In Washington, DC, Google searches for “criminal defense lawyer” and other terms related to crime have increased significantly. Supporters of US President Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” movement are also seeing a rise in popularity.
According to MAGA supporters, the Google data reveals that a corrupt elite in the US capital is frightened of arrest and prosecution under Trump’s new leadership.
The MAGA-linked X account Libs of TikTok posted to its more than four million followers on Sunday, ” PANIC IN DC: Google searches explode for: – Criminal defense lawyer – RICO law – Swiss bank – Offshore bank – Wire money – IBAN – Statute of limitations.”
The post, accompanied by screenshots of search terms on Google Trends, has been shared more than 16, 000 times, attracted more than 65, 000 “likes”, and received some 1.9 million views on X.
PANIC IN DC: Google searches explode for:
– Criminal defense lawyer
– RICO law
– Swiss bank
– Offshore bank
– Wire money
– IBAN
– Statute of limitations pic. twitter.com/UYtBiapWDw
Numerous well-known MAGA figures have augmented the Google Trends data to support the idea that DC elites are hesitant to be exposed for their crimes.
“The Beltway is in full panic mode”, Matt Gaetz, a close Trump ally and former Florida congressman, said on his show on the right-wing One America News Network on Wednesday, using a common expression for the political and social elite of Washington, DC.
The guilty are sweating bullets like they are auditioning for a mob movie, according to Gaetz, who said “Google search trends show it.”
“Dumb criminals googling their crime”, conservative podcaster Josie Glabach, whose X account “Redheaded Libertarian” has more than 852, 000 followers, posted on Sunday.
The relative popularity of a particular search term is boosted by Google data, but the truth is less clear than what is being claimed in MAGA circles.
So what is actually going on in Washington, DC?
What do the claims have to do with Trump’s efforts to cut government spending?
The allegations come as Trump and tech tycoon Elon Musk complete a comprehensive analysis of the federal government with the stated goal of eradicating waste, abuse, and fraud.
Gaetz and other well-known MAGA figures have cited the Google data as evidence of Musk’s efforts to reduce costs through his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Hundreds of thousands of government employees have been laid off or resigned, and plans to do so are being worked on by DOGE.
The Department of State, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are among the most well-known government agencies that are affected by Musk’s task force’s reductions over the past month.
Some federal employees are currently suing the US government through organizations like the American Federation of Government Employees.
The federal government’s corruption has been refuted by many long-standing MAGA beliefs.
The conspiracy theory that the US government is run by a secretive cabal of officials that is not accountable to the US president or congress is a popular among MAGA supporters.
As with other conspiracy theorists, MAGA supporters believe everything is “interconnected”, Mihaela Mihailescu, a PhD researcher at the University of Bath focused on the politics of the internet, told Al Jazeera.
They believe that “Washington, DC, is in full-blown panic mode, with corrupt officials desperately searching for offshore bank accounts and legal loopholes as Trump ‘ cleans house'”, Mihailescu said.
“We have no proof that these searches are even coming from DC insiders,” she said, noting that the claim that a sudden spike in Google searches for terms like “RICO law” and “Swiss bank” suggests a widespread exodus of corrupt bureaucrats is based on merely speculation.
Lack of proof hasn’t stopped the spread of Deep State-related conspiracy theories, including those involving Q Anon and Pizzagate, which claimed, respectively, that Trump was secretly battling a cabal of cannibalistic Satan worshippers and senior Democrats who operated a child sex-trafficking ring out of a Washington pizzazzeria.
What exactly appears in Google Trends results?
Al Jazeera on Thursday carried out searches of the terms highlighted by “Libs of TikTok” on Google Trends and found a spike in certain phrases in the Washington, DC, area in the weeks surrounding Trump’s inauguration.
Searches for “criminal defense lawyer”, “lawyer”, “RICO law”, “Swiss bank”, and “IBAN” all rose in popularity around this time.
Due to the nature of Google Trends, it is difficult to say much more than this, despite these results showing a rise in the relative popularity of some searches.
Google claims that Google Trends analyzes a sample of gathered search data to identify which search terms are growing and decreasing in popularity over a particular time period.
Users can compare searches made in a certain location over a certain time period using an “apples to apples” scale, which is displayed on a scale of 0 to 100.
The number 100 indicates a peak in popularity relative to other terms, but 0 does not necessarily mean there were zero searches, according to Google.
What restrictions does Google Trends have?
Google Trends, in the opinion of the tech giant, is not scientific and should not be used as a “perfect mirror of search activity.”
According to the Google Trends FAQ section, “a spike in a particular topic does not indicate that a topic is somehow “popular” or “winning,” but rather that there appear to be many users searching for a topic for an undetermined reason,” according to the FAQ section.
One of the biggest limitations of Google Trends is that Google does not disclose absolute numbers, Wietze Beukema, a UK-based cyberthreat engineer, told Al Jazeera.
A non-scientific tool created by Google to provide some deep insights into search patterns is known as “Google Trends.” As shown by]the Libs of Tik Tok] example, it is possible to get these insights for smaller geographical areas”, Beukema said.
“It is first of all important to stress that Google doesn’t give absolute numbers, but just relative index figures. For example,]Libs of] TikTok appears to show a four-fold increase in searches for the word ‘ lawyer ‘ in the DC area. To know whether that is significant, you’d have to see the absolute numbers”, he said.
A Google Trends line trending downwards might indicate that a term’s relative popularity is declining, not necessarily that the total number of searches, as a Google page explaining the tool suggests.
The same goes for a line trending upwards.
What conclusions can be drawn from TikTok searches’ Libs?
People who study statistics frequently make the case that correlation and causation are two different things, just like Google Trends.
Google Trends cannot by itself explain why or how the surge in particular searches in Washington, DC, occurred, Beukema said.
He claimed that searches for criminal defense attorneys in the Washington, DC, area could provide as prosaic an explanation as an advertising campaign.
The fact that Google uses a sample of the search volume rather than all, causing the same query to have different results based on the type of query being run, Beukema said.
Additionally, bots and VPNs can make it appear as though a user is in one place when they are actually somewhere else, making Google Trend results not immune to their influence.
“Even if the figures are accurate, it remains to be seen what can be derived from these ‘ insights’. It is easy to read some interpretation into an increase/decrease of search volume, but proving a direct causation – rather than an observed correlation – , is hard, if not impossible”, Beukema said.
Source: Aljazeera
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