Topic: Media Research Center
Another front where the Media Research Center is fighting its war against Google is through calling in a fellow Google-hater for backup. Catherine Salgado touted that attack on Google in a Nov. 29 post:
A new website launched this week for the purpose of exposing Google’s leftist bias and making the tech giant accountable to the public.
Tech Watch Project announced its America’s Digital Shield website in an X (formerly Twitter) post Sunday. The website is a tool launched to bring accountability to anti-free speech giant Google. TechWatch exists because of the work of psychologist Dr. Robert Epstein, who has long accused Google of trying to influence elections through search engine manipulation, a reality which concurs with MRC Free Speech America’s research.
In its X announcement, Tech Watch quoted Epstein to explain the new site’s purpose, “JUST IN: AmericasDigitalShield.com is live. ‘THIS is how you make #Google accountable to the public. THIS is how you get them to stop MANIPULATING OUR ELECTIONS & INDOCTRINATING OUR CHILDREN.’ - @DrREpstein.” Tech Watch’s website explains that its areas of focus include “Manipulation of Our Elections.”
Epstein, if you'll recall, is the anti-Google "researcher" whose work has been discredited as biased and shoddy. Nevertheless, the MRC loves Epstein because he advances conservatively correct narratives; note that Pariseau boasted that Epstein's work "concurs with MRC Free Speech America’s research." She went on to fluff:
America’s Digital Shield professes to capture “ephemeral experiences” online and to expose Big Tech, including by exposing inappropriate content on YouTube and tracking Google’s, Yahoo’s and Bing’s search engine bias. The site even has a list of elections it claims were “flipped” by Google and topping that list is Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential win. A Media Research Center poll previously found that Big Tech censorship altered the 2020 election results in Biden’s favor.
We've documented how that MRC poll was biased, as it was conducted by the polling firm founded by Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway.
The MRC and Epstein later engaged in mutual fluffing, as documented in a Dec. 21 post by Salgado:
Psychologist and researcher Dr. Robert Epstein and MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider exposed how Google sways and manipulates U.S. elections.
Schneider and Epstein spoke at an election integrity seminar organized by attorney Cleta Mitchell to help conservative leaders understand the threat mounted by Google. Schneider showed the results of Google’s search result manipulation in favor of Democrats, especially President Joe Biden. Dr. Epstein explained how Google and YouTube change voters’ minds through “ephemeral experiences,” expressing his goal of “shining a light on Google” to stop its election interference.
Schneider discussed MRC Free Speech America’s Google studies, describing the tech behemoth as “the fount of all evil.” Schneider referred to MRC’s 2022 election study showing how Google search results favored Democrat candidates in key midterm Senate races, burying GOP campaign sites in 83 percent of the races. He then explained MRC’s multiple 2023 studies exposing Google’s search result bias burying Biden’s presidential opponents’ websites ahead of each GOP debate. Republican candidates’ websites in particular did not appear on the first page of results.
Dr. Epstein called MRC’s work “rock solid.” Epstein also claimed to go much deeper in the amount and type of data he and his team have collected, with custom software that collects anonymized data from the computers of hundreds of “field agents.”
The fact that Epstein thinks the MRC's shoddy and partisan work is "rock solid" is disqualifying by itself. As we documented regarding the MRC's 2022 attacks, the MRC manufactured a search phrase without providing any reason for its preferred search results to have come from it, falsely portraying that as election manipulation. When others pointed out the shoddiness, the MRC offered nothing substantial in response beyond complaining it was criticized. Of course, Schneider wild smear of Google as "the fount of all evil" demonstrates even more that the MRC's war on Google is partisan, not based on credible research.
Salgado continued to pretend that Epstein's so-called research is credible:
In 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022, Epstein said that he and his team recorded thousands and then millions of these ephemeral experiences. Algorithms are not objective as people imagine, but are programmed a certain way, Epstein explained. Studies conducted by Epstein found a 40+ percent shift in favor of a candidate based on Google’s search engine bias. On his new platform, which collects Google ephemeral experiences data in real-time from politically balanced “field agents” around the country, Epstein keeps a list of elections he says were flipped by Google. The 2020 presidential election is included on his list of flipped elections.
As we've also noted, Epstein's "research" on the 2016 election was based on just 21 undecided voters, making it a tiny sample that no judgment could legitimately come from. Salgado concluded by lecturing:
Epstein’s team has built a “large-scale, permanent system to capture ephemeral content on a massive scale in all 50 states and shine the light on Google and other companies so that they will stop.” Because, unless Google’s election meddling can be discouraged, as both Schneider and Epstein demonstrated, America will not have free and fair elections.
Epstein's history of dubious research does not engender trust in his alleged "large-scale, permanent system." And the fact that the MRC is so wholeheartedly teaming up with Epstein to the point that they fluff each other in public shows the shoddy partisanship of the entire enterprise. Remember, the MRC's definition of "free and fair elections" are only the ones in which right-wingers are the victors.
