Google slammed after search for ‘Trump rally’ yields pro-Kamala Harris results, faces accusations of political interference
Google was accused of skewing search results relating to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in favor of his Dem rival Kamala Harris — days after allegedly censoring searches related to the assassination attempt on the former president.
The tech giant again came under fire for potential election interference Thursday after a Google search for “Trump rally” yielded a photo of the vice president under its Top Stories with the label “Kamala Harris rally in Atlanta.”
A Post analysis on Friday found that entering the term “Trump rally” no longer showed Harris’ photo as the top result but still churned out news articles from left-leaning media outlets that staunchly support Joe Biden’s hand-picked successor after he bowed out.
Emblazoned with the title “Kamala Responds to Donald Trump’s Remarks,” users needed to scroll deeper into the search results to find any articles about the former commander-in-chief’s rally in Pennsylvania, his first return to the state since surviving an assassin’s bullet on July 13.
The top results yielded stories about the Secret Service’ failings in detecting gunmen Thomas Crooks before he fired off eight rounds in Butler, Pa., from the New York Times, and an article by notoriously anti-Trump cable network MSNBC, headlined “Trump makes callous joke while honoring the man killed at his Butler rally.”
The alleged bias was first spotted by Tesla founder Elon Musk, who wrote on his X social media platform: “Just did a search for “Trump Rally” on Google and Kamala was the top result.”
British-born Wall Street trader and financial commentator Jim Osman also noticed the glitch.
“We are being bombarded by Democrat propaganda. Be super awake,” he said.
A Google spokesperson declined to comment Friday, referring The Post to a tweet that its PR team had made on X on Wednesday.
“These labels are automatically generated based on related news topics, and they change over time,” the message read.
The latest controversy comes after the world’s top search engine’s “Autocomplete” function failed to show suggested results for the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, as The Post reported.
The Post performed a series of test Google searches with the last names of US presidents who were killed or faced attempts on their lives followed by the letters “assassin” to see what Autocomplete suggested, including John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt.
In each instance, a helpful list of recommended search terms related to the attempts on their lives sprang into view.
However, when Trump’s name was used, Autocomplete offered no suggestions whatsoever.
Google’s apparent censorship was followed by outcry over Big Tech rival Meta’s AI chatbot spitting out results that called the assassination attempt “fictional.”
A Meta executive acknowledged the error but blamed it on “hallucinations” that are common with other AI tools.
The former president used a post on his Truth Social platform to brand the “censorship” move as “another attempt at rigging the election.”
“Let them know we are all wise to them,” Trump wrote, urging supporters to “go after” Google and Meta, whose Facebook network had originally claimed the iconic picture of the assassination attempt had been doctored.
His son Donald Trump Jr laid into the California tech giants with claims that it was colluding to influence the election result.
“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,” he wrote to his 11.7 million followers.
One Republican lawmaker, Sen Roger Marshall of Kansas, called for an “official inquiry.”
“Why is Google suppressing the search about the Trump assassination attempt?” he asked. “I look forward to hearing their response.”
Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, are both longtime Democrat donors. A 2020 study by the Center for Responsive Politics found 88% of staffers at parent firm Alphabet are Democrats.
