Source: NewsBusters.org
Google has been getting away with election interference for at least 16 years, and it is showing no signs of stopping.
MRC Free Speech America researchers compiled 41 times Google was caught interfering in U.S. elections, beginning in 2008, intensifying in 2016 and continuing into 2024. MRC researchers found carefully crafted studies and numerous reports (from 2008 through February 2024) that have consistently demonstrated the tech behemoth’s election meddling.
MRC founder and President Brent Bozell highlighted just how dangerous Google’s election interference is. “Google’s massive and deliberate efforts to interfere in U.S. elections for the past 16 years is unacceptable and the biggest threat to American democracy today,” said Bozell.
Over the years, Google has repeatedly used its power to help push the most liberal candidates to electoral victory while targeting their opponents. In 2008, the company used a light touch helping then-Senator Barack Hussein Obama (D-IL), its favored primary candidate, and undermining his opponent, then-Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY).
But after Democrats took a devastating loss in the 2016 election, evidence collected by MRC shows that election interference became part of its mission. As one Google executive let slip in a secretly recorded interview, the company was working to actively “prevent[] the next Trump situation.”
After Donald Trump became president, the tech behemoth’s election interference went from making an appearance every four years to rearing its ugly head every two years. Each time it attempted to dismiss the issue and downplay its nefarious actions. But when viewed together as a historical whole, Google’s election interference has been consistent and has only grown more and more expansive.
Below are some of the highlights of MRC’s findings.
- In 2008, Google endorsed the radical, young Sen. Obama and censored support for Sen. Clinton. Journalist Simon Owens reported at the time that the tech giant suspended the accounts of writers who wrote pro-Clinton blogs critical of Obama. “[N]early all of [the censored bloggers] had three things in common,” Owens wrote. “Most were pro-Hillary Clinton blogs, all were anti-Barack Obama, and several were listed on justsaynodeal.com, an anti-Obama website.”
- Google allowed users to smear then-leading GOP candidate for president Rick Santorum. Google refused to correct a “Google bomb” that smeared Santorum. Google “bombing” used to be a way for users to manipulate Google’s algorithm and associate websites and names with undesirable search terms. Google Search would connect the sites and terms if enough websites placed the same hyperlink over the same term or terms. The Big Tech company previously claimed that it had ended the popular internet pranks and had even corrected the issue when it impacted the White House’s webpage for Obama. But when Santorum’s team brought the issue to Google’s attention, the platform flat-out refused to resolve it, once again favoring Obama.
- In 2016, Google employed both its algorithm and its “partners” in futile attempts to push Clinton over the finish line. One study by SourceFed found that Google’s algorithm excluded potentially damaging autofill results for searches inquiring about Clinton’s alleged crimes and possible indictment during her scandalous tenure as Secretary of State. Google hid her flaws and instead suggested that users search for things like “Hillary Clinton crime reform” and “Hillary Clinton India” but did not do the same for other contentious searches for candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. The platform also worked with “partners” to bolster Latino votes, in the hopes of propping up Clinton, according to internal emails uncovered by then-Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson. A leaked email chain showed one employee explaining how Google made a “silent donation” by working with its partner Voto Latino to pay for Latino voters to get rides to the polls in “key states.” The tech giant also “helped them create ad campaigns to promote the rides.” These and similar methods of election interference and censorship likely contributed to the 2.6 million votes that Google shifted in 2016, according to data scientist and research psychologist Robert Epstein.
Just as the election categorically changed the country’s political temperature, 2016 changed things at Google. Shortly after the election, at a company-wide meeting, Google’s CFO Ruth Porat promised Google employees that the company would use its “great strength and resources and reach” to advance its leftist values. The company kept that promise, and after 2016, Google’s censorship grew in scale….