By Elizabeth Dallam Ayoub | January 7, 2024
Dr. Robert Epstein, a research psychologist at the American Institute of Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT), has testified before Congress about how Google has the ability to affect the outcome of elections. View: Dr. Robert Epstein on Big Tech Censorship (youtube.com)
Google, the Harvard-educated scientist stated, has a worldwide monopoly on search engines. Because of Google’s monopoly and the research Epstein conducted, Google has the “unprecedented ability to change the thinking of 2.5 million to 4 million people.”
Epstein’s writings have appeared in Business Week, Politico, The Washington Post, The Sunday Times (London), The New York Times, Parenting, and other magazines and newspapers. In September 2019 he was a guest on Mark Levin's Fox News program, “Life, Liberty, and Levin.” Watch video or view transcript here:
Mark Levin asked: “How does Google do this? What do they do?”
Epstein, who has studied human behavior for 40 years, explained that Google employees program the algorithms for the search engines. When a user keys as little as one letter into a Google search, the algorithms go to work. Links to websites pop onto the user's screen--all while Google adds the user's search to its data analytics on that user.
The search results that pop into view, Epstein explained, have “a very powerful effect” on people's thoughts and emotions, both conscious and subliminal.
He stated that Google has “complete control over what we see,” because individual people – Google employees – create these algorithms that continuously create the “re-ranking, de-ranking, and fringe-ranking” of the search results.
Epstein stated that “because people trust Google,” they “especially trust the high-ranking search results,” and “50% of all clicks on Google go to the top two search results.”
During his interview with Levin, Epstein urged viewers to “try it, right now.” He suggested typing the letter “A” into the search engine. “There's a pretty good chance that when those suggestions flash at you, in the first, second or third position, you're going to see Amazon. You might even see it in two positions, or all three, because Amazon is Google's largest advertiser. And Google sends more traffic to Amazon than any other traffic source. These are business partners and Google wants you to go there, and they're constantly nudging you with these suggestions. And then when they finally show you that list down below, believe me, they know what they're doing. They understand the power that those search suggestions have, the search results, the answer boxes that they're now showing.”
The employees who constantly adjust the algorithms work “every minute of the day” on these algorithms. The adjustments these employees make “increase the influence on thinking.”
Google's subliminal messaging
In 2016 Epstein created the first-ever system to monitor and capture the politically-oriented searches of a diverse group of field agents in 24 states. He collected and documented 13,000 searches and 98,000 web page suggestions of Google, Bing, and Yahoo searches. “Only Google had a dramatic bias.”
Epstein continued to “stand over the shoulders” of his field agents to conduct politically-oriented searchers. His findings were stunning. The searchers' opinions in 24 states shifted toward Google’s bias after just one computer session.
Epstein extrapolated the findings of his mounting evidence and determined that Google could have shifted anywhere from 2.6 million to 10.4 million votes to Hillary Clinton (the candidate whom he personally supported) during the 2016 election.
Subliminal messaging renders the term free and fair elections “meaningless,” Epstein said.
How subliminal messaging works
Epstein testified before Congress on July 19, 2019 that because these "ephemeral" (short-lived) search engine experiences "leave no paper trail," they are a particularly dangerous form of influence. Unlike billboards, from which a person can look away at a moving landscape and process the message, and where the person will often see another billboard expressing the opposite view, Google's subliminal messaging is completely “invisible and non-competitive.”
There is “no way to counteract" these subliminal messages, Epstein testified.
Example A:
A Google search on Jan. 13, 2023 of an Infowars article search of this URL: https://www.infowars.com/posts/insane-musk-shocked-to-discover-illegals-can-vote-without-id-vote-by-mail-in-blue-states/:
Example B:
A Brave search on Jan. 13, 2023 of an Infowars article search of this URL: https://www.infowars.com/posts/insane-musk-shocked-to-discover-illegals-can-vote-without-id-vote-by-mail-in-blue-states
Epstein took action
In the weeks leading up to the 2018 election, Epstein contracted 160 field agents, comprising a diverse group of voters. He captured data on more than 47,000 election searches. These search results showed “a substantial bias in Google search results” which “may have shifted upwards of 78.2 million votes spread across many races for one political party,” Epstein said.
Epstein found no “substantial bias” in either Bing or Yahoo, but Google controls 92% of all search results with the next closest competitor controling only 2.5%. Subsequent to his testimony, Epstein has found that Bing and Yahoo are now mirroring Google's search engine results.
When asked, “What has been Google’s response to this?” Epstein replied that Google states that a lot of their results are a “public service.”
Epstein said Google knows its users’ preferences, political and otherwise, and adjusts its algorithms minute-by-minute. He said that Google understands humans’ vulnerability to be subliminally swayed and “knows the exact numbers.”
Epstein also stated to Levin, “That level of bias could easily account for the win margins that occurred” in 2018.
How to protect yourself
As with any sort of subliminal messaging, “people can’t see bias,” Epstein warned Levin. “Well, first of all, you have to be insane if you’re actually using Google.com. You'd have to be nuts.”
“It’s very, very hard to fight these companies because, I mean, Facebook controls the largest social media platform that there is. So if Facebook wants to suppress your message, they can. Google controls 92 percent of searches worldwide,” Epstein said.
“So the point is, if major media or the tech industry wants to suppress my findings, which they are by the way, rock solid; very, very carefully done. If they want to suppress my findings, or they want to criticize me in some way, they're very hard to fight.”
He added that he is being personally attacked for his work.
The Mainstream Media’s Response to Epstein’s Work and Testimony
Levin asked Epstein a series of questions.
LEVIN: Have you been invited on "Meet the Press"?
EPSTEIN: No.
LEVIN: Have you been invited on this week?
EPSTEIN: No.
LEVIN: Have you been invited on any of the major Sunday shows?
EPSTEIN: No.
LEVIN: Have you been invited on any of the major news -- network news program?
EPSTEIN: No.
LEVIN: I just wanted to understand that.
Epstein’s Future Plans
Epstein told Levin that he was going to start monitoring Google again, and he would make his findings public. He said he doubts that anybody in the media (other than Levin) has read his work.
Epstein pointed to the research paper Levin was holding in his hand, The search engine manipulation effect (SEME) and its possible impact on the outcomes of elections by Robert Epstein (2015). “You know, that was from the ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.’ That’s one of the top journals in the world," Epstein said, "It has been downloaded from their website more than 200,000 times. At least as of last year, it was ranked in the top one percent of all scientific papers in all fields. But no, I don’t think many people have read it.”
Levin asked why Epstein believes the media won’t read it--a question that each of us as concerned citizens and voters might well ask.
Epstein replied, “I mean, what I'm saying is, look, I think we should put democracy, our nation, the free and fair elections ahead of any party or candidate. That's my message. That's why I've been speaking out.”
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Michigan Fair Elections, a non-profit organization devoted exclusively, just as Robert Epstein states he is, to putting “our nation, and free and fair elections ahead of any party or candidate.” This article is Part II of Google’s ability to brainwash voters. Helping to get out the word and fighting subliminal messaging is one of MFE’s messages, in print and visible right before you.
Elizabeth Dallam Ayoub serves as MFE’s director of communications. She started her career working for an international company, transitioned into teaching French and Latin while her children were young, and then became a Michigan attorney.
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