Internet users believed something was amiss at Google on Monday after viral screenshots captured unusual search results for the term "President Donald Trump."
One search issue was flagged by X owner Elon Musk, who noticed that Google was autocompleting "President Donald" searches with "President Donald Duck" and "President Donald Regan." If that wasn't bad enough, a new wave of outraged X users have noticed that Googling "Donald Trump" redirects them to Kamala Harris-focused news articles.
Wow, Google has a search ban on President Donald Trump!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2024
Election interference? pic.twitter.com/dJzgVAAFZA
Why is it that when you google Donald Trump, you get news about Kamala Harris
— Arynne Wexler (@ArynneWexler) July 29, 2024
But when you google Kamala Harris, you don't get news about Donald Trump? pic.twitter.com/gjLBgPW1Hw
Users were heated when they saw that Google may be intentionally targeting Trump-related searches, considering that searches for expected Democratic nominee Kamala Harris looked the same. Many also felt like the Harris-related posts seemed to favor or praise her.
When one X user searched for "Donald Trump" they said: "Google News changed it to 'Harris, Donald Trump' and proceeded to show me only news that favors Harris over Donald Trump."
It gets so much worse.
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) July 29, 2024
Google is not only censoring news about the Trump assassinat*on attempt, it is redirecting Trump campaign searchers to Kamala Harris puff pieces.
Big Tech is now the biggest threat to democracypic.twitter.com/VjhWNs5SdP
Google has denied any interference and said that its system is currently undergoing updates.
When Musk asked the question, "Election interference?" on his viral X post, Google actually responded. A Google spokesperson told Fortune they were "working on improvements to ensure our systems are more up-to-date."
I did a Google News search about "Donald Trump".
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) July 29, 2024
Google News changed it to "Harris, Donald Trump" and proceeded to show me only news that favors Harris over Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/HmlBNcuoSz
Many aren't taking this lightly considering that Alphabet/Google was one of the top donors to Biden's campaign. Instead, it's left many fearing whether or not big tech is interfering with this year's election.
