Ask Google who the ‘leader of the free world’ is and you learn who it isn’t

by WorldTribune Staff, August 5, 2018

The term “leader of the free world” is usually reserved for the President of the United States.

According to Google, however, the current occupant of the White House doesn’t make the cut.

Leader of the free world – and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

As of Aug. 5, the top search result on Google for “leader of the free world” was a CNN.com opinion piece titled “Trump is no longer leader of the free world”.

Other top results from the search included a July 1 article by The Hill titled “Who is the leader of the free world?” and a July 19 piece by The Washington Post titled “Trump’s US is no longer the leader of the free world”.

Under “videos,” the search results yielded “Why Trump gave up ‘leader of free world’ ” by MSNBC.com and “German Chancellor Angela Merkel is now the ‘leader of the free world” by USA Today.

Since Google relies heavily on Wikipedia, a search of “free world” on that site did not feature a photo of President Donald Trump in the United States section, but of President George H.W. Bush. Under Germany was a photo of Merkel, the current German chancellor.

On Aug. 3, Breitbart had reported that the top result from a Google search for “leader of the free world” returned a photo of the crisis-plagued Merkel, followed by the CNN opinion piece.

“The top result scrapes information from Wikipedia, which notes that the English-language establishment media has increasingly used the term ‘leader of the free world’ in connection with Chancellor Merkel. This is true – although it says more about the media’s bias than it does about Merkel, whose long dominance over German politics appears to be on the verge of breakdown,” senior technology correspondent Allum Bokhari reported for Breitbart.

“The Wikipedia page also notes that German commentators, as well as a leading member of Merkel’s own political party, have largely disagreed with the western media’s assessment and that Merkel herself has ‘rejected the idea as absurd.’ Strangely, none of that information made it to the Google results,” Bokhari wrote.


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