Opposing view: Trump is right — Google throttles conservatives

Americans must be wary of powerful institutions that seek to control what we see and hear.

As the internet has become an increasingly central part of modern life, Big Tech giants such as Facebook, Twitter and Google have increasingly sought to become the gatekeepers of the internet and political discourse. Without any sort of democratic mandate, these companies have appointed themselves the arbiters of acceptable thought and discussion online.

“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!” President Trump tweeted last month. The president is right.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Google was accused of manipulating search results to favor Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. Harvard researchers found that Google’s search rankings were not objective. In 2017, the company was fined billions by the European Union for manipulating search results.

Sometimes, the tech giant just attacks conservatives. In one infamous example, a search result listed Nazism as the ideology of the California GOP. If something conservative manages to get past Google’s gatekeepers, they just remove it. YouTube, owned by Google, routinely restricts and censors conservatives. One target of YouTube was Dennis Prager’s PragerU, which sued last year after 40 of its videos were restricted.

Google’s eager adoption of the role of censor should come as little surprise. Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google parent company, Alphabet Inc., has a track record as an activist. He helped form an online startup company to help Clinton win the election in 2016 and he wore a “staff ” badge at the Clinton election night party.

Google is clearly manipulating the political narrative in favor of Democrats and silencing Republicans. A company with such influence cannot be allowed to play the biased gatekeeper of political discourse.

Brad Parscale is the campaign manager for Donald J. Trump for President.