U.S. President Donald Trump is accusing Google of manipulating the 2016 United States election in favour of his rival Hilary Clinton.
In a tweet on August 19th, Trump indicated that the search giant “manipulated from 2.6 to 16 million votes.” for Clinton.
He added that “Google should be sued.”
Wow, Report Just Out! Google manipulated from 2.6 million to 16 million votes for Hillary Clinton in 2016 Election! This was put out by a Clinton supporter, not a Trump Supporter! Google should be sued. My victory was even bigger than thought! @JudicialWatch
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 19, 2019
It is possible the numbers Trump cited were likely in reference to psychologist Robert Epstein’s research, which was revealed during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in July. Epstein indicated that he had found a pro-Clinton bias in Google’s search algorithm, Android Central reported.
A Google spokesperson released the following statement regarding the accusation:
“This researcher’s inaccurate claim has been debunked since it was made in 2016. As we stated then, we have never re-ranked or altered search results to manipulate political sentiment. Our goal is to always provide people with access to high quality, relevant information for their queries, without regard to political viewpoint.”
Image Credit: White House (Flickr)
Source: Android Central
Correction 22/08/19: The article previously indicated Google was responding to an acquisition, in fact, it was meant to read accusation.
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