TRUMP: GOOGLE SUPPRESSES CONSERVATIVE VIEWPOINTS
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump lashed out at tech companies Tuesday, accusing Google and others of “suppressing” conservative voices and “hiding information” and good news. He cited no evidence for the claim, which echoes both his own attacks on the press and a conservative talking point.
Google, operator of a popular search engine, responded by saying: “We never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment.”
Trump tweeted before dawn: “This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!” Hours later, Larry Kudlow, the president’s top economic adviser, said the White House is “taking a look” at whether Google searches should be subject to some regulation.
Trump has made similar complaints before, but he carried it a step further Tuesday by targeting Google.
“Google 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?”
He added, without offering evidence, that “96% of 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,” Trump said.
In response, Google said its goal is to make sure users of its search engine get the most relevant answers quickly.
“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,” the Mountain View, California-based company said.
“We continually work to improve Google Search and we never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment.”
Trump began complaining about the issue earlier this month as social media companies moved to ban right-wing “Infowars” conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from their platforms.
He also argues regularly — and falsely — that the news media avoids writing positive stories about him or the administration.