According to a new study conducted by the Media Research Center, Google has “interfered” in major US elections 41 times since 2008.
I recall writing about this in 2016, when search results for “Hillary Clinton” showed positive information and search results for “Donald Trump” showed negative information (click here to read more).
Google’s impact on elections has “surged dramatically” in recent years, “making it evermore harmful to democracy,” warns Dan Schneider, Vice President of MRC division Free Speech America. “In every case, Google harmed the candidates – regardless of party – who threatened its left-wing candidate of choice.”
Despite a slew of lawsuits, investigations, and excuses, Google’s biased behavior seems to show no signs of slowing.
“From the mouths of Google executives, the tech giant let slip what was never meant to be made public: That Google uses its ‘great strength and resources and reach’ to advance its leftist values,” continues Schneider. The company’s “outsized influence on information technology, the body politic, and American elections became evident in 2008. After failing to prevent then-candidate for president Donald Trump from being inaugurated following the 2016 election, Google has since made clear to any discerning observer that it has been – and will continue – interfering in America’s elections.”
As I wrote previously, Google’s spam filtering algorithms are believed to have cost the Republican Party $2 billion in fundraising between 2019 and 2022.
Just yesterday, I wrote about the “woke” bias displayed by Google’s newest AI tool Gemini. In addition to its hesitance to produce images of white people, the bot refused to answer any questions it perceived as “damaging” to President Joe Biden.
“Utilizing the many tools in its arsenal, Google aided those who most closely aligned with its leftist values from election cycle to election cycle since as far back as the 2008 presidential election,” argues Schneider. “Meanwhile, it targeted for censorship those candidates who posed the most serious threat.”
Examples cited in the MRC study include:
- Obvious support for Barack Obama vs John McCain (2008) and Mitt Romney (2012)
- Failure to balance positive and negative search results for Rick Santorum (2012)
- Excluding autofill results that could have damaged Hillary Clinton’s reputation during her presidential campaign, while not doing the same for her competitors (2016)
- Assisting Latino voters who were expected to vote Blue get to the polls (2016)
- Pausing Tulsi Gabbard’s Ads account immediately following a key primary debate (2020)
- Hiding a majority of GOP campaign websites for 12 Senate races (2022)
- Concealing websites for Biden’s rivals (2024)
What was originally perceived as “meddling” has transformed into “an organizational mission to ensure that its candidates win on election day,” says Schneider, pointing to additional studies that suggest Google’s algorithms shifted over 2.6 million votes to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election and its “get out the vote” campaign shifted 6 million votes to Joe Biden in 2020.
As a whole, the MRC is urging Americans to stop using Google’s search engine and has called on Congress to investigate the tech giant on grounds that it:
- Works with the federal government to limit Americans’ constitutional rights (including Freedom of Speech)
- Interferes with elections
- Defrauds users by its failure to adhere to its own Terms of Service
Of course, Google continues to deny any bias, wrongdoing, or interference.
“We have a clear business incentive to keep everyone using our products, so we have no desire to make them biased or inaccurate and have safeguards in place to ensure this,” a Google spokesperson told Fox News, adding that liberal politicians have accused the search engine of having a conservative bias (he failed to provide examples).
Author’s Note: With a majority of Americans getting their news from the Internet and Google being the most popular search engine, it’s simply unavoidable that its biased search results won’t impact elections.
There’s a certain inherent trust when using a search engine that the results you get are factual. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case with Google.
Sources:
Google has ‘interfered’ with elections 41 times over the last 16 years, Media Research Center says
Rick Santorum’s Google Problem Becomes the Story
Google Alters Searches to Favor Hillary Clinton – Try It For Yourself
Google’s Algorithms are Still Biased – Cost Republicans 2 Billion