Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) announced that he has initiated a “full investigation” into Google after the tech company omitted autocomplete search results relating to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
In a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Marshall wrote that the “failure to provide suggestions” relating to the assassination attempt is “yet another example of censorship against conservative voices and violates the intent of Section 230.”
“Omitting suggestions to the most obvious and recent victim of an assassination attempt shows a willful discrimination against President Trump and users of your search engine,” he declared. “Furthermore, Google’s decision to selectively erect hurdles to those seeking to obtain more information regarding one of the most important events in recent American history places you in the role of information arbiter, well beyond the scope of your firm’s purported purpose.”
The senator noted that he was “not surprised by this glaring omission given Google’s demonstrated history of manipulating results and discrimination against conservative ideology.”
He went on to call Google’s apology for the omission “woefully inadequate, disingenuous, and misleading.”
“If the autocomplete function is truly reflective of the recent searches completed on Google, the self-learning algorithms should have easily adjusted their autocomplete function during a massive increase in search queries over the last two weeks,” Marshall wrote.
The senator added that he and his colleagues will be “initiating an investigation into Google’s censorship, bias, and constricting the free flow of information.” Marshall wrote that he would also do “everything in my power to encourage fellow Committee members to force Google to testify under oath regarding these practices.”
He then asked Pichai several questions, including, “Who oversees the algorithmic search function at Google?” and “Can you discuss why you believe hiding violent search results is better for the public discourse than offering up-to-date information?”
Google faced widespread criticism after omitting search results relating to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. The search engine did not offer to autofill “President Trump” when prompted with “assassination attempt on.”
The company said in a statement that “no manual action” was taken over the search results. “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.”
Google explained that “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.”
