Query the Google effect

I wasn’t familiar with the work of Robert Epstein on the impact of big tech on our elections before Tucker Carlson had him on last night to discuss the possible impact of Google on the 2020 elections. I have posted the video below.

Epstein is an interesting guy. He is a psychologist by training and is in fact the former editor of Psychology Today. Among his research papers is one co-written on the Search Engine Manipulation Effect, for example. He appears to be a long-time critic of Google.

Last year President Trump alluded to Epstein’s work in support of the proposition that he (Trump) won the 2016 popular vote, a claim to which the New York Times attended in a brief but useful fact-check by Linda Qiu. In her article Qiu linked to another paper co-written by Epstein, this one about the impact of Google on the 2016 election. Google has dismissed his research as “nothing more than a poorly constructed conspiracy theory.”

Epstein’s research on the 2020 election sounds significant — beyond the scope of his previous research and important if true. That’s the phrase that occurred to me as I listened to Epstein last night.

I would like to hear what Google has to say about it, or hear Epstein debating the authorities at Google. It seems to me that Qiu’s article raises the basic questions to which Epstein’s analysis must be subjected.

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