Trump Assassination Attempt Omitted From Google Autocomplete, Sparking Claims Of Election Interference – News18

Google’s Autocomplete feature is facing backlash after an apparent glitch caused it to omit suggestions related to the attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump.

Republicans have raised concerns about the omission and alleged potential election interference by Big Tech companies, prompting a Senate investigation. Users reported that when they typed phrases like “the assassination attempt” into Google’s search bar, no suggestions related to Trump appeared.

Big Tech ‘Helping’ Kamala Harris

In contrast, searches for other US presidents who faced assassination attempts, such as John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, yielded several suggestions. “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 said in a post on X.

‘Election interference?’

The issue gained traction on social media, with Texas Congressman Chip Roy and Donald Trump Jr. sharing screenshots of their own searches that returned no results. Trump Jr. labeled the incident as “intentional election interference,” claiming that Google was trying to influence the upcoming election in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris. “Wow, Google has a search ban on President Donald Trump! Election interference?” Elon Musk said in a post on ‘X’. Musk

In another post, the Tesla CEO hinted at Meta’s differential treatment of Republican candidate Trump and Democratic potential nominee Kamala Harris. An attempt to search for information on Meta’s AI about Trump’s assassination attempt yielded no results, with the AI stating it had not been updated with current information. However, it did have information on Harris’s presidential campaign, which occurred after the Trump assassination bid.

Google Responds

A Google spokesperson responded to the autocomplete row, staying that there was no “manual action taken on these predictions.” According to the New York Post, the spokesperson stressed that the Autocomplete feature is designed to help users save time and that people can still search for any information they need. They also noted that the company is working on improvements to ensure its systems are up to date.

Senator Roger Marshall, a Republican from Kansas, expressed outrage over the omission. He stated he would make an “official inquiry” into Google’s practices, questioning why the search engine suppressed results about the assassination attempt. He shared screenshots of searches that returned unrelated results, such as information about former President Harry Truman.

“Why is @Google suppressing the search about the Trump assassination attempt? These are all screenshots from this morning. Has there been a dramatic increase in Truman biographers in the last two weeks? I’ll be making an official inquiry into @google this week – I look forward to their response,” Marshall said in a post on X. Meanwhile, other critics argued that searches for “Biden assassination attempt” also yielded no Autocomplete suggestions, highlighting a broader issue with the feature.