Die Macht der Suchmaschinen

Am Amerikanischen Institut für Verhaltensforschung und Technologie ist untersucht worden, ob Wahlergebnisse mittels manipulierter Suchergebnisse beeinflusst werden können (PDF).
Die Antwort ist ja:

- By manipulating search engine results to favor one candidate over another, voter preferences can be altered by 20 percent or more.
- (...) voters with little knowledge of the candidates or who were undecided in their political affiliation at the time of the study were especially influenced by it.
- The transparency of search engine manipulation can vary so that the user lacks awareness of how the search engine results impact their consumption and perspective on the content presented.
- Even users who expressed awareness of search engine manipulation were still influenced by how the search results were presented to them.