Republicans have accused Google of "burying" conservative voices and perceptions.
Google CEO Sudar Pinchai, who was confronted with a U.S. congressional committee after answering a flurry of questions about his company, denied that its algorithms incorporate any systematic political bias against Republicans and conservatives in general.
One of the most memorable moments during his deposition was when the Zoe Lofgren, Democrat senator asks him why when someone googlelifts word idiot (idiot) the first results show photos of the American president Donald Trump. "Why is this happening; "How does the search work to make that happen?"
Pinchai tried to explain to them how the algorithms take into account almost 200 different factors - such as relevance, popularity, the ways in which others use a search term, etc. - in order to determine what is the best suggested result.
"So we are not talking about a man sitting behind a curtain and deciding what to show the user," Lofgen observed.
Pinchai denied that Google, whose search engine was banned in China in 2010, was preparing its return by preparing a new, more censored version to meet the Chinese government's demands, although he acknowledged that he was still considering gain a presence in the large Chinese market. Pinchai also denied that the company was abusing the personal data of its users.
Republicans have accused Google of "burying" search engine results in conservative voices and perceptions, which, as Texas MP Lamar Smith put it, "poses a serious threat to our democratic form of government." "It's not something that happens by chance, but it is integrated into the algorithms."
Pinchai responded that independent investigations have not revealed any bias and argued that his company is transparent about how search results are generated. "We have a wide variety of sources, both from the left and from the right. We have no political bias. We develop our products in a neutral way ", he said and added that" it is impossible "for any person or group to manipulate Google algorithms.
He added that its algorithms simply emphasize what is relevant to the user query, recent and popular with other users. "We try to reflect what is remarkable, what is current and discussed," he said.
Democrat Jerry Nadler called the allegations of political bias "fantasy" and said "there is no evidence to support this right-wing conspiracy theory."
For China, where the US company has been engaged in "Dragonfly» program in question, the Pintsai said that "at this time we have no plans to start something in China. We have a search engine there, "and denied that the company is in the Chinese government discussions.
He emphasized that the decision was not a signal of a formal antitrust inquiry into Congress, but said that maintaining some independence was important. However, he did not specify what steps the company will have to take in order to comply with Chinese law, in order to "open" the Chinese market.
Pinchai, according to Reuters, The AFP and the BBC, also received many questions about the huge volume of data Google collects and what it does with them. He said the company "provides options" users about what data to collect and denied any abuse.
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