Google Auto-Fill Suggestions, Politics, and Magic

by Ry0ki

2015 and 2016 have been interesting in politics, referendum votes, and elections around the globe.  Increasingly, the Internet is used in political elections from VoIP, social media, websites, email, news, and search engines.

We'll focus on Google auto-fill suggestion bombing results.  A friend gave me a taste of what she had found.  I travel a lot, get bored waiting for flights, and looked deeper.

Search engine manipulation is making search engine ranking, auto-fill, or other results return what you want.  This can be done through manipulation of algorithm results and a bevy of other techniques.  One famous example involved the Google bombing of a previous 2004 Republican presidential candidate, Rick Santorum.  Just search "Santorum" on Google...

Le'ts look at examples from the first half of 2016.  I broke it down by country using roughly the same search terms, using country-specific language where applicable.  Some of the results I noticed changed over time.  I was filter bubbled by Google so results may vary.  (Bubbling is when Google returns search results based on a number of variants including which country version used, what computer, phone, cookies you have installed, etc.)

I used candidates for important offices I knew of at the time or of importance.  I couldn't translate everything correctly, please send in corrections to the 2600 Letters to the Editor.  I'm very curious.  Hopefully this will encourage you to go deeper as well.

Search term: "first name", "surname", plus "is" using English and, where applicable, German.

United Kingdom

David Cameron - Prime Minister
(At time of search.)

I got the same results throughout 2016.  Recently, the U.K. Works and Pensions department has been declaring a lot of live people dead and cutting off benefits.  Mr. Cameron better be careful or he might lose benefits himself with search results like this.

Sadig Khan - Mayor of London
(Recently elected.)

Boris Johnson - Previous Mayor of London
(Before the Mayoral election compared to a week before the Brexit vote 2016.)

I myself have seen similarities between Borris and The Donald.  Interesting...

Nigel Farage - Leader of the UKIP Party
(Far-Right Hero)

George Osborne - Chancellor of the Exchequer

Theresa May - Home Secretary
(At time of search.)

Ed Miliband - Leader of the Labour Party
(At time of search.)

United States

Barack Obama - "President" of the United States

"Mack Daddy."  Much more positive results vs. Mr. Cameron.

Bernie Sanders - Democrat Presidential Candidate
(The first search was performed in April 2016 while in the U.K.)
(The second one was performed in June 2016 while in the Netherlands.)

When Bernie had a more optimistic outlook, the auto-fill was much more favorable versus later on in the campaign.

Donald Trump - Republican Presidential Candidate
(The first search was performed in April 2016 while in the U.K.)
(The second one was performed in June 2016 while in the Netherlands.)

Hillary Clinton - Democrat Presidential Candidate
(The first search was performed in April 2016 while in the U.K.)
(The second one was performed in June 2016 while in the Netherlands.)

Marco Rubio - Republican Presidential Candidate

Ted Cruz - Republican Presidential Candidate
(The first search was performed via Google UK in the U.K.)
(The second search was performed slightly later in the Netherlands but also via Google.)

It appears there is a possibility, per the Internet, that Ted Cruz is a Canadian/Hispanic robot who secretly leads a double-life as the actor Kevin Malone.  I could envision a movie based on this premise.

John Kasich - Republican Presidential Candidate
(The first search was performed early in the campaign.)
(The second search was performed in East Africa after he was out of the race.)

Germany

Angela Merkel - Chancellor of Germany

"Tot" means dead.  "Ein ferkel" means a piglet.  I'm not 100 percent on "eine volksverriiterin" but I think it deals with the anti-immigration movement in the European Union.  "He man" is most likely saying Merkel is a man, or perhaps He-Man has a lot of fans in Germany.  They still love David Hasselhoff.  I prefer to think He-Man; it's just cooler.

Philippines

Benigno Aquino III - Outgoing President of the Philippines

"Istri" per Google Translate means ironing, but I can't figure out the context.  Height and marital status seem to be an important factor mentioned in other examples.

Rodrigo Duterte - Newly Elected President of the Philippines

Apparently nada exciting in auto-fill.  Not that unusual.  Many lesser known offices and candidates came up blank with this search term, but others had funny results.

Could an undecided voter be influenced by the auto-fill suggestion?  Could potential voters be swayed by the inference?  Does (((Bernie Sanders))), a potential awesome serial killer who's out from nothing have a chance against: Hillary Clinton who could be a sick dino winning puppet versus the best awesome dead liberal candidate Donald Trump?

Although I find the results funny, there is manipulation going on, bot or people.  Most, if not all, search engines are vulnerable to some sort of search manipulation.  Google is not unique.  In an ideal world, results would come with a basic warning: "The results returned are not necessarily 100 percent accurate and many have been enhanced for marketing purposes."

Have fun seeing what you can return from auto-fill.  My favorites are Putin, Erdogan, and Bob Ross.

But please don't vote based only on the auto-fill suggestions, no matter how cool it sounds to elect robots or dinos as President.