Google's Preferred Sources feature shifts AI search control

google introduced preferred sources, allowing users to manually select news outlets to prioritize in search results. this move coincides with ai-generated answers increasingly replacing direct links to external sites, turning independent publishers into raw material for google's systems. the company faces pressure to reduce risks to media pluralism under europe's digital services act. by forcing manual configuration, google can claim user agency if results suffer, while favoring compliant partners like reddit over publishers who demand copyright compensation. this effectively sidelines reputable journalism in favor of content sources that do not legally challenge google's data usage.