UvA Research: GL-PvdA and D66 appear most often in AI search engine Google

Google’s AI answers regularly use party websites as sources for general questions. The parties GroenLinks-PvdA and D66 in particular often come up. This is evident from a recent study by the University of Amsterdam (UvA). Through News hour. It also appears that some of the sources cited had nothing to do with the answer.

In recent months, the researchers re-entered more than two hundred searches almost every week. Those questions include “Which party stands up for animals?” and “Which party is against a referendum?” Large parties, GroenLinks-PvdA, D66 and VVD were most often mentioned in response, while smaller parties were discussed much less often.

The websites of GroenLinks-PvdA and D66 in particular are also cited as a source for answers to questions about other parties. When asked whether the VVD is “the best for the climate”, Google uses information from 2021 from the GroenLinks website. According to the research, the D66 website was given more often as a source for general questions than Wikipedia. For example, the D66 website is used as one of the sources for the question “which party is in favor of defense?”

In addition, it appears that more than one in five answers cite sources that have nothing to do with the answer. For example, according to the answers from Google-AI, the SP is “against the wolf”. However, the source used for that claim says nothing at all about the SP’s position on the wolf. Google emphasizes at the bottom of its AI responses that they may contain errors.

Google neutrality

Sites become easier to find on Google if they use Search Engine Optimization (SEO). According to Google sites that use SEO have a “greater chance of appearing in Google search results.”

The UvA research underlines this. “Parties that optimize their websites so that they are found by Google score better than other, often smaller parties,” says Sal Hagen, one of the researchers. News hour. Rudy van Belkom, director of the knowledge institute Stichting Toekomstbeeld der Techniek, says otherwise News hour that this makes it “a question of budget”. According to him, a party with a higher budget can “appeal to more voters.”

In an earlier study, UvA research to the neutrality of Google’s search function, but not to the Google AI function. Communications scientist Marieke van Hoof discovered that what one encounters on Google is much more influenced by the search terms entered than by Google’s algorithm. “That is an important nuance, because current problems such as polarization and misinformation are often attributed to mainly technological causes. This shifts the focus away from the role of humans,” says van Hoof.

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