Google, one of the largest and most influential tech companies in the world, is being accused of meddling in numerous U.S. elections since President Barack Obama first ran for president in 2008.
According to a new study from the Media Research Center, the tech giant has “interfered” with major elections in the United States 41 times over the last 16 years.
MRC Free Speech America vice president Dan Schneider and editor Gabriela Pariseau wrote a summary of their findings.
“MRC researchers have found 41 times where Google interfered in elections over the last 16 years, and its impact has surged dramatically, making it evermore harmful to democracy. In every case, Google harmed the candidates – regardless of party – who threatened its left-wing candidate of choice,” the authors state.
“From the mouths of Google executives, the tech giant let slip what was never meant to be made public: That Google uses its ‘great strength and resources and reach’ to advance its leftist values,” they continued. “Google’s outsized influence on information technology, the body politic and American elections became evident in 2008. After failing to prevent then-candidate for president Donald Trump from being inaugurated following the 2016 election, Google has since made clear to any discerning observer that it has been — and will continue — interfering in America’s elections.”
Google responded to the accusation by arguing it had a “clear business incentive” to keep both parties satisfied and that protections assure ‘non-biased and accurate search results’
MRC Free Speech America, a branch of the conservative Media Research Center, cites the most recent example as Google’s artificial intelligence Gemini refusing to answer questions damaging to President Biden.
According to the group’s analysis, from 2008 to February 2024, “Google has utilized its power to help push to electoral victory the most liberal candidates, regardless of party, while targeting their opponents for censorship.”
Examples include:
• In 2008, Google appeared to select the radical, young Barack Obama to help spur to victory over John McCain; meanwhile, it targeted support for Hillary Clinton for censorship, suspending the accounts of writers who wrote blogs critical of Obama during his primary race against Clinton.• In 2012, Google once again favored Obama over Mitt Romney, and inconsistent with its stated policy, the tech giant refused to correct a “Google bomb” that smeared leading GOP primary candidate for president Rick Santorum.• In 2016, Google pushed Clinton, using its algorithm to exclude potentially damaging autofill results while not doing the same for then-candidates Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders. Google also worked with “partners” to help likely pro-Clinton Latino voters go to the polls.• In 2018, researchers accurately predicted that Google’s “significant pro-liberal bias” would be “enough, quite easily, to have flipped all three congressional districts in Orange County from Republican to Democrat.”• In 2020, Google targeted Tulsi Gabbard for censorship, disabling Gabbard’s Ads account just as she became the most searched candidate following the first Democratic Party primary debate. The tech giant also suppressed news sources critical of Biden and reportedly blocked GOP fundraising emails from reaching users’ inboxes. Google search results and even get-out-the-vote reminders favored Democrats, shifting the 2020 election results away from Trump and the GOP by at least 6 million votes.• In 2022, Google buried most Republican campaign websites for the 12 competitive Senate races (10 of 12 did not make the top 6 search results and 7 did not even make the first page of search results). Also, 61 percent of the stories included on the Google News homepage linked to leftist news media outlets. Meanwhile, only three percent linked to right-leaning news media outlets (this 20 to 1 disparity was based on AllSides data).• In 2024, Google has been aiding Biden, burying in its search results the campaign websites of every one of his significant opponents (including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Trump and every other Republican polling at or above 1%). When searching for “Republican presidential campaign websites,” Google returned Democrat Marianne Williamson, but not Trump, DeSantis, Haley, etc.).• Finally, Google artificial intelligence, Gemini (formerly Bard), refused to give responses to prompts regarding two of Biden’s biggest weaknesses: (1) the president’s mental health and (2) the ongoing border crisis.
Other examples cited by the MRC include disabling Tulsi Gabbard’s Ads account just as she became the most searched candidate following the first Democratic Party primary debate in 2020, suppressing negative news about Biden, concealing most Republican campaign websites for the 12 competitive Senate races in 2022, and assisting Biden in 2024 by “burying in its search results the campaign websites of every one of his significant opponents.”
“Utilizing the many tools in its arsenal, Google aided those who most closely aligned with its leftist values from election cycle to election cycle since as far back as the 2008 presidential election. Meanwhile, it targeted for censorship those candidates who posed the most serious threat,” Schneider and Pariseau wrote.
“While its interference was first evident in 2008, its meddling has turned into an organizational mission to ensure that its candidates win on election day,” the authors added. “Many studies reveal the results of the tech giant’s commitment.”
Schneider and Pariseau cited AllSides and Dr. Robert Epstein, who conducted additional research and discovered that “Google’s search algorithm likely shifted at least 2.6 million votes to Hillary Clinton” in 2016, and that “Google’s results and get-out-the-vote reminders favored Democrats and shifted the 2020 election results by at least 6 million votes.”
Google adamantly denied all wrongdoing.
“There is absolutely nothing new here – just a recycled list of baseless, inaccurate complaints that have been debunked by third parties and many that failed in the courts. Politicians on the left have a long history of making similar claims too. We have a clear business incentive to keep everyone using our products, so we have no desire to make them biased or inaccurate and have safeguards in place to ensure this. Numerous conservatives have been particularly successful in using our platforms to spread their message to a wide audience,” a Google spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
MRC Free Speech America provided three proposals.
The conservative group believes that Speaker Johnson ought to “direct relevant committees and committee chairmen to investigate Google for abridging people’s constitutional rights” as well as “coordinating with government to violate freedom of speech,” “interfering in elections by making unreported in-kind contributions,” and on top of that, “defrauding its users by failing to meet its Terms of Service.”
The group also believes that state governments should clarify any questions about whether Google is a common carrier, and it urges Americans to avoid using Google goods, notably the search engine.
“From our research, alternatives appear to produce better, less biased results,” Schneider and Pariseau wrote.
Brent Bozell, the founder and head of the Media Research Center, encouraged Congress to act.
“No organization has more control over information than Google, and they have repeatedly used that power to manipulate the public to vote for the most left-wing candidates in every major election since 2008. It’s un-American to attempt to manipulate elections this way. It’s time Congress acts to shut down this massive election interference scheme,” Bozell said.
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