Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Inc., and its subsidiary, Google, testified under oath before a U.S. Senate Committee in August that Google does not “politically tilt anything one way or the other.”
That isn’t true, says Dr. Robert Epstein, a senior research psychologist for the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology who is monitoring the behavior of search engines in the Presidential election.
Epstein says Google deliberately swayed at least 6 million votes toward Democrat Joe Biden through Go Vote reminders and manipulated search results to send liberal content to both liberals and conservatives.
Caught In The Act?
Among other things, Epstein said he studied 733 politically-diverse computer users and determined that Google sent “Go Vote” reminders only to individuals it profiled as liberals from Oct. 26 through Oct. 29. None were sent to individuals profiled as conservative.
Epstein said he got Google to stop this practice four days before the election by emailing his concerns to The New York Post, which was doing a story about large-scale election rigging by big tech. “I did so knowing that all nypost.com emails are shared with algorithms and employees at Google,” he said.
(Epstein says major news organizations, universities and businesses that use Google services, as well as individuals using gmail, effectively surrender their privacy because their emails run through Google computers.)
Pichai swore to the U.S. Senate Judiciary in August that Google does not meddle in America’s elections. He testified under oath: “We won’t do any work, you know, to politically tilt anything one way or the other. It’s against core values.” He subsequently promised not to promote a particular political party, candidate or view point in the 2020 presidential election.
Three GOP senators sent Pichai a letter on Nov. 5 asking if his prior testimony about non-interference in American elections was accurate.
U.S. Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) referred to Epstein’s research showing that Google had sent Go Vote notices to liberals but not conservatives. They said it appeared Pichai’s assertion that Google is apolitical “is not true.”
Lee said Epstein’s allegations “appear credible and are very concerning. If it is true that Google is targeting messages to help Democrats win elections, then Google has not been truthful to Congress and has deceived countless Americans.”
Seeking Answers
The Senators said they will ask Epstein to provide Congress with evidence of “Google’s politically biased activities his monitoring collected during this election cycle.”
They urged Pichai to “conduct a thorough review with your management team to determine the veracity of your previous responses to congressional inquiry regarding this issue, and correct your answers if necessary.”
Cruz said Google “has more power than any company on the face of the planet, and Dr. Epstein’s findings raise serious concerns about Google’s abuse of that power and its willingness to manipulate its platform to help Joe Biden win the presidency”
Google did not respond to an email request for comment on Tuesday.