Internet users believed something was amiss at Google on Monday after viral screenshots captured unusual search results for the term “President Donald Trump.”
One search issue was flagged by X owner Elon Musk, who noticed that Google was autocompleting “President Donald” searches with “President Donald Duck” and “President Donald Regan.” If that wasn’t bad enough, a new wave of outraged X users have noticed that Googling “Donald Trump” redirects them to Kamala Harris-focused news articles.
Why is it that when you google Donald Trump, you get news about Kamala Harris
But when you google Kamala Harris, you don’t get news about Donald Trump? pic.twitter.com/gjLBgPW1Hw
— Arynne Wexler (@ArynneWexler) July 29, 2024
Users were quick to question whether Google may be intentionally targeting Trump-related searches, considering that searches for expected Democratic nominee Kamala Harris looked the same.
When one X user searched for “Donald Trump” they said: “Google News changed it to ‘Harris, Donald Trump’ and proceeded to show me only news that favors Harris over Donald Trump.”
Google has denied any interference and said that its system is currently undergoing updates.
When Musk asked the question, “Election interference?” on his viral X post, Google actually responded. A Google spokesperson told Fortune they were “working on improvements to ensure our systems are more up-to-date.”
I did a Google News search about “Donald Trump”.
Google News changed it to “Harris, Donald Trump” and proceeded to show me only news that favors Harris over Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/HmlBNcuoSz
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) July 29, 2024
Many aren’t taking this lightly considering that Alphabet/Google was one of the top donors to Biden’s campaign. Instead, it’s left many fearing whether or not big tech is interfering with this year’s election.
It gets so much worse.
Google is not only censoring news about the Trump assassinat*on attempt, it is redirecting Trump campaign searchers to Kamala Harris puff pieces.
Big Tech is now the biggest threat to democracypic.twitter.com/VjhWNs5SdP
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) July 29, 2024