Unfortunately, in the modern world of the information age, private companies unknowingly play a big role in spreading propaganda. We publish research by the National Resistance Center on the spread of Russian lies in Google.
Although the most popular search engine in the world declares that its algorithms take into account the reliability of information on the resource, as well as local reference (popularity in the region), we can argue that this is not the case.
In particular, although in Ukraine when searching in Russian, Ukrainian media resources prevail, in the temporarily occupied Crimea, the logic and output of search results is practically the same as in the Moscow location. That is, for Google’s search algorithms, Crimea is not in Ukraine.
Google’s search algorithm offers news seekers who are in Crimea to read propagandistic Ria-Novosti, Lenta.Ru and others.
What’s up with Russian-language Google searches on Ukrainian territories occupied by Russians during a full-scale war? As you can see from the graph below, there are about 60,000 news searches in the Kherson region every month, according to the Google Keyword Planner.
Search results for users in the Kherson region are already different than in the Crimea and the Russian Federation. Ukrainian news sites – UKR.NET, Ukrainian Pravda, Unian, TSN – are already in the top ten. However, a little lower in the search results is a group of Kremlin propaganda sites – Lenta, Ria-Novosti.
According to Google Keyword Planner data, news searches are quite popular in the occupied cities of southern and eastern Ukraine (Berdyansk, Melitopol). At the same time, many users search in the Ukrainian language – “новини” (news). Of course, this is the best way to avoid Russian propaganda – not to use Russian in the browser and search.
However, Russian state propaganda cesspools are indexed much higher by Google in TOT than on free territories. That is, search algorithms either recognize the TOT as Russian territory or Google is deliberately spreading enemy propaganda in the occupied territory.
Based on this situation, we urge Ukrainians to enter requests exclusively in Ukrainian in the TOT, in order to reduce the risk of exposure to dangerous resources.
At the same time, we urge you to change the Google search language:
- On the google.com page, click Settings in the lower right corner.
- Select Search settings.
- Go to the Languages section.
- Choose the Ukrainian language and click Save.
Also change the language in your account settings. Here’s how to do it:
- Click on the three dots in the top corner of Google Chrome.
- Select Settings.
- Go to Google Account Settings.
- Next, go to the Personal information section.
- Scroll down until you see the General Internet Settings section.
- Go to the Languages section.
- Change the language to Ukrainian and remove Russian.
Do not allow the Russians to capture your mind and immerse you in the world of the mirror, because the task of the occupier is to disorient you in the information field and lead you down the wrong path.