America’s most used search engine was just caught in the second digital election interference scheme in as many weeks.
Google, the number one search engine in the country, controls 89.2% of all general search services and 94.9% of all mobile search services. On July 31, users on X began pointing out that searches for phrases like “Donald Trump” or “trump rally” were bringing up results featuring Kamala Harris’s rallies in Pennsylvania and Georgia.
“Google is reliably shameless,” said MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider. “It consistently manipulates data to achieve its political goals. Yet again it appears to be altering its algorithms to feed the American people a positive narrative about one candidate while disseminating terrible accusations against the other.”
Georgia voters rely on search engines to help find unbiased and relevant information on candidates and news stories. A 2015 study by psychologist Robert Epstein documented what is called “the search engine effect” and its possible impact on election outcomes. The study found that by manipulating search engine results candidate preference could be altered 20 percent or more.
Google was caught manipulating results previously less than one week prior to this incident when it was found to be suppressing search results related to the assassination attempt against President Trump.
Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) has pledged to launch an investigation into Google’s electioneering. In 2022 Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) warned the tech giant of investigations and consequences for its academic censoring against Conservatives. Hawley also revealed evidence that Google’s Gmail spam filter unfairly discriminated against Republicans.
Adding to Google’s arguably already very bad week, a federal judge ruled the corporation is an illegal monopoly in a staggering court defeat set to cause ripples across the entire technology sector.
