President Trump has accused tech giant Google of rigging its search results in an effort to make him look bad. He feels the results are manipulated to show negative stories about him and “others.”
According to the president, the “Fake News Media” account for “96 percent” of the news that comes up in Google’s search results for “Trump News.” He made accusations against the company claiming they don’t include conservative and Republican results. He also said the situation “will be addressed.”
“Google search results for ‘Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake New Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of results on ‘Trump News’ are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!”
President Trump has never been shy about making it clear which media outlets he doesn’t agree with and regularly employs the use of Twitter to communicate his feelings to the public. And although he seems to be upset with Google right now, in 2016 he tweeted , “I told you so! The European Union just slapped a Five Billion Dollar fine on one of our great companies, Google. They truly have taken advantage of the U.S., but not for long!”
Trump believes that Facebook is also biased against him and has accused the social media company of colluding with The Washington Post , one of many news outlets he believes are part of the “fake news media.”
Despite how often he is on Twitter, he criticizes that website as well, claiming that they often “shadow-ban” Republican accounts. According to a recent article by The Guardian , this is a view shared by many conservatives. However, Twitter claimed changes had been made to their algorithm that would de-prioritize abusive users based on things like hashtags, search, and conversations. But according to Twitter this simply meant that users would be less visible on the site if they behaved poorly, not based on political affiliations.
As far as Google search results go, the results that appear are determined by an algorithm that uses several different factors, many of which are only known by Google. Search results can also be influenced by past browsing history. Recently, Google has made efforts to change some of the ways its algorithm decides what to show in the wake of complaints about fake news.
Google has not yet commented on President Trump’s allegations.