Behold the power of Reddit. Various Reddit users teamed up to send a message to President Donald Trump: they think he’s an idiot and wanted to let him know. As of writing this post, when users typed “idiot” into Google Search and check the images, various images of Donald Trump and a few of Donald Trump, Jr. popped up.
Is this a potential conspiracy with Google trying to take aim at the President? Many tech leaders have been quite vocal in their disapproval of Donald Trump. Liberal Silicon Valley is a far different world than the rural heartlands that supported President Trump. It can’t be ruled out that Google’s leaders had nothing to do with the image results. What would be more likely, however, is if they respond slowly or not at all.
Still, it is possible to game Google’s search engines, and with enough resources, it can be surprisingly easy. As far as traffic is concerned, Reddit is one of the top-ten websites within the United States and one of the busiest in the world. When the collective masses of Reddit put their mind together, they can reshape the Internet.
It sounds dramatic, but it’s true. The strategies that Reddit users used are often referred to as Google bombing. Basically, by upvoting Trump’s photos and associating it with comments that say “idiot,” Reddit can single-handedly lift images to the top page. Reddit users have also been directly and indirectly encouraging the proliferation of content linking Donald Trump’s image to the word idiot.
Google bombing can go both ways. During the 2016 election, the pro-Trump subreddit (basically a sub-community) r/TheDonald was successful in elevating Trump’s image to the top for “45th president.” Mind you, this was before the race was done and concluded.
If the President is feeling bad about the images, he might take note that Albert Einstein also appears among the top “idiot” images. Whether or not you agree with Albert Einstein and his science-changing theories, he certainly was no idiot. President Trump, for his part, challenged Rex Tillerson to an IQ test (I doubt he’d want to do the same with Einstein.)
Don’t be surprised if this action forces Google to change up its algorithms and if Trump’s image disappears from “idiot” searches in the near future.
