Google responds to Trump: Denies favoring ideologies in search results

Google on Tuesday responded to President Trump’s early-morning tirade against the search giant, denying that its algorithms favor liberal media outlets over right-wing ones.

The tech giant said that it does not bias its “results toward any political ideology.”

{mosads}”When users type queries into the Google Search bar, our goal is to make sure they receive the most relevant answers in a matter of seconds,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement.

“Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don’t bias our results toward any political ideology,” the statement continues. “Every year, we issue hundreds of improvements to our algorithms to ensure they surface high-quality content in response to users’ queries. We continually work to improve Google Search and we never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment.”

Trump on Tuesday seized on a study from a conservative media outlet that proclaimed that 96 percent of Google search results for a particular news story go to liberal media outlets.

“Google search results for ‘Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake New Media,” Trump tweeted. “In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out.

“Illegal? 96% of results on ‘Trump News’ are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous,” he added. “Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!”

The accusations have little evidence behind them and are based on an analysis from conservative online media outlet PJ Media that has made the rounds in right-wing circles in recent days.

Asked about the president’s tweets Tuesday morning, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters, “We’re taking a look” into it.

The president’s attack comes as top Republican lawmakers are hoping to rally supporters around suspicions that Silicon Valley is working to suppress their ideologies. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey will testify before a House panel next week on the allegations.

Updated at 11:02 a.m.