It was asserted by the proprietor of X that there was a “search ban” on Donald Trump.
Following Elon Musk’s unfounded assertion that Google had imposed a “search ban” on the former president, Google has provided a response to charges that it “censored” queries pertaining to Donald Trump. Bugs in Google’s autocomplete tool were the source of the problems, according to Google’s explanation. The search giant was nonetheless compelled to publicly explain one of its most fundamental features as a result of Musk’s tweet, which was viewed more than 118 million times.
Google stated in a series of posts on X that “over the past few days, some people on X have posted claims that Search is ‘censoring’ or ‘banning’ particular terms.” These claims were made by users of the X platform. That is not going to take place.
Despite the fact that Google did not specifically name Musk, the owner of X stated over the weekend that “Google has a search ban on President Donald Trump.” It seemed as though the assertion was founded on a single screenshot of a search that showed Google suggesting “president donald duck” and “president donald regan” when the term “president donald” was typed into the search box.
A similar image was tweeted by Donald Trump Jr. on the same day, and it revealed that there were no autocomplete suggestions related to Donald Trump when the search term “assassination attempt on” was put into the search bar. Both Trump Jr. and Musk have leveled accusations of “election interference” at the company.
Over the past few days, some people on X have posted claims that Search is “censoring” or “banning” particular terms. That’s not happening, and we want to set the record straight.
— Google Communications (@Google_Comms) July 30, 2024
The posts relate to our Autocomplete feature, which predicts queries to save you time. Autocomplete…
The explanation that users are allowed to search for whatever they wish, regardless of what shows in its autocomplete suggestions, was provided by Google in its posts on Tuesday. In addition, it stated that “built-in protections related to political violence” had blocked autocomplete from recommending queries related to Trump, and that “those systems were out of date.”
In a similar vein, the corporation stated that the peculiar choices for “president donald” were the result of a “bug that spanned the political spectrum.” Additionally, it had an impact on queries that were related to historical individuals such as former President Barack Obama.
Finally, the business clarified that the reason why articles about Kamala Harris are appearing in search results for Donald Trump is not because of a mysterious plot, but rather because the two individuals, who are both actively campaigning for the presidency, are frequently featured in the same news reports. Despite the fact that this may appear to be something that should be painfully obvious to everyone who has ever used the internet, Musk’s post on X has spawned days of conspiracy theories regarding the intentions of Google.
Musk’s statement, in which he questioned whether the search giant was intervening in the election, was especially amusing when one considers that the owner of X was criticized the same weekend for posting an altered video of Kamala Harris without a label, which was a breach of the policies that his firm had established.
Despite the fact that Google’s words did not directly quote Musk’s essay, the company did mention that the search feature of X has also been plagued by problems in the past. A number of platforms, including the one on which we are currently posting, will display bizarre or incomplete forecasts at various periods, according to the statement made by the corporation.