Google admits algorithms purposely suppress autocompletion of search queries about Trump's assassination attempt

By 
 August 16, 2024

In the first couple of weeks after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign rally, tech giant Google was credibly accused of censoring and suppressing information about the near-fatal incident by way of its search bar autocomplete functions and returned results.

Now Google has admitted that algorithms purposefully designed to prevent the autocompletion of search queries for "hypothetical political violence against current figures" were the reason why Trump's assassination attempt was suppressed in autocomplete suggestions and search results, Fox Business reported.

The admission came in response to a demand for answers from Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), who among others sounded the alarm about how Google's search bar appeared to be avoiding or evening hiding information related to the attempted assassination of Trump.

Google appeared to censor and suppress search queries on Trump's assassination attempt

In a July 28 X post, Sen. Marshall shared screenshots of Google's search bar refusing to autocomplete a query about the assassination attempt on former President Trump, with the function instead suggesting a variety of unrelated potential queries, including the attempt against former President Harry Truman.

"Why is @Google suppressing the search about the Trump assassination attempt? These are all screenshots from this morning. Has there been a dramatic increase in Truman biographers in the last two weeks?" the senator wrote. "I’ll be making an official inquiry into @google this week -- I look forward to their response."

A few days later, Marshall raised the issue during an appearance on Fox Business and said, "If Google wants to be MSNBC, then they need to lose their protection on [Section] 230. Google was supposed to be the county square, where you and I and your listeners can go post information that we want to. They’re not supposed to be a censor, so they’re practicing, they’re functioning as a censor."

"They don’t want to see President Trump viewed as a hero, which he was on that day, when he literally took a bullet, he stands up and he yells, 'fight, fight, fight,'" he added. "This is election interference in my estimation. What is the value of the largest search engine in the world actually suppressing President Trump?"

Google responds to senator's questions about search query suppression

Sen. Marshall also sent a letter to Google that demanded answers for the apparent "suppression of search terms related to" the attempted assassination of former President Trump while he simultaneously called for a "full investigation and Congressional hearing on Google’s censorship of conservatives and blatant bias."

Nearly two weeks later, Google's Vice President of Government Affairs and Public Policy Mark Isakowitz responded with a four-page reply letter that sought to explain how the search bar's autocomplete algorithm works and why it wasn't automatically completing search queries for Trump's assassination attempt, despite that incident continuing to be a hugely relevant news story.

That includes several policies of potential search queries that autocomplete is algorithmically prevented from filling out, including "Serious malevolent acts: We do not allow predictions that can be interpreted as accusations against individuals or groups of serious malevolent acts, where there is a lack of well-established or expert supporting evidence."

"Autocomplete was not initially providing predictions for queries about the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump," Isakowitz acknowledged. "This is because, as noted above and shared publicly, our systems are designed to prohibit Autocomplete predictions for hypothetical political violence against current figures (as opposed to against historical figures such as President Truman, whom you asked about)."

Following the July 13 incident at the Pennsylvania rally, "these systems were still in place and predictions related to the assassination attempt failed to appear," he added. "We recognize that these out-of-date systems led to an inadequate user experience. Once the issue was brought to our attention, we began working on improvements that have already started rolling out."

Google a "monopolistic agent of propaganda for the globalist Left"

"Google is now openly admitting that they were blocking and eliminating search prompts regarding the assassination attempt on President Trump," Sen. Marshall said in a statement. "Most shocking is their bizarre written defense that Trump’s assassination attempt was a 'hypothetical act of political violence' even up to the point of our public inquiry on July 28th."

"Google is a monopolistic agent of propaganda for the globalist Left. In response to this letter, I am demanding that Google’s top executives testify under oath before the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee," he added. "Under oath, they won’t be able to hide behind an algorithm or get away with corporate double-speak. We are launching a full investigation into Google’s litany of offenses, time for accountability and consequence."

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