Evil” should be Google’s new motto these days. The anti-free speech Big Tech giant has continued its sordid habit of suppressing right-leaning media sources while inundating users with left-leaning content.
A new analysis from media solutions company AllSides once again found that Google News is overwhelmingly elevating news media from “the left” while burying news media from “the right.” AllSides monitored Google News’ homepage over a two-week period in 2023 and uncovered that a whopping 63 percent of 494 articles came from sources “on the left.” By contrast, only a negligible six percent came from sources “on the right.” In addition, the group also analyzed stories generated through Google News’s search results based on specific prompts like “Economy” and “Abortion,” which likewise produced heavily skewed results favoring the left.
AllSides noted in its write-up of the study results that the 63 percent figure for left-leaning outlets reflected “a larger share [of the sources analyzed] than in 2022, when 61% of articles on Google News were from liberal outlets. In 2023, 6% of articles were from sources on the right; in 2022, just 3%.” As the U.S. braces for a contentious presidential election in November, it is clear that Google News is doing everything it can to manipulate the information flow to the left’s advantage.
AllSides CEO John Gable told MRC Free Speech America that “Google News’ bias may or may not be intentional, but it is pronounced.”
Vazauez is being dishonest by blandly labeling AllSides as a “media solutions company” — as ConWebWatch documented when the MRC repeated a similar study from it, it’s a right-wing group with a skewed, MRC-friendly methodology that subjectively places most media outlets that aren’t explicitly right-wing as on “the left.” No evidence was offered that AllSides examined the content of any individual article for bias; it simply issued a blanket judgment based on its own subjective methodology. This, of course, plays into the MRC’s narrative, with Vazquez ranting at one point that “The top news source for Google News’ homepage was none other than leftist Bidenomics propaganda outlet CNN.” He too gave no evidence he analyzed the content of any CNN article listed by AllSides.
And, of course, only a rabid right-winger like Vazquez would think it’s “evil” to not be as far-right as he is.