Google’s Left-wing Brexit bias laid bare

Search engine promotes news from Guardian and BBC over Leave-backing organisations, study finds

STARTLING evidence has emerged of how Google prioritises pro- Remain news organisations when users try to search for information about Brexit.

The search engine’s algorithms routinely select results from Left-of-centre outlets at the expense of those which are more enthusiastic about Britain leaving the EU, research has revealed.

Last night MPs accused the tech giant of harbouring a pro-EU bias.

Analysis of the first page of Google searches for 5,000 Brexitrelated phrases and keywords found The Guardian, the BBC and The Independent were most prominent in the results.

Between them, these news organisations were shown to receive about half of the share of the market. According to the research, the BBC, which has been accused of being anti-Brexit, took a 29.4 per cent market share of Brexit-related news searches. The Guardian had the highest proportion of any national newspaper website, with a 12.4 per cent slice. The Independent, also viewed as a pro-Remain news source, had nine per cent.

Brexit-backing Tory MP David Davies said the Google search results ‘ did not appear to match the views of the British people’.

He said: ‘I think this is extremely concerning. Anyone wanting an explanation for Brexit is going to be directed towards Left-leaning, pro- EU news outlets – ie The Guardian, The Independent and even the BBC.’

Brexiteer Tory MP David Morris added it was not for Google to ‘take a view on politics’. He said: ‘They need to show us the world as it is, not how they want it to be.

‘Everyone uses Google, so how its searches work is really important for our democracy. From this research, it looks like they are biased towards Left- leaning, anti- Brexit news sites – and that does not reflect the views of the public.’

The concerns come months after Google was accused of political bias in the US when President Donald Trump claimed it favoured negative stories about him during the 2016 presidential election.

The latest research, conducted by search engine optimisation platform Searchmetrics in October, looked at the opening page of results from Google when users searched for keywords linked to Brexit. Phrases such as ‘Brexit border issue’ and ‘Brexit pound news’ along with ‘can Brexit be cancelled?’ formed part of the research.

It showed that the Daily Mail was appearing way below The Guardian and The Independent in terms of the number of top ten Brexit keyword rankings on Google.

Analysis also showed that The Guardian was the newspaper which featured most often in ‘Google News boxes’ – which display stories prominently at the top of the results page – appearing in 20 per cent of them.

It was followed by The Independent and the BBC.

The report said: ‘The Guardian is by far the best-represented national newspaper on the first page of Google’s search results.

‘As the readers of different newspapers have very different views on Brexit, the prominence of The Guardian means that the Google search results are more likely to feature pro-Remain coverage, with pro-Brexit reports in the Daily Express, Telegraph or Sun appearing less frequently.’

Stephen Bench- Capon from Searchmetrics added: ‘Appearing on the first page of Google is a huge opportunity for news websites to attract visitors who are hungry for information on Brexit developments.’ Google was unavailable for comment yesterday.

‘Does not reflect views of public’