Google’s recent omission of search results related to a failed assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump has stirred controversy. People searching for information about the failed plot to kill former President Trump were left confused when the search engine didn’t give them what they expected. Instead, the website’s autocomplete tool ignored any mentions of the July 13 shooting, leading to accusations from the ex-president’s son that the tech giant is trying to manipulate the election.
Google omits Trump assassination attempt results
Users were taken aback when Google’s autocomplete feature failed to provide results related to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Even when they typed in “the assassination attempt of,” they didn’t get any suggestions about the July 13 event in Butler, Pennsylvania, that rocked the whole nation.
This omission has sparked frustration, with Donald Trump Jr. accusing the Sundar Pichai-led tech firm of intentionally manipulating search results to influence the upcoming election. The fact that autocomplete didn’t give any hints about the event has made Republicans worry that there might be a bias in how the narrative is being presented.
Is tech giant meddling with elections?
As the U.S. gears up for the November 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris has officially announced her candidacy, with President Joe Biden backing her to succeed him. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is aiming to return to the White House. The latest updates to Google’s search tools are happening while there’s a lot of political drama, especially after Trump said he “took a bullet for democracy” on social media after criticising FBI Director Christopher Wray for his testimony.
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“Big Tech is trying to interfere in the election AGAIN to help Kamala Harris. We all know this is intentional election interference from Google. Truly despicable,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote on his X account.
According to Fox News, which reviewed numerous screenshots from users worldwide, Google’s search suggestions included various historical events such as the botched assassination of Ronald Reagan, the killing of Archduke Ferdinand, the shooting of Bob Marley, and the failed plot against former President Gerald Ford—rather than the recent incident involving Donald Trump.
Google responds
After Texas Congressman and Donald Trump Jr., along with his fans, highlighted the issue, a spokesperson told The Post that no manual changes were made to these search suggestions. They said that their systems have built-in safety features to stop autocomplete suggestions about political violence. But users pointed out that was not the case when searching about other politicians’ assassination attempts including John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt.
“We’re working on improvements to ensure our systems are more up to date. Of course, Autocomplete is just a tool to help people save time, and they can still search for anything they want to. Following this terrible act, people turned to Google to find high quality information– we connected them with helpful results, and will continue to do so.”