Google Whistleblower Says Election An Illusion

Senior research psychologist and vocal Google critic Dr. Robert Epstein spoke with podcast host Joe Rogan on Wednesday, expressing his concerns that a “free and fair election” is now merely an “illusion,” warning about the growing influence of a “technological elite.”

In June 2019, Epstein had testified before Congress, raising alarms about Google’s role, which he described as a “serious threat to democracy and human autonomy.” He also offered suggestions for how lawmakers could dismantle Google’s global search monopoly.

On the “Joe Rogan Experience,” Epstein reiterated his belief that national elections have not been “free and fair” since 2012, attributing this to the increasing use of technology to sway public opinion and manipulate voters.

“We are finding overwhelming evidence that they are very deliberately and systematically messing with us and our elections, especially. I personally believe that as of 2012 the free and fair election, at least at the national level, has not existed,” Epstein said. “It’s just been manipulated since 2012. I say this in part because I met one of the people on Google’s tech team — on Obama’s Tech Team, I should say — which was being run by Eric Schmidt, head of Google at the time. I talked to him at great length about what the tech team was doing. They had full access to all of Google’s shenanigans, all those manipulations and one member of that team, asked by a reporter, how many of the four points by which Obama won, how many of those points did he get from the tech team? And the guy said … two of the points came from us. Now Obama won by 5 million votes, roughly, and two out of four points came from the tech team — that’s two and a half million votes.”

Epstein, along with researchers from the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT), published a study suggesting that tech companies have the potential to sway undecided voters through the manipulation of search suggestions on search engines.

A Google whistleblower, speaking to the Daily Caller News Foundation, supported this claim, stating that search engine operators who control search suggestions could possess “the power to shift a large number of votes without people’s awareness.”

This raised concerns about the subtle yet significant influence tech platforms may have on public opinion and electoral outcomes.

Dr. Robert Epstein continued his critique of tech interference in elections, specifically referencing the 2016 presidential race between former President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

He argued that if Google’s influence had been eliminated, the outcome of the popular vote “would have been tied.” Epstein suggested that the manipulation of search results and online content during that election had a significant impact, potentially altering the vote margins in favor of one candidate.

“By 2016 I had calculated that Google could shift — and it would be toward Hillary Clinton of course, whom I supported at the time — that Google could shift between 2.6 and 10.4 million votes to Hillary Clinton in that election with no one knowing. She won the popular vote by 2.8 million votes,” Epstein said. “If you take Google out of that election the popular vote would have been tied. Couple days after that election everyone — all the leaders in Google get up on stage … and they’re talking to all of Google’s 100,000 employees and one by one they’re going up to the mic and saying, ‘We are never going to let that happen again.’”

The Google whistleblower further claimed that during the election between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, if Google’s influence had been removed, Trump would have won “11 out of 13 swing states instead of five.”

This statement underscores concerns about the potential impact of tech companies on election outcomes, suggesting that control over search algorithms and online content could sway pivotal votes in critical swing states.

“So going forward from roughly 2012 I think the free and fair election has been an illusion, an illusion. And this is something — it’s very weird and kind of ironic, but this is something that Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about in that last speech of his farewell speech he warned about the rise of the military-industrial complex, everyone’s heard about that,” Epstein continued. “But he also warned about the rise of a technological elite that could someday control public policy without anyone knowing. And the technological elite are now in control. That’s what we have. That’s where I get back to my ranting and my pain because I realize no one is paying attention! Eisenhower said we have to be alert or this will happen.”