Donald Trump told a rally Wednesday night that Google is out to get him—or rather, that Google is out to protect his opponent, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
“A new post-debate poll that just came out, the Google poll, has us leading Hillary Clinton by 2 points nationwide,” Trump noted the audience. “And that’s despite the fact that Google search engine was suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton.”
Citing a Sputnik news story and SourceFed video published earlier this year, Trump told attendees that Google is pulling for Clinton, serving up search results that are tailored to hide information about her email server, her role in the Benghazi incident, and news stories about the Clinton Foundation.
Sputnik’s study claims that while Google’s “autocomplete” happily suggests negative stories about Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, it seems to only suggest positive results for Hillary Clinton. Google denies that their “autocomplete” and search functions can be manipulated by human engineers.
“Google autocomplete does not favor any candidate or cause. Claims to the contrary simply misunderstand how autocomplete works,” Google told POLITICO.
Several weeks ago, Heat Street conducted a test that appeared to demonstrate a difference in search results. We searched for information on the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s health with Google and also using Bing. While Bing showed a devastating Associated Press story on Clinton’s foundation pay-to-play in the top search results, Google buried the story under a more favorable hit for the Clintons in the New York Times.
Google’s search relies on a variety of factors, including what users have searched before, using their Google accounts. Differences between search engines—and even in the “autocomplete” feature—could come down to personal preference and stored data for individual IP addresses.
Of course, while the search engine itself might not be biased, it’s worth noting that Google itself—or at least its top brass—are very much in Clinton’s camp. Eric Schmidt, a Google founder and current head of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is an ardent Clinton supporter who provides tech services to the Clinton campaign.
Fortunately for Trump, he’s dominating more traditional forms of media. A Harvard Shorenstein Center study on media coverage shows the GOP candidate with a 15% coverage advantage over Clinton—and that was in late July.
