Questions about Google’s bias are reemerging in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
The search engine giant has been criticized plenty of times over recent years for propping up search results beneficial to the left while suppressing those that might favor the right.
Now, Google is coming under fire after it was revealed that its auto-populate feature was not bringing up the shooting of Trump.
Republicans are asking why Google's auto-populated search terms aren’t suggesting the shooting of former President Donald Trump when users search for “attempted assassination.”
When someone goes to Google to search “assassination attempt,” despite Trump being the most recent victim of such violence, his name isn’t suggested as one of the search results. Other assassination attempts of presidents and politicians, such as President Harry S. Truman’s in 1950, are common search suggestions. Some Republicans believe Google is censoring the event.
“Big Tech is trying to interfere in the election AGAIN to help Kamala Harris. We all know this is intentional election interference from Google. Truly despicable,” Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., posted on X.
“Why is Google suppressing the search about the Trump assassination attempt? These are all screenshots from this morning. Has there been a dramatic increase in Truman biographers in the last two weeks?” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) posted on X. He said he would be making an “official inquiry” into the alleged censorship this week.
Why is @Google suppressing the search about the Trump assassination attempt? These are all screenshots from this morning. Has there been a dramatic increase in Truman biographers in the last two weeks?
— Dr. Roger Marshall (@RogerMarshallMD) July 28, 2024
I’ll be making an official inquiry into @google this week - I look forward… pic.twitter.com/GD5SOvvcdX
I’ll be making an official inquiry into @google this week - I look forward to their response.
Google denied that it was deliberately suppressing mentions of the shooting.
A spokesperson for Google denies that any "manual action" has taken been on the autocomplete predictions surrounding the assassination attempt of Trump.
Instead, Google's systems have protections against autocomplete predictions associated with political violence, which were "working as intended prior to this horrific event occurring" in Pennsylvania.
"We're working on improvements to ensure our systems are more up to date," the spokesperson told Newsweek.
"Of course, Autocomplete is just a tool to help people save time, and they can still search for anything they want to. Following this terrible act, people turned to Google to find high quality information—we connected them with helpful results, and will continue to do so."
Google still directs searchers to accounts of the assassination if they type in the full query, without autocomplete.
To be fair, there is a chance Google might be telling the truth. Perhaps it did not want to produce suggestions to an individual who might be looking to assassinate Trump. Maybe something else happened.
However, even if the company is being honest, one can’t be blamed for doubting its word, given its long and storied history of bias.
In March, the Media Research Center reported that Google has been using its platform to interfere in elections since 2008. It’s not hard to guess which type of candidates and agendas the company propped up.
Researchers uncovered 41 instances of bias favoring the left, including censoring pro-Clinton blogs in 2008 to help Obama but then massaging search results to benefit Hillary in 2016. In 2020, Google disabled Tulsi Gabbard’s Google Ads account during the Democratic primary and also blocked Republican fundraising emails sent through Gmail.
Project Veritas in 2019 obtained documentation showing that Google employees were plotting to suppress the voices of various right-leaning media figures they believed to be gateways to Nazism. These included The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro and commentator Jordan Peterson.
The company’s internal communications argued that these individuals used dog whistles to promote fascism. The company removed Project Veritas’ video from YouTube.
In another instance, other internal communications discussed burying conservative news outlets like The Daily Caller, Breitbart, and others during the 2020 election. Google engineer Scott Byer recommended this course of action to stop former President Donald Trump from winning a second term in office.
Some employees pushed back against the idea, arguing that it would lead to conspiracy theories. Others suggested implementing the company’s fact-checking feature against right-leaning news sites.
There are plenty of other examples showing that the folks at Google aren’t exactly concerned about neutrality or fairness. They have a very clear objective: Advance the progressive agenda. This is why it would be no surprise if there were proof that Google suppressed information about the assassination attempt.
