CV NEWS FEED // Observers noticed over the weekend that Google was not showing any search suggestions for the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
Multiple accounts posted pictures of their search query “assassination attempt on tr,” “assassination attempt on trum,” and other similar phrases.
In all cases, no suggestions for “assassination attempt on Trump” were shown. Instead, Google’s top search result refers to the 1950 assassination attempt on then-President Harry S Truman.
Google has denied allegations of censorship and instead asserted that it was attempting to mitigate political violence. On the other hand, a U.S. Senator and Missouri’s Attorney General expressed concern and stated that they will look into the situation.
Hours later, observers began to point out that Google is not that only well-known technology company to apparently restrict searches related to the attempt on Trump’s life.
X owner Elon Musk highlighted a post that showcased an alleged screenshot appearing to show that the Mark Zuckerberg-founded Meta AI failed to answer a question about the Trump shooting due to it not having “access to the most up-to-date information.”
However, Meta AI was able to provide detailed information when asked about Kamala Harris’ presidential bid – which she launched over one week after the assassination attempt on Trump.
How it began
Accusations of technology corporations’ censorship of the assassination attempt on Trump began when X accounts posted screenshots showing that no suggestions were coming up when they attempted to search for the event.
“Google really wants us to forget what we all saw with our own eyes 2 weeks ago,” wrote the account End Wokeness late Sunday morning.
“Hi Google,” wrote X account Libs of TikTok. “Why are you censoring the ass*ss*nat*on attempt of DJT??”
“They’re trying to memory hole it,” the account added, referencing a censorship technique used by the fictional totalitarian government in the bestselling dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four.”
In a subsequent post, Libs of TikTok encouraged its followers to tag Google and share the iconic picture of a bloodied Trump raising his fist and mouthing the word “fight” seconds after the would-be assassin’s bullet grazed his ear.
“Even if you type out the entire word no results autofill on Google,” Libs of TikTok added in another post about 40 minutes later. “We’re witnessing the erasure of history in real time. Unbelievable.”
Radio host Clay Travis responded to End Wokeness’ post:
This is wild. Do you own search the Trump assassination attempt doesn’t fill in. When I type in “assassination attempt” as a prompt Reagan comes up. And when you add in “assassination attempt tr” Truman comes up. This has to be intentional with the Google algorithms.
On Sunday afternoon – hours after critics first pointed out the missing search suggestions – Google still did not display any suggestions for “assassination attempt on trump” when “assassination attempt on trum” is typed in the search bar.
Social media expert Kristen Ruby explained on X that, based on her analysis, Google censored its “autocomplete” feature for the “Trump assassination query.”
“It could be that the autocomplete hasn’t updated and it will,” she wrote:
Because it is the exact language of the knowledge panel incident and doesn’t appear in autocorrect – there are two options.
Either the service didn’t update from autocomplete or manual intervention was done.
The fact that it won’t ever complete to the exact language of the knowledge panel is highly unusual.
“Based on the above data, auto suggest and auto complete could be actively managed with manual intervention,” Ruby noted.
Elected officials weigh in
Various elected officials sounded the alarm over the fact that the attempt on Trump’s life was not coming up in search suggestions.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-TX, posted to X what appeared to be a screenshot of his own search query. “Can verify,” he wrote.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-UT, wrote: “This is what happens when a monopolist dominates search and controls Americans’ access to information.”
Lee has been a leading supporter of pro-competition antitrust laws in the Senate.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-KS, noted on X that he will “be making an official inquiry into [Google} this week” adding, “I look forward to their response.”
“Has there been a dramatic increase in Truman biographers in the last two weeks?” Marshall asked, referring to Google’s top search result.
Later on Sunday afternoon, Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey simply wrote that he is “On it,” in a reply to Libs of TikTok.
Bailey is well-known for his office’s multiple investigations into and lawsuits challenging leftist behavior and policies.
Google responds
Following hours of backlash, Google Communications’ X account responded to the allegations of censorship levied against the tech giant.
“There was no manual action taken,” Google claimed:
Our systems have protections against Autocomplete predictions associated with political violence, which were working as intended prior to this horrific event. We’re working on improvements to ensure our systems are more up to date. Of course, Autocomplete is just a tool to help people save time, and they can still search for anything they want to. Following this terrible act, people turned to Google to find high-quality information – we connected them with helpful results, and will continue to do so.
However, Google search as of Sunday night autocompleted the search results for both “January 6th” and the “attempted kidnapping of Michigan Governor” Gretchen Whitmer.
