Google has firmly rejected allegations from Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr. suggesting the company is manipulating search results to influence political outcomes. The claims revolve around Google's autocomplete function, which has been accused of omitting references to a recent assassination attempt on former US president and leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
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What Went Down
The issue gained traction after users on X (formerly known as Twitter) shared screenshots indicating that when typing "assassination attempt on" into Google, the autocomplete suggestions did not include references to Trump. Instead, the suggestions were related to historical figures like Ronald Reagan and Bob Marley. Additionally, when users searched "assassination attempt on Trump" in Chrome's incognito mode, no autocomplete suggestions appeared, though relevant news articles did surface after pressing enter.
Elon Musk weighed in on the matter, posting a screenshot showing that a search for "President Donald" suggested "President Donald Duck" rather than "President Donald Trump."
Musk tweeted, "Wow, Google has a search ban on President Donald Trump," further noting, "Probably just a coincidence that Alphabet (Google) employees were the top donors to Biden."
Contrary to these claims, a test by ABP Live revealed that the "Donald Trump" query functioned normally in incognito mode at the time of their investigation.
Several Republican figures, including Donald Trump Jr., have accused Google of "gaslighting" and attempting to sway the 2024 presidential election. Trump Jr. asserted on X, "Big Tech is trying to interfere in the election AGAIN to help Kamala Harris."
How Did Google Respond?
In response to the controversy, Google told Fortune that it had not taken any "manual action" to alter autocomplete predictions. The company emphasized that it is "working on improvements" to its autocomplete feature.
A Google spokesperson clarified that their systems have "protections against autocomplete predictions associated with political violence," which were functioning correctly. The Search giant is now updating these systems to ensure they reflect current events more accurately.
Regarding Musk’s “Donald Duck” search result, the spokesperson admitted that the autocomplete function "is currently not working as intended" for searches involving past presidents and the current vice president.
"We’re looking into these anomalies and working on improvements, which we hope to roll out soon," the spokesperson added.