In the wake of Sunday’s tragic Bondi shooting, conspiracy theories and deliberate misinformation have spread on social media.

One thing some people have latched onto is the idea Google Trends data show a spike in searches for “Naveed Akram” – the name of one of the attackers – from Tel Aviv (or other locations) before the shooting occurred. In a surprising lateral jump, this is taken to show Akram must be an Israeli agent.

Similar stories did the rounds when US right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was killed in September, and after an attack on US National Guard members in November.

So what’s going on here? Google told the ABC Google Trends may sometimes show searches when none actually happened due to “statistical noise”.

I have studied the mechanics of Google Trends extensively in my research, and I can confirm this is true – and the “noise” can lead to strange results, especially when looking at searches for unusual terms or coming from small areas.

Google Trends shows information about what users are searching for at different places and times. The data it uses are what statisticians call a “time series”, but they are unusual........

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