Culture

An Ultra-Stupid Conspiracy About Google And The Coronavirus Is Spreading Online

#Conspiracy theories
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Conspiracy Theory About Google And Coronavirus Spreading Online

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Listen, I LOVE a good conspiracy theory. Who doesn’t? However, I prefer my conspiracy theories not actually cause people to get sick and die. It’s just how I roll.

Which is why one of the latest conspiracy theories to go viral online about Google and the coronavirus is not really my cup of tea. Nor should it be yours.

Apparently it may have began with an article by Jim Hoft on far-right website Gateway Pundit in which he stated, “Google continues to push the coronavirus panic-p*rn by pushing headlines to their users. Now imagine what they are doing to President Trump or prominent conservatives every day!”

Here’s how it works: search for “any three digit number” then the phrase “new cases.”

Even always level-headed former NFL running back Larry Johnson is buying into it. (Which should be the only red flag you need to know how idiotic it is.)

Rather than joining that club, perhaps everyone should realize that since there are any number of new cases per day in a majority of the cities/states in America that when doing a search for anything related to “new cases” it’s only logical stories about the coronavirus are at the top of the list. Maybe.

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Public Search Liaison, pointed out (accurately) on Monday, “If you search for words or figures, we try to show pages that have those words & figures. With 100,000s of pages from 1,000s of agencies with daily stat updates on COVID-19, you can search for most anything & get a match. Also works potato chips & no doubt many more terms.”

There’s also this from over a month ago…

But yeah… these folks are totally on to something here.


 

[Daily Dot]