Google Serves Up Fake News In Election Results Query
MOUNTAIN VIEW (CBS SF) – As Facebook faces criticism for fake news that was shared during election season, people Googling for election results are being led to a fake news website.
The top result for people searching for "final election numbers" is a WordPress blog called "70 News" that claims Donald Trump had won the popular vote over Hillary Clinton by a margin of 62.9 million to 62.2 million, Dan Abrams of Mediaite reported Sunday.
The erroneous result still showed up for Google users Monday morning.
For its numbers, the 70 News blog sources another fake news site that did not have the numbers and laid out its own conspiracy theory on how Trump won the popular vote.
As of Monday morning, CBSNews.com, CNN.com and FoxNews.com all had Clinton leading the popular vote over Trump, by a margin of 61 million to 60.3 million.
Clinton's popular vote lead is expected to grow, as votes from California and Washington continue to be counted, both states Clinton won by double digits.
Fake election-related news has become the source of criticism for social networks, particularly Facebook. After the social network fired human editors for its "Trending Topics" section in favor for an algorithm, the section highlighted a false story on a 9/11 conspiracy theory and another false story claiming that Fox News host Megyn Kelly was fired.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said after Tuesday's vote that fake news on Facebook didn't influence the election outcome, calling the idea "crazy."