Brazil’s Workers Party notifies Google for suggesting “Lula corruption” in search for “Lula coronation”

The Workers’ Party (PT) has extrajudicially notified Google for a suggested search revision that associates President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva with corruption, according to O Globo newspaper and the UOL portal.

On Friday (5), the day before the coronation of King Charles III, users showed images of searches for “Lula coronation” that were answered by the search engine with the question: “Did you mean Lula corruption”?

Some of them hypothesized that there was ideological bias in Google’s algorithm.

This search engine behavior, however, is standard.

When rarely performed searches have similarities with frequently performed searches, the algorithm usually suggests the frequent alternative because it assumes that there was a typo.

According to O Globo, the PT says that Google’s suggestion about Lula is “an abuse of economic power and a violation of the right of free conscience of Brazilian citizens.”

In the party’s view, the company would be “using its economic power and virtual monopoly to manipulate public opinion in favor of its private interests, violating Article 5, Section VI of the Federal Constitution.”

Google says it uses “automated systems” that “do not take into account political ideology,” but it uses its policies that apply to the case to solve the problem.

With information from Gazeta do Povo

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