News-related Google searches in Turkey are much more likely to bring results from pro-government media outlets than independent ones, according to an International Press Institute (IPI) report.
More than 90 percent of the results that appeared on the "top stories" slot on the Google search page were from web pages of three pro-government dailies, Hürriyet, Milliyet and Sabah, the research found.
On Google News, which has a different algorithm, pro-government outlets made up 73.8 percent of the results.
"These figures demonstrate that Google provides Turkey's independent media outlets with significantly lower visibility, despite their broad digital reach, robust social media interactions, and faster growth compared to the pro-government outlets," says the report.
"The company's algorithmic preferences in Turkey remain in stark contrast with its standards in other countries, such as the US, where users are presented with a significantly more diverse menu of news sources led by highly reliable outlets, as well as more local publishers."
Independent media executives interviewed by the IPI said they think Google incentivizes "clickbait" reporting and ignores larger media outlets' violations of its rules.
Google also amplifies pro-government media outlets' hate speech and disinformation against civil society figures, the report notes, citing the appearance of articles targeting Osman Kavala, a businessperson and a rights defender who has been in prison since 2017.
Also, Google searches on January 27, for George Soros led users in Turkey to conspiracy theory-laden pro-government news websites, the report notes.
Accordingly, the top result was an opinion article from Sabah, which warned the readers to "get ready for Soros' new attempts" in Turkey by claiming that the businessman was behind the anti-government protests in Russia. The second story was a news article by Hurriyet, which claimed on its title that "Bill Gates, Soros, and Rockefeller were accused of creating the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic."
Here are other main findings of the report:
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(VK)