Google blamed for promoting false info about Las Vegas shooter

On October 2, 2017, Google faced criticism for displaying false information at the top of its search results regarding the perpetrator of the Las Vegas mass shooting.

According to reports at the time, online accounts spent hours attempting to frame a left-wing activist for the attack, falsely claiming he was a liberal targeting political opponents. The speculation began on the website 4chan after police identified a woman as a person of interest in the shooting. Users on the site’s politics board searched for information related to her and began trading conspiracy theories, which then spread to other platforms. Police ultimately identified the actual shooter as a 64-year-old resident of Nevada.

The false narrative was amplified by right-wing posters and a website that published a later-deleted article claiming the falsely accused man was a Democrat, using information taken from his social media page. This misinformation quickly spread to Twitter and was featured in headlines labeling the shooter as an extremist.

The incorrect rumors were elevated by Google’s search algorithms, placing the false claims at the top of search results. The falsely accused man was also linked to the shooting on the online encyclopedia Everipedia, while another top search result directed users to a story on Heavy.com. According to reports, at least six threads on 4chan had been actively pushing the false narrative on Monday morning before the activity on those threads began to decline.