Idiot Trump: Search idiot in Google images and get US president after activists attack

DONALD Trump is the target of a new attack after a nightmare week for the US President - with the world leader now top of an images search of the word ‘idiot’ on Google.

Mr Trump was the subject of nearly half a million activists protesting his visit to the UK earlier in July – but now his detractors are taking the fight to Reddit and Google to discredit him further by manipulating search algorithms.

So when the term ‘Idiot’ is searched on Google Images, Mr Trump’s image ranks top of the list.

Activists are thought to have achieved this through a campaign whereby users manipulated Google’s algorithms through ‘up voting’ a post containing a photo of him and the word idiot on global forum Reddit.

Reddit styles itself as “The front page of the Internet”, causing it to leap up to the top row of Google images.

The online association has grown deeper thanks to activists changing the search criteria, with the practice commonly referred to as “gamed”.

It is thought the attacks on the controversial president helped to create a consensus that activists pushed online and on social media.

Google’s algorithms have previous been accused of being formed from biased opinions and have often been described as being susceptible to manipulation.

 

Protestors in Britain used a hit by US band Green Day, titled American Idiot, as their official anthem for their demonstrations, which topped the British Amazon best-seller list prior to Trump’s visit.

Nine of the first ten results on Google Images for then search term “idiot” were of or related to President Trump.

But even still, Google have refused to play god when it comes to their algorithms and insists the company does not interfere with current searchable trends.

A Google statement said: “A site’s ranking in Google’s search results relies heavily on computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page’s relevance to a given query.

“Sometimes subtleties of language cause anomalies to appear that cannot be predicted.”

This is not the first time Google's algorithms have been easily manipulated. In 2004, searching “Jew” returned a hook-nosed caricature.

In 2009, searching “Michelle Obama” gave users a photo of the first lady retouched with different physical traits.

And while Google’s algorithms are not transparent, the effects of manipulating the search are reversed rapidly.