Conservatives in the United States are accusing Google of suppressing information about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in order to influence the presidential election. The issue centers around Google’s autocomplete function, which some users claim does not prompt search queries about the Trump shooting. Republicans, including high-profile figures like Ted Cruz and Elon Musk, have accused Google of trying to erase or suppress information about the attack, calling it “active election interference”. Google has not responded to requests for comment, but a spokesperson told the New York Post that their autocomplete function includes protections against predictions associated with political violence. Some commentators have noted that autocomplete limitations are not confined to content about Trump, with similar issues occurring for searches related to Vice President Kamala Harris. Google stated that autocomplete was “not working as intended” for searches about past presidents and the current vice president and that they are working on improvements to address these anomalies. This controversy is the latest example of tech companies facing accusations of discrimination against conservative viewpoints, with past incidents involving censorship of conservative news outlets like Infowars and The Federalist. Legislation in Florida and Texas has aimed to restrict Big Tech’s power to censor conservative views.
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