Google must be prosecuted over search outcomes he says favor Harris

Donald Trump on Friday referred to as for Google to be criminally prosecuted for what the Republican presidential nominee referred to as the corporate’s bias towards his election opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, in on-line search results.

Trump in a social media put up wrote that if the Department of Justice doesn’t prosecute Google “for this blatant interference of Elections” he would request its prosecution “once I win the election and develop into President of the US!”

He appeared to be reacting to a brand new examine by the right-leaning Media Research Center, or MRC, which purportedly discovered that Google search engine outcomes tended to indicate information articles that supposedly had been constructive to the Democrat Harris forward of Trump’s personal marketing campaign web site when a consumer looked for “Donald Trump presidential race 2024.”

In his put up on Reality Social, Trump wrote: “It has been decided that Google has illegally used a system of solely revealing and displaying dangerous tales about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this function whereas, on the identical time, solely revealing good tales about Comrade Kamala Harris.”

MRC founder Brent Bozell instructed Fox News Digital on Wednesday that “Google is attempting to stack the deck in favor of Kamala Harris.”

A Google spokesperson, when contacted by CNBC about Trump’s put up, pointed to the corporate’s earlier assertion on the report.

“Each marketing campaign web sites constantly seem on the prime of Seek for related and customary search queries,” Google mentioned at the moment. “This report checked out a single uncommon search time period on a single day just a few weeks in the past, and even for that search, each candidates’ web sites ranked within the prime outcomes on Google.” 

The spokesperson on Friday additionally mentioned the MRC report seems to be at a “very unusual question,” and mentioned that the report’s conclusions are flawed.

“Queries concerning the presidential election or candidates typically floor hyperlinks to always altering information articles reflecting what’s on the net — so they alter on a regular basis,” the spokesperson mentioned. “We completely don’t manipulate search outcomes to favor any candidate.”‘

“In reality, shops have reported that the Trump marketing campaign web site seems larger in Google outcomes for these queries, in comparison with different serps’ outcomes.”

Harris’ marketing campaign had no quick touch upon Trump’s declare.

CNBC has requested remark from Trump’s marketing campaign.