Scientists show how ‘doing your own research’ leads to believing conspiracies — This effect arises because of the quality of information churned out by Google’s search engine::Researchers found that people searching misinformation online risk falling into “data voids” that increase belief in conspiracies.
Google’s popularity was essentially its own downfall, as people began “optimizing” their websites to manipulate the algorithm, and the people writing legitimately to help others pay no attention to the algorithm.