Donald Trump Issues Warning to Google

Washington:

Former US president Donald Trump has criticized Google over reports that it was suppressing news and images of the Republican presidential candidate.

“Google has been very poor. They’ve been very negligent and I have a premonition that Google is on the verge of closure because I don’t think Congress will tolerate it. I really doubt it. Google must exercise caution,” Trump told Fox News during an interview.

Earlier this week, Trump claimed that it was nearly impossible to find pictures or any information about the unsuccessful assassination attempt on him on July 13 on Google. However, Google refuted those accusations.

“In recent days, certain individuals on X have made claims that search is ‘censoring’ or ‘prohibiting’ specific terms. That is not the case, and we want to clarify the situation. The posts pertain to our Autocomplete feature, which anticipates queries to save time. Autocomplete,” it stated in a social media post.

Google mentioned that autocomplete was not offering predictions for searches related to the assassination attempt against former President Trump. This is due to the presence of built-in safeguards concerning political violence – and those mechanisms were outdated. After the tragic events in Butler, Pennsylvania, those anticipated searches should have been visible but were not, it mentioned.

“Once the issue was identified, we initiated enhancements, and they are already being implemented,” it mentioned.

“Additionally, individuals mentioned that Autocomplete was not displaying relevant predictions for ‘President Donald’. This specific issue was a glitch that affected queries across the political spectrum, also impacting searches for numerous former presidents, such as former President Obama, as evidenced in the attached image. Typing ‘vice president k’ also yielded no predictions. We have made an update that has enhanced these predictions universally,” it mentioned.

It noted that some individuals also noticed that searches for “Donald Trump” resulted in news stories related to “Kamala Harris.” These designations are automatically produced based on interconnected news topics, and they evolve over time.

“These designations cater to a wide political spectrum: For instance, a search for ‘Kamala Harris’ displayed Top Stories labelled with ‘Donald Trump’, because many articles discuss the two individuals together. This trend is evident across various topics, including the Olympics, other public figures, companies, and more. Our objective is to provide users with pertinent results for their queries,” Google stated.

On the whole, these types of prediction and labeling systems operate algorithmically, it mentioned.

“Although our systems function effectively most of the time, there may be unexpected or imperfect predictions, and errors may occur. Many platforms, including the one we are currently utilizing, may exhibit unusual or incomplete predictions from time to time. When issues arise, we will make enhancements so users can swiftly and easily find what they are seeking. We value the feedback,” it clarified.