Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has launched an investigation into Google for allegedly censoring conservative speech on its search engine. The probe, announced on social media, claimed that Google is manipulating search results to de-emphasize information about the Trump campaign prior to Election Day. The investigation will include subpoenas examining Google’s algorithms and their impact on conservative content visibility. Google has strongly rejected the allegations, with a company spokesperson calling the claims “totally false” and asserting that search results serve all users, regardless of political beliefs.
This investigation comes amid escalating tensions between Google and conservative figures, particularly Donald Trump. Trump has accused Google of displaying only negative stories about him and omitting positive coverage. The Republican presidential nominee claimed that even if there are equal positive and negative stories about him, Google will only display the negative ones. This is not the first time Google has faced accusations of anti-conservative bias. In July, Senator Roger Marshall launched an investigation into the company after claims that Google’s search features omitted results related to an attempted assassination of Trump.
In the past, Google has also been accused of influencing or interfering in U.S. elections over 40 times in the last 16 years, according to a report from the Media Research Center. The Prager University versus Google/YouTube case in 2020 also raised concerns about discrimination against conservative content. The nonprofit organization alleged that YouTube was censoring conservative viewpoints by classifying some of their videos as “Restricted Content.” Despite these allegations, the courts ruled in Google’s favor, stating that as a private company, Google has the right to moderate content on its platforms.
The allegations of censorship and anti-conservative bias by Google have sparked concerns among politicians and public figures, leading to investigations such as the one launched by Andrew Bailey. While Google has denied the allegations, claiming that search results are tailored to provide useful information to all users regardless of their political beliefs, tensions between the tech giant and conservative figures continue to rise. The investigation will shed light on the practices of Google’s algorithms and their impact on the visibility of conservative content on the search engine. It remains to be seen how this investigation will unfold and whether it will have any implications for Google’s search practices and policies.
