Robert Epstein* (ORCID 0000-0002-7484-6282)

  1. Epstein R, & Robertson RE. The search engine manipulation effect (SEME) and its possible impact on the outcomes of Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2015; 112(33), E4512-E4521. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1419828112
  2. Ludolph, , Allam, A., & Schulz PJ. Manipulating Google’s knowledge box to counter biased information processing during an online search on vaccination: Application of a technological debiasing strategy. J Med Internet Res, 2016; 18(6):e137. pmid:27255736
  3. Haas, & Unkel, J. Ranking versus reputation: Perception and effects of search result credibility. Behavior & Information Technology. 36(12), 1285-1298. 2017; https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2017.1381166
  4. Pogacar FA, Ghenai A, Smucker MD, Clarke The positive and negative influence of search results on people’s decisions about the efficacy of medical treatments. Proceedings of the ACM SIGIR International Conference on Theory of Information Retrieval [Internet]. 2017 Oct 1–4;:209–216. Available from : https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3121050.3121074
  5. Agudo U, Matute The influence of algorithms on political and dating decisions. PLOS One. 2021;16(4):e0249454. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249454
  6. Epstein R & Robertson Why is the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME) so large? Testing an operant conditioning hypothesis. Paper presented at the 96th annual meeting of the Western Psychological Association; 2016; Long Beach, CA.
  7. Epstein R & Robertson RE. Suppressing the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME).Proceedings of the ACM: Human–Computer Interaction. 2017; 1(2). Available from: https://doi.org/10.1145/3134677
  8. Epstein, , & Zankich, V. R. (2022). The surprising power of a click requirement: How click requirements and warnings affect internet users’ willingness to disclose personal information. PLOS ONE. 17(2): e0263097.
  9. Epstein, , & Flores, A. (2023, August). The YouTube Manipulation Effect (YME): A quantification of the impact that the ordering of YouTube videos can have on opinions and voting preferences. https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4527207
  10. Epstein, , Lee, V., Mohr, R., & Zankich, V. R. (2022). The answer bot effect (ABE): A powerful new form of influence made possible by intelligent personal assistants and search engines. PLOS ONE, 17(6). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268081
  11. Epstein, , Aries, S., Grebbien, K., Salcedo, A. M., & Zankich, V. R. (2023a, August).The Search Suggestion Effect (SSE): How autocomplete search suggestions can be used to impact opinions and votes. SSRN. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4535163
  12. Epstein R., Tyagi, C., Wang, H. (2023b, July). What would happen if twitter sent consequential messages to only a strategically important subset of users? A quantification of the Targeted Messaging Effect (TME). PLOS ONE, 18(7): e0284495. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284495
  13. Epstein, R., Huang, Y., & Megerdoomian, (2023c, August 4). The Opinion Matching Effect (OME): A subtle but powerful new form of influence that is apparently being used on the internet. SSRN. https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4532141
  14. Eslami, M., Vaccaro, K., Karahalios, K., & Hamilton, K. (2017). “Be careful; things can be worse than they appear”: Understanding biased algorithms and users’ behavior around them in rating platforms. Proceedings of the 11th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 11(1), 62–71.
  15. Trielli, D., & Diakopoulos, N. (2019). Search as news curator: The role of Google in shaping attention to news information. Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300683
  1. Draws T, Tintarev N, Gadiraju U, Bozzon A, Timmermans B. This is not what we ordered: Exploring why biased search result rankings affect user attitudes on debated topics. In: Proceedings of the 44th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval. New York, NY, USA: ACM; 2021.
  2. Smith, A. (2018, November 16). Public attitudes toward computer algorithms. Pew Research https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/11/16/public-attitudes- toward-computer-algorithms/
  3. Bogert, , Schecter, A. & Watson, R.T. Humans rely more on algorithms than social influence as a task becomes more difficult. Sci Rep 11, 8028 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-87480-9
  4. Chen , & Cheung H. (2019, March). Unlocking the power of ephemeral content: The roles of motivations, gratification, need for closure, and engagement. Computers in Human Behavior, 97, 67-74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.03.007
  5. McKinnon JD, McMillan (2018, September 20). Google Workers Discussed Tweaking Search Function to Counter Travel Ban: Company says none of proposed changes to search results were ever implemented. The Wall Street Journal.https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-workers-discussed-tweaking-search-function-to- counter-travel-ban-1537488472
  6. Cadwalladr, (2016, December 11). Google is not “just” a platform. it frames, shapes and distorts how we see the world. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/11/google-frames-shapes-and-distorts-how-we-see-world
  7. Grind, K., Schechner, S., McMillan, R., & West, J. (2019, August 6). How google interferes with its search algorithms and changes your results. The Wall Street https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-interferes-with-its-search-algorithms-and-changes-your-results-11573823753
  8. Walker, K. (2018, May 4). Supporting election integrity through Greater Advertising Transparency. https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/supporting-election-integrity-through-greater-advertising-transparency/
  9. Google Official Blog. (2009, December 4). Retrieved August 15, 2023, from https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html.
  1. Arora, N., Ensslen, D., Fiedler, L., Liu, W. W., Robinson, K., Stein, E., & Schüler, G. (2021, November 12). The value of getting personalization right-or wrong-is multiplying. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and- sales/our-insights/the-value-of-getting-personalization-right-or-wrong-is-multiplying#/
  2. Shanahan, T., Tran, T. P., & Taylor, E. C. (2019). Getting to know you: Social media personalization as a means of enhancing brand loyalty and perceived Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 47, 57–65. doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2018.10.007
  3. Erevelles, , Fukawa, N., & Swayne, L. (2015). Big Data consumer analytics and the transformation of marketing. Journal of Business Research, 69(2), 897–
  4. 904. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.07.001
  5. Eva van Reijmersdal, Sophie C. Boerman, Guda van Noort. (2022). Effects of online behaviorally targeted native advertising on persuasion: A test of two competing mechanisms, Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 7, 100221, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2022.100221.
  1. Rahat, , & Kenig, O. (2018). From party politics to personalized politics?: Party change and political personalization in democracies. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198808008.001.0001
  2. Robertson, Ronald E. & Lazer, David & Wilson, Christo. (2018). Auditing the Personalization and Composition of Politically-Related Search Engine Results https://doi.org/10.1145/3178876.3186143
  3. Bleu, N. (2022, September 30). 19+ crucial search engine statistics for 2023 (market share, usage, & demographics). Startup https://startupbonsai.com/search-engine-statistics/
  4. (2023, July). Search engine market share worldwide. StatCounter Global Stats. https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share
  1. Nadler, , Cicilline, D. (2020). Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets. Subconnittee on Antitrust. https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/ editorialfiles/2020/10/06/investigation_of_competition_in_digital_markets_majority_staf f_report_and_recommendations.pdf
  2. Meyers, L. (2023, June 8). Google manipulates search results, former engineer shockingly confirms. CCN.com. https://www.ccn.com/google-manipulates-search-results- former-engineer-shockingly-confirms/
  1. Epstein, (2018, May 13). Taming big tech: The case for monitoring. HackerNoon. https://hackernoon.co m/taming-big-tech-5fef0df0f00d
  2. Epstein, R., Bock, S., Peirson, L., Wang, H., & Voillot, M. (2022, April). How we preserved more than 1.5 million online “ephemeral experiences” in the recent U.S. elections, and what this content revealed about online election Paper presented at the 102nd annual meeting of the Western Psychological Association, Portland, OR. https://aibrt.org/downloads/EPSTEIN_et_al_2022-WPA-How_We_Preserved_More_Than_1.5_Million_Online_Ephemeral_Experiences_in_Recent_US_Elections…pdf
  1. Epstein, , & Peirson, L. (2023, April). How we preserved more than 2.4 million online ephemeral experiences in the 2022 midterm elections, and what this content revealed about online election bias. Paper presented at the 103rd annual meeting of the Western Psychological Association, Riverside, CA. https://aibrt.org/downloads/EPSTEIN_&_Peirson_2023-WPAHow_We_Preserved_More_Than_2.4_Million_Online_Ephemeral_Experiences_in_the_Midterm_Elections.pdf
  2. Prinz, , Brighton, H., Luan, S., & Gigerenzer, G. (2017, March 24). Can biased search engine results influence healthcare decisions? Paper presented at the meeting of the International Convention of Psychological Science, Vienna, Austria.https://aibrt.org/downloads/ICPS-Symposium-Subtle_New_Forms_of_Internet_Influence-24March2017-Vienna.pdf
  3. Allam A, Schulz PJ, Nakamoto (2014). The impact of search engine selection and sorting criteria on vaccination beliefs and attitudes: Two experiments manipulating Google output. J Med Internet Res, 16(4):e100. pmid:24694866
  4. Loftus Leading questions and the eyewitness report. Cogn Psychol, 1975;7(4):560- https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(75)90023-7
  1. Nyhan B, Reifler When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions.Political Behavior. 2010 Jun;32(2):303–30.
  1. Nield D. All the ways Google tracks you—and how to stop it. Wired [Internet]. 2019 May 27 [cited 2023 Oct 9]; Available from: https://wired.com/story/google-tracks- you-privacy/
  2. Huang (2022, Feb). Email Client Market Share in February 2022. Litmus. https://www.litmus.com/blog/email-client-market-share-february-2022/
  3. (2023, Sept). Browser Version (Partially Combined) Market Share Worldwide. StatCounter Global Stats. https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-version-partially-combined-market-share#monthly-202209-202309
  4. (2023, Sept). Mobile Operating System Market Share Worldwide.StatCounter Global Stats. https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide/#monthly-202209-202309
  1. Editor of List of Google products and services – IndexRise [Internet].Indexrise. [cited 2023 Oct 9]. Available from: https://www.indexrise.com/google-services/
  2. Nakashima R. AP Exclusive: Google tracks your movements, like it or not [Internet]. AP News. 2018 [cited 2023 Oct 9]. Available from: htps://apnews.com/article/828aefab64d4411bac257a07c1af0ecb
  3. Epstein, , Lothringer, M., & Zankich, V. R. (2023, August 24). How a daily regimen of operant conditioning might explain the surprising power of the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME). SSRN, https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4551486
  4. Ong SQ, Hardwick J, Soulo T. Top Google searches [Internet]. Ahrefs Blog. Ahrefs; 2023 [cited 2023 Oct 9]. Available from: https://ahrefs.com/blog/top-google-searches/
  5. Langville AN, Meyer Google’s PageRank and beyond: The science of search engine rankings. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 2006.
  6. Lee, N., Resnick, P., & Barton, G. (2019, May 22). Algorithmic bias detection and mitigation: Best practices and policies to reduce consumer harms. The Brookings Institute. https://www.brookings.edu/research/algorithmic-bias-detection-and-mitigation-best-practices-and-policies-to-reduce-consumer-harms/
  1. Nunez, M. (2016, May 9). Former Facebook workers: We routinely suppressed conservative Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-suppressed-conser-1775461006
  1. Rainie, L., & Anderson, J. (2017, February 8). Code-dependent: Pros and cons of the algorithm age. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2017/02/08/code-dependent-pros-and-cons-of-the-algorithm-age/
  2. Arthur Bloom J. EXCLUSIVE: Documents detailing Google’s ‘news blacklist’ show manual manipulation of special search results [Internet]. The Daily 2019 [cited2023 Oct 9]. Available from: https://dailycaller.com/2019/04/09/google-news-blacklist- search-manipulation/
  3. Ebbinghaus, (1885/1913). Memory: A contribution to experimental psychology (H. A. Ruger & C.E. Bussenius, Trans.). New York: Teachers College, Columbia University. (Originally in German, Ueber das gedächtnis: Untersuchen zur experimentellen psychologie).
  4. Murre, , & Dros, J. (2015). Replication and analysis of Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve.PLOS ONE, 10(7). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0120644
  5. Mack, C. C., Cinel, C., Davies, N., Harding, M., & Ward, G. (2017). Serial position, output order, and list length effects for words presented on smartphones over very long intervals. Journal of Memory and Language, 9, 61–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2017.07.009
  6. Dean We analyzed 4 million Google search results: Here’s what we learned about organic click through rate. 2022 Aug 17. In: Backlinko [Internet]. Available from: https://backlinko.com/google-ctr-stats
  7. Epstein, R., Newland, A., & Tang, Liyu. (2024). The Digital Personalization Effect (DPE): How personalization of online content can dramatically increase the impact of new forms of online Paper to be presented at the 104th annual meeting of the Western Psychological Association, San Francisco, CA.
  8. Krishnan Extend the reach of your site personalization in Google Optimize [Internet].Google. 2019 [cited 2023 Oct 9]. Available from: https://blog.google/products/marketingplatform/analytics/extend-reach-your-site- personalization-google-optimize/
  1. Bai, (2018) Evidence that A Large Amount of Low Quality Responses on MTurk Can Be Detected with Repeated GPS Coordinates. Retrieved from: https://www.maxhuibai.com/blog/evidence-that-responses-from-repeating-gps-are-random
  2. Dreyfuss, (2018, August 17). A bot panic hits Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-mechanical-turk-bot-panic/
  3. Litman, L. (2017, November 21). Strengths and limitations of MechanicalCloudResearch. https://www.cloudresearch.com/resources/blog/strengths-and-limitations-of-mechanical-turk/
  4. Moss, , & Litman, L. (2020, June 12). Demographics of people on Amazon Mechanical Turk. CloudResearch. https://www.cloudresearch.com/resources/blog/who-uses-amazon-mturk-2020-demographics/
  5. Huff C, Tingley “Who are these people?” Evaluating the demographic characteristics and political preferences of MTurk survey respondents. Res Politics [Internet]. 2015;2(3):205316801560464. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2053168015604648
  6. Casler, K., Bickel, L., & Hackett, E. (2013). Separate but equal? A comparison of participants and data gathered via Amazon’s MTurk, social media, and face-to-face behavioral testing. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(6), 2156-2160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.05.009
  7. Ramsey, R., Thompson, K. L., McKenzie, M., Rosenbaum, A. (2016). Psychological research in the internet age: The quality of web-based data. Computers in Human Behavior, 58, 354-360. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.12.049
  8. Hu J, Zeng H-J, Li H, Niu C, Chen Z. Demographic prediction based on user’s browsing behavior. In: Proceedings of the 16th international conference on World Wide New York, NY, USA: ACM; 2007.
  9. Yom-Tov Demographic differences in search engine use with implications for cohort selection. Inf Retr Boston [Internet]. 2019;22(6):570–80. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10791-018-09349-2
  10. Chen, , Ma, R., Hannák, A., & Wilson, C. (2018) Investigating the impact of gender on rank in resume search engines. Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 651, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3174225