Has it been more than five minutes since you heard someone on the left spouting about how our democracy is in danger? The Washington Post adopted the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” while simultaneously keeping their readers in the dark about a multitude of critical issues. Despite all the hysteria, the Left ignores the single biggest challenge to our democracy which has been scientifically proven.
Dr. Robert Epstein would be considered by most to be a member of the “elite.” He has a PhD in Experimental Psychology from Harvard. He was Editor-in-Chief of Psychology Today. He has been a visiting professor at international universities and now operates the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT). Politically, he is a self-described life-long center/center-left person who supports the Democrat party.
AIBRT has researched many topics affecting our day-to-day lives including AI, parenting and stress management. Epstein has done a deep dive into manipulation of search engines to alter election results and has testified to Congressional committees regarding his research.
“As of January 2018, the National Academy of Sciences ranked AIBRT’s 2015 paper on the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME) to be in the top 1 percent of all scientific papers the organization monitored in all the sciences, both short-term and long-term. As of August 18, 2023, the paper had been accessed or downloaded from PNAS’s website more than 230,000 times, and SEME had been partially or fully replicated multiple times.”
In his U.S. Senate testimony, he stated:
1. In 2016, Google likely shifted at least 2.6 million votes to Hillary Clinton whom I supported. These manipulations are invisible and noncompetitive. They are controlled by Big Tech companies and there is no way to counteract them.
2. In 2018, on election day, the Go Vote reminder that Google displayed on its home page gave a political party (Democrats) between 800,000 to 4.6 million more votes than the other party (Republicans). That reminder was not a public service, it was a voter manipulation.
3. In 2018, spread across many political races, bias in search may have shifted 78.2 million votes.
Though Dr. Epstein focused on Google, he stated, “If you were to examine the data I have been collecting over the past 6-and-a-half years, every one of you would put partisanship aside to reign in the extraordinary power that Google and Facebook now wield with unabashed arrogance.”
While the power structure was focused on Russian interference, Epstein stated it does not shift many votes. Dr. Epstein said though Google censored mainly conservative content it also censors “progressive and socialist content.” This single entity, which is not accountable to anyone, should not have this kind of power. And our government does not want to amend Section 230 to make these operations more accountable to someone.
In April 2023 Epstein published in Gatestone a detailed update of his position on this issue, https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19608/election-threat-big-tech.
As you know, many elected officials deny there is any material fraud in our elections. Hans Von Spakovsky has developed a database hosted by the Heritage Foundation of actual convictions of people across the country for voter fraud violations. Epstein states “Those are tiny incidents compared to what is happening here on a massive scale. That is because Google search results are seen each day in the United States 500 million times.
Many Republicans express what appears to be deeply suspicious thoughts about our national elections. Dr. Epstein states “in general, Republicans cannot win. It is because there are so many different methods available to these tech companies for manipulating opinions and votes without people’s awareness.” Maybe their suspicions are warranted.
Epstein believes the bias is apparent on its face. He says the people who work at the major tech companies all have the same politics and the proof is that 96% of Google’s political donations go to one political party and that is not Republicans.
Dr. Epstein has already collected extensive data backing up his claims. He wants to collect more. To do so he needs substantial financial support. He wants to monitor Google 24/7 to expose their manipulations.
Epstein’s research may explain some of the losses in close elections for Republicans. However you look at the situation, giving AIBRT the tools to protect us from this proven trickery may be worth Republicans focusing their efforts to reverse the techs from altering our elections.
The Left is expert at deflection. While they encourage procedures like ballot harvesting, mailing ballots out to every resident of a state and never tracing those ballots, month-long election “days,” registering people based on their obtaining a driver’s license without proof of citizenship, and legalizing non-citizens voting in elections, they point fingers at Republicans for imaginary voter suppression. The real danger to Democracy may be embedded in search engines like Google. You will never hear a peep from the Left because Google shifts elections towards them and they believe winning is everything.
