Fact-Checking Google?s New Study On Political Fact-Checking: Mostly Misleading

Welcome to TechCrunch’s ongoing series where we hold major tech companies accountable for spreading propaganda about their service’s value to the democratic process. Today, Google released a “study” showing that swing voters are turning to the Internet in droves (64%) to fact-check candidates. We rate this study “mostly misleading” for a few reasons. 1). most “swing” voters are actually closeted partisans, and the most recent evidence on genuinely independent thinkers finds that they care more about personality than substance. 2). Most voters look for evidence confirming their pre-existing beliefs. 3). Surveys are an awful, no-good way of measuring behavior. But, on the other hand, experimental evidence finds that refusing to refute false statements is detrimental to campaigns, so fact-checking does have its benefits. Google released a study by Global Strategy Group and Public Opinion Strategies today of 500 “persuadable” voters, finding that 64% of respondents fact-check using services like Google, 49% get their news online, and 62% trust the information they find online. Google proudly proclaimed on their blog “Internet is Key Channel To Reach Persuadable Voters,” and it was parroted in headlines around the tech and political press. But, what does the evidence say? First, it’s misleading to characterize the American electorate as a Utopia of open-minded, thoughtful citizens. Twelve percent of Americans still believe Obama is a Muslim (both Democrats and Republicans). The overwhelming literature in Political Psychology finds that when confronted with accurate information contradicting pre-existing false beliefs, most respondents stubbornly maintained those beliefs and, in some cases, became more convinced. “While political and religious conservative beliefs predicted a belief in Obama as Muslim, exposure to the news media did little to moderate this effect,” concluded the researchers. Second, most respondents who self-identify as independents are actually closeted partisans. In August 2009, 82% of respondents who were independent Democrats in January 2008 continued to identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 73% of independent Republicans continued to identify with or lean toward the Republican Party,” wrote Emory University professor, Alan Abramovitz. There is evidence of a smaller but growing contingent of genuinely independent voters, with unstable party preferences between elections. Work by Russell Dalton in the recently released The Apartisan American, finds that though this faction of authentic independents does exist, they seem to be more interested in the personality profile of a candidate. Thus, even if Google is reaching this (perhaps numerically inconsequential persuadable

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