Google has “interfered” with major elections in the United States 41 times over the last 16 years, according to a new study from the Media Research Center.
“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,” MRC Free Speech America vice president Dan Schneider and editor Gabriela Pariseau wrote in a summary of their findings.
“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 pushed back, insisting it has a “clear business incentive” to keep both sides happy and that safeguards ensure non-biased and accurate search results.
MRC Free Speech America, a division of the conservative Media Research Center, believes the most recent example was recorded after Google artificial intelligence Gemini “refused to answer questions damaging” to President Biden.
The group’s research found that from 2008 through 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 appearing to favor Barack Obama over John McCain in 2008, favoring Obama over Mitt Romney in 2012, refusing to correct a “Google bomb” that “smeared” then-leading GOP primary candidate for president Rick Santorum, using its algorithm to exclude autofill results that were potentially damaging to Hilly Clinton in 2016,
“not doing the same for then-candidates Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders,” and working with partners to help likely pro-Clinton Latino voters go to the polls that same year, according to MRC Free Speech America.
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 news critical of Biden, concealing most Republican campaign websites for the 12 competitive Senate races in 2022, and aiding Biden in 2024 by “burying in its search results the campaign websites of every one of his significant opponents.”
