Donald Trump has once again sparked controversy by calling for the criminal prosecution of Google, accusing the tech giant of being biased in favor of his 2024 presidential race opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump’s comments followed a new report from the Media Research Center (MRC), which claims Google has manipulated search engine results to promote favorable news about Harris while limiting positive stories about Trump.
In a post shared on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump expressed outrage over what he described as “blatant interference” in the upcoming election.
He warned that if the Department of Justice (DOJ) does not take action against Google, he will seek to prosecute the company himself if re-elected as President of the United States.
Trump wrote: “It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris.”
The former president’s post was in response to an MRC study that reportedly found Google’s search engine favored articles about Harris when users searched for terms related to the 2024 presidential race.
According to the MRC, the search engine displayed more positive articles about Harris than it did for Trump, even when users specifically searched for Trump’s campaign.
MRC founder Brent Bozell told Fox News Digital, “Google is trying to stack the deck in favor of Kamala Harris.” This accusation has added fuel to ongoing concerns about potential bias in digital platforms during election periods.
In response to the accusations, Google issued a statement defending the fairness of its search results. The company clarified that both Trump’s and Harris’ campaign websites consistently appear at the top of search results for relevant and common queries.
According to a Google spokesperson, the MRC report only examined a single rare search term on one specific day. “This report looked at a single rare search term on a single day a few weeks ago, and even for that search, both candidates’ websites ranked in the top results on Google,” the company stated.
Google also reiterated that its search algorithms reflect real-time changes in web content and do not favor any political candidate. The spokesperson added that Trump’s campaign website has even ranked higher in Google search results for similar queries when compared to other search engines.
As of now, Kamala Harris’ campaign has not responded to Trump’s claims or the MRC report. The silence from Harris’ camp may indicate an effort to avoid engaging in Trump’s latest allegations.