Anyone who saw the hit Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma was shocked by how the spread of misinformation was turned into a for-profit business model. How we get information has always been important, but it becomes even more important during health crises. During the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, civilians were rarely given information on the state of the crisis or what a safe course of action should look like, and information was often contradictory. Some people were even moved from places of lower radiation levels to those of higher levels by mistake. Some argue that many of the 18,500 people killed could have been saved if there was a reliable way to access information on the subject.

Our world is not so different today. Instead of the health crisis occurring over just a few days, it has occurred over the span of nearly a year, and it will continue to do so. What also remains the same is the importance of reliable access to information. While we may think that information is disseminated equally and accurately, this is not always the case. What makes things worse is that there are already such drastic information gaps along socioeconomic and racial lines. Equal access to accurate information becomes much more important.

In May of 2020, Harvard University’s school of public policy, the Harvard Kennedy School, published a study[1] on how search engines disseminate information. Much of the importance of this study and our problem with the spread of information comes down to prioritization: how engines rank (or prioritize) websites on their results list. Here’s why ranking is important: how often do you click on sites below the fifth or sixth listed? How often do you visit the second page of a search result list? The list format of a search results list inherently implies importance, and the top few results will be visited far more than lower ranked results. Therefore, it is imperative that sites are prioritized for their merit, not for the profit they provide companies.

This issue is exacerbated by the presence of a global pandemic: public misinformation leads to definite actions that can affect the health of individuals and nations.

The study investigated the difference in the spread of information on COVID-19 via the search engines of U.S.-based Google, Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo, in addition to Beijing-based Baidu and Russia-based Yandex.

They found results to be “unsettling.”

Engines like the Russia-based Yandex prioritized misleading and unverified information (“alternative media and social media content”), whereas Google prioritized more reliable sites like those that are government-based.

Search engines also implement randomization: many of the search results will be provided to a user at random and not be exactly what they requested. While sites like Google allow randomization only below the first ten sites, Yandex and U.S. based DuckDuckGo allow randomization in the first ten listed. This means people are not given the same information, and access to reliable information becomes less of a right and more of a game of chance. During a public health crisis, this is the last thing we need.

The Harvard Kennedy study indicated that “inconsistent and sometimes misleading results in relation to COVID-19” were provided, and this is not to be ignored. Part of the problem is the lack of information released about how company algorithms favor different websites. Now though, this information becomes even more important as it affects national security and public health.

This system was implemented for a reason though. Giving users differently ordered lists can help companies understand the best hierarchy for them. However, in a time like this, private companies’ interest in this information should not overrule the need for reliable information.

[1] https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/how-search-engines-disseminate-information-about-covid-19-and-why-they-should-do-better/