A story of (non)compliance, bias, and conspiracies: How Google and Yandex represented Smart Voting during the 2021 parliamentary elections in Russia-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

A story of (non)compliance, bias, and conspiracies: How Google and Yandex represented Smart Voting during the 2021 parliamentary elections in Russia

Published:2022-03-07 Issue: Volume: Page:
ISSN:
Container-title:Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review
language:
Short-container-title:HKS Misinfo Review

Author:

Makhortykh Mykola¹,Urman Aleksandra²,Wijermars Mariëlle³

Affiliation:

1. Institute of Communication and Media Studies, University of Bern, Switzerland

2. Social Computing Group, University of Zurich, Switzerland

3. Department of Political Science, Maastricht University, Netherlands

Abstract

On 3 September 2021, the Russian court forbade Google and Yandex to display search results for “Smart Voting,” the query referring to a tactical voting project by the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. To examine whether the two search engines complied with the court order, we collected top search outputs for the query from Google and Yandex. Our analysis demonstrates the lack of compliance from both engines; however, while Google continued prioritizing outputs related to the opposition’s web resources, Yandex removed links to them and, in some cases, promoted conspiratorial claims aligning with the Russian authorities’ anti-Western narrative.

Publisher

Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics, and Public Policy

Reference44 articles.

1. Babin, V. (2020, August 26). Net nichego bolee idiotskogo, chem proekt ‘Umnoe golosovanie’ [There is nothing dumber than the "Smart Voting project]. 7x7. https://7x7-journal.ru/posts/2020/08/26/net-nichego-bolee-idiotskogo-chem-proekt-umnoe-golosovanie

2. Bandy, J. (2021, April). Problematic machine behavior: A systematic literature review of algorithm audits. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 5(1), 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449148

3. Beazer, Q., Crabtree, C., Fariss, C., & Kern, H. (2021, September 23). When do private actors engage in censorship? Evidence from a correspondence experiment with Russian private media firms. British Journal of Political Science, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123421000351

4. Bronnikova, O., & Zaytseva, A. (2021, May 3). ‘In Google we trust’? The Internet giant as a subject of contention and appropriation for the Russian state and civil society. First Monday, 26(5). https://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v26i5.11709

5. Crabtree, C., Fariss, C., & Kern, H. (2015, December 26). Truth replaced by silence: A field experiment on private censorship in Russia. SSRN. https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2708274

Cited by 7 articles. 订阅此论文施引文献订阅此论文施引文献，注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献，订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献

1. Stochastic lies: How LLM-powered chatbots deal with Russian disinformation about the war in Ukraine;Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review;2024-08-26

2. The right to audit and power asymmetries in algorithm auditing;EPJ Data Science;2024-03-07

3. Recommending instead of taking down: YouTube hyperpartisan content promotion amid the Brazilian general elections;Policy & Internet;2023-11-22

4. Different platforms, different plots? The Kremlin-controlled search engine Yandex as a resource for Russia’s informational influence in Belarus during the COVID-19 pandemic;Journalism;2023-04-25

5. How transparent are transparency reports? Comparative analysis of transparency reporting across online platforms;Telecommunications Policy;2023-04