Google AI Gives Game Away: Leftist Gatekeeper ‘Consensus’ Controls Gemini’s Sources

Gemini’s disclosure was striking, as all these organizations have been previously exposed by MRC for marginalizing right-leaning media while boosting their left-leaning counterparts with favorable ratings. Gemini’s reliance on these entities means that the AI chatbot is using multiple filters to remove disfavored thought. Google made the disclosure to the MRC in March when asked whether its assessment of media reliability aligns more closely with media ratings firms Ad Fontes or AllSides. Unlike Ad Fontes, AllSides does not target outlets based on so-called “reliability” scores, but instead simply evaluates bias. Claiming its “goal is to reflect the consensus or the range of expert opinion,” Gemini pointed to Ad Fontes Media, while also citing Wikipedia, PolitiFact and FactCheck.org as key inputs. Gemini’s outrageous process empowers these organizations to control the AI outputs that Gemini’s many users will see, with the following findings showing exactly how that system operates in practice. MRC’s Findings: Gemini disclosed that it consults Wikipedia’s “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” list to assess media reliability. MRC exposed the Reliable sources list as an effective blacklist of right-leaning outlets that also categorizes 84 of left-leaning sources as “Generally reliable.” Gemini double-dipped by consulting both the Soros-funded International Fact-Checking Network and prominent fact-checkers that signed on to its principles. The MRC has repeatedly shown that these fact-checkers shield the left, and by extension Democrats, by bolstering the elitist media narrative. Gemini further empowered Ad Fontes, a media literacy firm notorious for favoring leftist outlets. MRC found Ad Fontes rated left-leaning sources at an average of 64, compared with just 32 for right-of-center outlets. Gemini’s Wikipedia Filter Google’s chatbot cited Wikipedia’s effective source blacklist as a tool it uses to judge source reliability, putting the online encyclopedia at the head of its list of gatekeepers. Gemini wrote, “When you ask about a source, I generally look at several factors: Institutional Reputation: How does the source fare in the Wikipedia Perennial Sources list? Is it generally reliable, marginal, or deprecated?” A 2025 Media Research Center report found that Wikipedia effectively blacklisted right-of-center outlets identified in AllSides’ independent media bias chart. By contrast, the digital encyclopedia approved nearly all left-leaning outlets, later rubber-stamping The Washington Free Beacon as a token right-leaning source. Wikipedia labeled 84 of leftist media as “Generally reliable.” As of March 25, sources like Fox News, New York Post, The Daily Wire and The Federalist are rated as “Generally unreliable,” while Breitbart, The Heritage Foundation and The Daily Caller are either “blacklisted” or “deprecated.” Meanwhile, radical sources like Qatari government-funded Al Jazeera and Mother Jones are listed as “Generally reliable,” alongside notes mentioning their obvious bias. Other fire-breathing leftist sources like GLAAD, MS Now or HuffPost are also listed as “Generally reliable,” along with elitist media like The Associated Press, meaning that Gemini is likely reproducing the same stories and same propagandistic language choices published by its sources. Google’s reliance on Wikipedia extends beyond sourcing. The search giant frequently uses Wikipedia as a source for its “knowledge panels,” which often appear at the top of many basic online searches. Google has funded Wikipedia’s parent company, the Wikimedia Foundation and its fund, Wikimedia Endowment, to the tune of approximately 7.5 million. Google’s support includes Gemini’s use of the Wikimedia Enterprise system. On Jan. 15, the Wikimedia Foundation announced on the encyclopedia’s 25th anniversary that Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Mistral AI and Perplexity had joined Google to become Wikimedia Enterprise partners. Wikimedia claimed these companies were joining existing partners such as Google, which “utilize Wikimedia Enterprise to integrate human-governed knowledge into their platforms at scale.” Beyond the Google funding, Wikimedia has received 573,970 from leftist billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundations and a whopping 3,433,900 from 2018-2019 from the Soros-backed Tides Foundation. Gemini’s Soros-Backed Fact-Checker Filter Gemini also said it holds media outlets to the International Fact-Checking Network’s standards. The IFCN is a project of The Poynter Institute, which received 492,000 from Soros between 2016 and 2019, including 467,000 specifically earmarked for the IFCN. Beyond specifically citing the IFCN, Gemini also genuflected to fact checkers that have agreed to the IFCN’s standards. Before providing a source to the user, Gemini stated that it would consider the “source's track record on sites like Snopes, PolitiFact, or FactCheck.org?” Putting IFCN-compliant fact checkers in charge of source selection is an egregious choice. PolitiFact, which is part of Poynter, shows extreme partisan bias and selective outrage. From January to March this year, PolitiFact attacked precisely zero statements by Democrats with their most severe ratings, such as “Mostly False” or “Pants on Fire.” But PolitiFact determined that an incredible 69 of Republican statements they rated deserved such approbation. The Soros-funded fact checker also showed severe bias during the 2026 State of the Union, savaging Trump’s remarks. By contrast, PolitiFact treated claims made during Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s response with supportive language such as research supports this number,” This is accurate and Early data supports. Additionally, PolitiFact routinely coddles Democrats, from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to former President Barack Obama. During the first three months of 2024, PolitiFact gave negative ratings to three times as many Republican statements compared to those made by Democrats. Nearly 75 of Republican statements fact-checked by PolitiFact were labeled “mostly false,” “false” or “pants on fire,” compared to only about 26 of Democrat statements. Meanwhile, FactCheck.org worked to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and nitpicked Trump’s opposition to the genital mutilation and chemical castration of children. Snopes, for its part, has gone as far as “fact-checking” the satire website The Babylon Bee, going after a piece with the obviously satirical headline: “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine To Spin News Before Publication. Notably, all three fact checkers are signatories of the IFCN’s code of principles. Gemini’s Ad Fontes Filter In addition to consulting IFCN fact checkers and anti-free speech Wikipedia, Gemini also wrote that it synthesizes information by considering “Ad Fontes for its rigorous, article-level data on factual accuracy.” An MRC investigation into Ad Fontes Media found the firm awarded left-leaning outlets an average reliability score of 64, compared to just 32 for right-leaning outlets—a stark 32-point gap. In the wake of the MRC exposé, Ad Fontes attempted to retaliate by giving the MRC Free Speech America study an extremely low rating. MRC Free Speech America also uncovered how the Department of State funded a year-long series of seminars that instructed teachers on how to put censorship tools utilizing Ad Fontes’s media bias chart and media ratings firm NewsGuard into American classrooms. Ultimately, not only the Department of State, but the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security were involved in a significant effort to indoctrinate young Americans and enlist them against disfavored publications. Methodology: On March 23, MRC Researchers asked Gemini the following question: Is your assessment of media sources' reliability more closely aligned with AllSides or with Ad Fontes? Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.