That term is a bit too broad. It does make a difference if said tool is a hammer or a pincer.
Specifically they are FILTERS. And, extremely aggressive filters at that. For each 10 listings on the front page several millions of pages will not get an equal mention.
Lots of people think that they are somehow "magnets" that will "pull out" the proverbial "needle" from the stack, but it is not so.
As to the example you gave of the last two years, perhaps it is too soon to bring that one up? There may be some here who would suggest that the problem wasn't inherent to censorship, but that the narrative wasn't controlled effectively enough. I forecast the "dangerous misinformation" theme to increase.
Does anyone remember the days when hackers said, "Information wants to be free"? If so, is that memory part of the problem?
>“When you use Google, do you get more than one answer? Of course you do,” he told public television host Charlie Rose at the time. “Well, that’s a bug. We should be able to give you the right answer just once. We should know what you meant. You should look for information. We should get it exactly right.”
>"More and more searches are done on your behalf without you needing to type. I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions," he elaborates. "They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/googl...
That said... who defines what propaganda is and whether it's propaganda in se or due to circumstances?
