US immigration is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Guardian

Thu 6 Feb 2025 06.00 EST


News of mass immigration arrests has swept across the US over the past couple of weeks. Reports from Massachusetts to Idaho have described agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) spreading through communities and rounding people up. Quick Google searches for Ice operations, raids and arrests return a deluge of government press releases. Headlines include “ICE arrests 85 during 4-day Colorado operation”, “New Orleans focuses targeted operations on 123 criminal noncitizens”, and in Wisconsin, “ICE arrests 83 criminal aliens”.

But a closer look at these Ice reports tells a different story. That four-day operation in Colorado? It happened in November 2010. The 123 people targeted in New Orleans? That was February of last year. Wisconsin? September 2018. There are thousands of examples of this throughout all 50 states – Ice press releases that have reached the first page of Google search results, making it seem like enforcement actions just happened, when in actuality they occurred months or years ago. Some, such as the arrest of “44 absconders” in Nebraska, go back as far as 2008.

All the archived Ice press releases soaring to the top of Google search results were marked with the same timestamp and read: “Updated: 01/24/2025”. The mystery first caught the attention of an immigration lawyer who began tracking Ice raids and enforcement actions when Donald Trump took office. She spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal from the administration. At first, she was baffled when she clicked on these seemingly new press releases and they detailed Ice raids from more than a decade ago.

So she set to work doing some digital sleuthing and enlisted a friend who’s a tech expert to help. What they found leads them to believe that Ice is gaming Google search.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/06/ice-us-immigration-deportations-google

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They are manufacturing "fake news".

[surfered]

1. He's putting in a show

[Random Boomer]

11. Or ICE is putting on a show for Trump

Trump wants headlines, they gave him headlines.

[forgotmylogin]

18. That'd be great.

Trump has proven he's easily mollified if he "gets his way" - even if it's just on paper.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

34. Putting in a show for his idiot followers. The cruelty is the new breads and circuses while they loot the country

[Raven123]

2. Thanks to The Guardian. Been wondering about those stories.

Didn’t see much in any media about them.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. I took out a full sub to them

because there is not much left now when it comes to "media".

[mpcamb]

32. Shocking, too, how often The Guardian scoops U S sources.

[BumRushDaShow]

33. They have good staff here in the U.S.

and I am a fan of Hugo Lowell!

[Lovie777]

3. Yes they are manufacturing "fake news", RW style...................

of course Google will comply.

But will they tell and show the truth as well?

No. They are compromised.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. Google has little control when the zone is systematically being flooded by bots and now the goobermint. . . nt

[BumRushDaShow]

7. They are running some kind of AI junk

and I expect they can easily write the algorithm to push certain results to the top (which was what they had done in the past for those who "paid" for that).

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. People don't write what the cheap press calls "algorithms". It's actually termed machine learning for a reason

Also, the term "explainable AI" is relevant, as in current AIs are completely unexplainable because the smarts are distributed across millions of units.

"Mass deportation" is of interest to most Americans and thus it is no surprise that it is a hot topic at search engines. Then the engines respond according to what is in that zone, flooded or not. Currently, it is flooded.

There is not some human moderation / dis-moderation team at the engine upvoting X posts and goobermint websites. The flooding is so voluminous they couldn't hire enough people worldwide to do that.

There are no programmers writing code like "If node 2355982 gets a strong signal from 2391774 then double the signals to nodes 2128886 and 1973842;". Nor "if website is 'info.ice.goober' and contains the words 'detention' then multiply the weight for 'camps' by 1.62;". Just not feasible.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. Remember that Google

like other tech/social media programs, have MONETIZED. And one of the oldest tricks in the book for Google and other search engines, was to take in $$$ to push results higher in the results list.

Ever heard of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? There are a billion companies out there that will do that for businesses for a fee (having been on MIRT many times over the past 6 years, I have seen and removed hundreds of spammers who come here hawking that service).. Google even has a guide for that - https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. I've done a little SEO with some success. It's a bigger game now, but Google is increasing ALL advertising by that

That SEO does not favor one point of view or another; it favours those entities that deploy it because that increases overall advertising revenue. By being agnostic to content while making it key, the SEO tools increase clickthrough to advertisers and that is the biggest revenue stream inside the advertising revenue stream. Flooding the zone tilts things. The bots are flooding and the orange goobermint is likely doing some SEO of their own.

Progressive activists need to do some SEO and flooding of their own.

FACET counter-prop:

Fast
Aimed
Clear
Everywhere
True

[OldBaldy1701E]

30. Hear hear! (n/t)

[MayReasonRule]

6. Yep. Manufacturing Fear

To date they've been more effective at intimidation than deportations.

Biden was achieving up to 2500 deportation per day.

Trump's a lame ass fascist rapist piss baby.

[Historic NY]

12. Catch and release

is what they are are doing in NY .

[erronis]

13. Don't use google search. It's easy enough for them to show the date when the article was first published/indexed.

I use kagi (paid search) which has much better results and lets you see the metadata on the article as well as tweaking the search results set.

https://kagi.com/

[littlemissmartypants]

19. Thanks for this. ❤️

[Scrivener7]

14. Duck Duck Go seems to be showing only the new raids as top items.

It's free, doesn't track you and works just fine.

[erronis]

20. DDG is good. Relies mainly on Microsoft Bing for its searches. Tends to favor Bing results.

That's the main reason I stopped using DDG. If I did a person search it would inevitably bring back tons of LinkedIn pages at the top. I used to be in LinkedIn before M$ bought it out - assuming that my privacy would matter little anymore.

[IrishBubbaLiberal]

15. Unfortunately this is nothing new. Propaganda is the norm

GOOGLE has long skewed search results.

GOOGLE has long ignored media and social media that does not “fit” into
their corporate/govt outlook/propaganda.

Many many times the EU and UK media is reporting on issues and events
That IS IGNORED by US corporate media….that is US a media ignores it UNTIL
it becomes way too BIG on social media in America for US corporate media to continue to ignore.

But SOMETIMES….like during the giant US government propaganda push to war in Iraq,
With its relentless pro-war propaganda non-stop lies, falsehoods and total bullshit
coming from the front pages of NYTIMES,,,,
Judith Miller’s endless LIES on NYTIMES front pages

Even though LOTS of world news reports showed the BushJr administration was
Outright LYING about WMDs,,, the US corporate news media continued
to push the pro-war propaganda lies non-stop.

[erronis]

23. There are a lot of alternate search services - many in Europe with much better privacy controls.

Of course, Americans want "American" results. Not something from the global community.

[Chakaconcarne]

16. The dates are visible in the search results.

[Initech]

17. This is some thirid world dictator shit.

Last edited Thu Feb 6, 2025, 01:59 PM - Edit history (1)

Fuck ICE!! May they all rot in hell for this!

[twodogsbarking]

21. Where I grew up they called this lying.

[Cirsium]

22. Google can be gamed?

Say it isn't true.

Google is an absolute joke, dominated by right wing disinformation sites, and/or results that are bought and paid for by commercial interests.

[Aussie105]

24. Google search results can get 'massaged' to redirect and influence public perception.

And it is getting worse.

I google for a specific website, and Google says 'Not so fast! I think you are trying to find specific information, and here are half a dozen commercial websites that offer the same information and service.'
The actual website I want is number 7 or 8 down the list.

Once you are aware of that, you can be on the alert for it.

Google is no longer part of the 'information wants to be free and uncensored' club. If it ever was.

[modrepub]

25. Cost Per Deportee

I think people are missing something that I suspect is going on and it's really my conviction that Trump and his minions are extremely incompetent.

It would be nice to see what this is all costing us (the tax payer). If Trump is going to focus on "government efficiency" then we should be watching how much his ICE activities are actually costing versus what they have in the past.

I suspect the actual raw number of people getting deported is probably about the same or maybe even lower than under Biden. A lot of this is strictly for show and it's not a surprise to those being rounded up. I imagine most people subject to deportation are doing their best to avoid getting caught. Putting all this out in the open probably is making capture a whole lot harder. So fewer deportations.

Next, this administration seems hell bent on publicizing all of this. Running all these raids in front of the camera costs money (and probably detracts from actually capturing people). Dragging in the US military also runs up costs. Running military planes and using military installations is probably way more expensive than employing charters and such. Not to mention you risk losing military equipment and personnel if you have a catastrophic failure; on top of having to compensate anyone who dies in transport and the bad blood it will generate with some countries.

Yea this is all bad. But it becomes much worse if the number of deportees comes in lower than before and it costs several times more.

[coprolite]

29. The first military flight with deportees carried only 64 people. Terribly inefficient.

[BoRaGard]

26. G.O.P. systematically Bears False Witness

super sinners.

they have blown off the teachings of their Bible, and they trade on the Darkside.

[Xipe Totec]

27. Want to see real numbers? Check the ICE Website

https://www.ice.gov/spotlight/statistics

In particular, the eye watering numbers for 2024 during Biden's last year in office:

250,000 deportations including
68266 deportations of convicted criminals.

In 2023 there were close to 50,000 expulsion flights.

But we don't hear abou that because there's no perp walks like the ones staged by Trump's administration.

[enid602]

28. Green cards

My neighborhood employs scads of immigrants as landscapers, contractors, roofers, nannies, domestics, etc. They show up in droves every weekday morning. I spoke with my landscaper/caretaker this week, and finally asked him what’s going on with him Migra wise. We’ve been friends for 14 years. He said he just got a four year green card, as have many others in this neighborhood.

This makes me wonder if Trump continúes to wrestle away control of the National Guard from governors not because of the immigration ‘crisis,’ but to use against US citizens here.

[Fla Dem]

31. What a bunch of lying thugs, led by the worse thug ever, Trump