The former president’s name was omitted from Google’s autocomplete feature after his near-assassination.
Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. has attributed failures in its search engine results about former President Donald Trump and the recent attempt on his life to unspecified “bugs” and the search engine’s algorithm, according to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Google users searching for information about the former president last week reported their queries returned news stories about Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump’s name was also noticeably absent from Google’s list of suggested queries when users searched for it or about the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump.
Jordan, as head of the House Judiciary Committee and its Weaponization of the Federal Government panel, is investigating whether those anomalies were in error or part of a deliberate attempt to influence the 2024 presidential election.
“Through counsel, Alphabet admitted to the Committee and Select Subcommittee that, after the July 13 assassination attempt on President Trump, ‘predictions for queries about the assassination attempt against former President Trump’ ‘should have appeared but didn’t,’” Jordan wrote.
According to the congressman, Google attorney Daniel Donovan attributed the issue to Google Search’s “out of date” protections around political violence that were built into its autocomplete feature. Donovan also reportedly advised that the problem had been resolved.
The attorney similarly blamed the omission of Trump’s name from Google’s suggested searches list on “a bug” that was later fixed in an update.
As for why searches for Trump’s name returned news stories about the vice president instead, Donovan reportedly attributed the problem to the search engine’s algorithm, which automatically displays news stories related to inquiries.
“The company also noted that ‘predictions … may be unexpected or imperfect, and bugs will occur,’” Jordan said of Alphabet’s response.
Unsatisfied with Google’s explanations, Jordan provided the attorney with a list of questions that committee members will expect him to answer at a briefing later this week.
Primarily, the committee wants to know when Google first learned of the referenced search problems, how long they occurred, how long it took to correct them, and their overall impacts on Americans’ ability to obtain information about the Republican nominee for president.
The letter did not reveal the date of the briefing.
Claims of Election Interference
Concerns about Google’s search results on Trump were first shared on July 28, when X owner Elon Musk posted a picture of the search engine’s results for his search about “president donald.”
The suggested terms included “president donald duck” and “president donald regan” alongside a picture of President Ronald Reagan.
Trump’s name was not on the list.
“Wow, Google has a search ban on President Donald Trump! Election interference?” Musk wrote.
Google is not the only tech company to have faced such allegations in recent weeks.
In a July 30 statement, Meta acknowledged the fact-check label as “a mistake” prompted by the circulation of a different, doctored photo in which the Secret Service agents surrounding Trump reportedly appeared to be smiling.
Meanwhile, the company revealed that the chatbot issue was a deliberate move on the part of programmers to prevent the spread of inaccurate information.
“Rather than have Meta AI give incorrect information about the attempted assassination, we programmed it to simply not answer questions about it after it happened—and instead give a generic response about how it couldn’t provide any information. This is why some people reported our AI was refusing to talk about the event,” the company said.
While the chatbot’s responses have since been updated, Meta acknowledged that its programmers “should have done this sooner.”
“We’re committed to ensuring our platforms are a place where people can freely express themselves, and we are always working to make improvements,” the company said.
In a July 30 Truth Social post that has since been deleted, Trump urged his supporters to “go after” Meta and Google for what he described as “another attempt at rigging the election.”