Eight in 10 Canadians are on Google, a market dominance unheard of in nearly any other industry. That number expands to 90 per cent worldwide.
More Canadians are flocking to online for their news, including the majority of the younger generation, according to a survey by Media Technology Monitor, and these numbers are climbing. This means that in order to find news, one of the key portals to the information is via a Google search.
This is dangerous.
Today’s media landscape is so polarized and partisan that news can be tailor-made. With parties not only disagreeing on platforms but also on the facts themselves, people don’t have to search long to find a blogger, journalist or website that will reinforce their specific views and opinions – right or wrong.
With this generation’s ability to search out the “information” that will make them most comfortable, and Google facilitating that through their protected algorithm, what’s left is a genuine threat to democracy via a poorly informed – sometimes misinformed – electorate.
Google’s secretive algorithm, humming in the background with every keystroke in the search bar, is going to present articles that it calculates to be most relevant to the user, based on their digital footprint. The algorithm factors in, among other things, the user’s past searches in order to pinpoint exactly what they will find the most appealing. If the user has typically searched Sun Media, then they’ll get Sun Media articles as the first hits from their search. Same goes for the Toronto Star, or any other news source the user has frequented.
Instead of having to engage with dissenting and differing opinions, news consumers will usually be presented with only the “news sources” they’ve looked at in the past. Whether the person is a fan of The Guardian or Fox News, in the end they’re not seeing the whole picture when they engage with only one side of the debate.
Hundreds of millions of people all over the world are getting their news and information tailor-made via a Google search. But Google isn’t the boogieman in this situation– it’s us. The public has more than demonstrated that polarizing media platforms work. It’s what’s wanted.
People like the echo chamber because it means they never have to be wrong, no matter how many facts are aligned against them. Google isn’t actively blocking out the dissenting opinion, it just means that people will have to dig a little deeper for information, and sometimes it means coming into contact with others who don’t think like they do.
Sure, Canadians could protect themselves using a browser that guarantees privacy and no data collection, like DuckDuckGo, but the issue isn’t Google. The public needs to argue loud and clear that it wants balanced journalism by avoiding partisan clickbait articles, and instead opting to do the digging necessary to see a more complete picture.
The media, for its part, has to stop indulging people’s baser needs for constant reinforcement and reaffirmation. It’s okay to be wrong.
Besides, you can just Google the right answer when no one is looking.