Google responds to Elon Musk's allegations of ‘search ban’ on Donald Trump

Google has recently faced allegations from Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr. regarding a supposed "search ban" on former President Donald Trump. The tech giant has been accused of attempting to interfere with the upcoming 2024 presidential election by manipulating its autocomplete results when typed in “assassination attempt on.”

The controversy began when several users on X (formerly Twitter) posted screenshots showing that typing “assassination attempt on” into Google did not produce auto-complete results for the recent attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life at a Pennsylvania rally. Instead, the suggestions show names like Ronald Reagan and Bob Marley.

Fortune, and Yahoo News reported earlier that when typing “assassination attempt on Trump” in Chrome’s incognito mode, no auto-complete suggestions appeared, although hitting “enter” did bring up news many articles about the incident. But that could be because to the keywords.

However, when Hindustan.com typed “assassination attempt on”, the auto-fills show “assassination attempt on Donald Trump” followed by auto searches like “assassination attempt on Truman” and “assassination attempt on President.” Seems like Google swiftly addresses the issue.

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Musk exposes Google's ‘search ban’ on Trump

The Tesla boss also posted a screenshot of his search for “President Donald,” which yielded the suggestion “President Donald Duck” instead of “President Donald Trump.”

Musk commented, “Wow, Google has a search ban on President Donald Trump,” and added, “Probably just a coincidence that Alphabet (Google) employees were the top donors to Biden.”

This couples with several GOP figures posting screenshots accusing Google of “gaslighting” and attempting to sway the 2024 presidential election.

Former President's elder son, Donald Trump Jr. voiced his concerns on X, stating, “Big Tech is trying to interfere in the election AGAIN to help Kamala Harris. We all know this is intentional election interference from Google. Truly despicable.”

Google denied taking “manual action” on the auto-complete predictions and mentioned that they are “working on improvements” to their auto-complete feature, in a statement to Fortune.

Addressing the queries about the assassination attempt on Trump, a Google spokesperson explained that their systems have “protections against autocomplete predictions associated with political violence,” which were functioning as intended.

They are now working to update their systems to be more current.

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The tech giant spokesperson also addressed Musk’s “Donald Duck” search and admitted that “auto-complete is currently not working as intended” for searches involving past presidents and the current vice president.

“We’re looking into these anomalies and working on improvements, which we hope to roll out soon,” the spokesperson said.

“Our auto-complete systems are dynamic, so predictions will change based on common and trending queries.”

Hindustantimes.com also did a check on “President Donald Duck” claims. When typed “President Donald” auto-fill shows Donald Trump first, followed by the “President Donald Duck.”