Thread: Presidential Election 2016

How Google’s Search Algorithm Could Steal the Presidency
August 8, 2015 Allen West



The magical accuracy of search engine results may be the worst thing to happen to democracy since unfettered campaign donations.

As Reported By Wired: http://www.wired.com/2015/08/googles...al-presidency/

IMAGINE AN ELECTION — A close one. You’re undecided. So you type the name of one of the candidates into your search engine of choice. (Actually, let’s not be coy here. In most of the world, one search engine dominates; in Europe and North America, it’s Google.) And Google coughs up, in fractions of a second, articles and facts about that candidate. Great! Now you are an informed voter, right? But a study published this week says that the order of those results, the ranking of positive or negative stories on the screen, can have an enormous influence on the way you vote. And if the election is close enough, the effect could be profound enough to change the outcome.

In other words: Google’s ranking algorithm for search results could accidentally steal the presidency. “We estimate, based on win margins in national elections around the world,” says Robert Epstein, a psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology and one of the study’s authors, “that Google could determine the outcome of upwards of 25 percent of all national elections.”

Epstein’s paper combines a few years’ worth of experiments in which Epstein and his colleague Ronald Robertson gave people access to information about the race for prime minister in Australia in 2010, two years prior, and then let the mock-voters learn about the candidates via a simulated search engine that displayed real articles.

http://allenwestrepublic.com/2015/08...he-presidency/

Democrats talking about having Gore run for U.S. president - BuzzFeed
1 day ago

Some insiders in the Democratic party are discussing having former Vice President Al Gore make another run for U.S. President, BuzzFeed reported on Thursday, adding that the man who won the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election has not taken any steps toward entering the current race.

"They're figuring out if there's a path financially and politically," an unnamed Democrat told BuzzFeed about the insiders. "It feels more real than it has in the past months."

Gore, 67, was the Democratic candidate in the 2000 election when the U.S. Supreme Court stopped a vote recount in Florida, which ultimately led to Republican George W. Bush becoming the country's 43rd President.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has dominated the small field of Democrats vying to be their party's candidate in the 2016 presidential election. When she ran in 2008, Gore, who served as vice president under her husband, former President Bill Clinton, declined to endorse her.

BuzzFeed reported that its sources "cautioned not to overstate Gore's interest." It said he has not made any formal or informal moves to join the race, has not met with political advisers about a potential run and did not comment to the media outlet about making a bid.

Still, the environmental activist, Nobel Peace Laureate and founder of Current TV enjoys some favor among voters. A recent Reuters poll shows 3.3 percent of Democrats would vote for Gore in the 2016 election, the same percentage as those who would elect actor George Clooney, but far less than the 18.8 percent who would vote for Gore's old boss, Bill Clinton, who is barred by law from running again.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politi...d=ansnewsreu11