Trump Lashes Out at ‘Rigged’ Google for ‘Controlling’ Its Search Results
By Ted Johnson
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump lashed out at Google and other internet firms in an early morning pair of tweets, calling them “rigged” in the way that they rank news about his presidency.
He even suggested that the alleged practice was “illegal,” and that it was a “very serious situation — will be addressed.”
“ search results for “Trump News” shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake New Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of…
He added, “….results on “Trump News” are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!” The tweets were sent at 5:24 a.m. and 5:34 a.m.
This was just the latest example of Trump making the case that social media and internet companies are biased against conservative voices, but there is little if no evidence that it is systematic. Trump appeared to have been referred to anecdotal accounts and individual cases, and was echoing a complaint that lawmakers like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have been making for some time.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg are expected to testify on Capitol Hill on Sept. 5, when the issue is expected to be raised by GOP lawmakers. Google also is expected to send a senior executive.
Google issued a statement through a spokesperson.
“When users type queries into the Google Search bar, our goal is to make sure they receive the most relevant answers in a matter of seconds,” the company said. “Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don’t bias our results toward any political ideology. Every year, we issue hundreds of improvements to our algorithms to ensure they surface high-quality content in response to users’ queries. We continually work to improve Google Search and we never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment.”
Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow was asked whether the administration was supportive of the idea of regulating Google searches. “We’re taking a look at it,” Kudlow said.
