Google manually adjusts its results for censorship reasons. This is probably why google has gotten so much worse, they don't want information to be freely accessible, they only want things they approve of to be seen.
I reckon you're right, but I doubt that it's manual or under Google's control. Google is too important a tool of control to be left in the hands of Silly Valley idealists.
I've always wondered why Sergey Brin and Larry Page retired when they did, it coincides almost exactly with the beginning of the SERP quality decline. Wonder what sort of conversation they had with intelligence to quietly walk to the door, cash out, and say nothing about the company since.
What happened was they got what they wanted: full control of running the business. Then they quickly learned that was actually a lot of work and not very much fun, made some fairly unpopular decisions (business, product and policy) with a fair amount of public backlash, put Sundar in charge and backed away.
