Trump accuses Google of rigging search results

By Ovunc Kutlu

NEW YORK

U.S. President Donald Trump criticized Google on Tuesday, accusing the tech giant's search engine yields results that are unfavorable to himself and Republicans.

"Google search results for ‘Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal?" Trump wrote on Twitter.

He added that "96% of results on ‘Trump News’ are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!"

The White House Chief Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow later told reporters that the administration will be "taking a look at" the situation.

Google's parent company Alphabet issued a statement to that said the search results are not biased.

"Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don't bias our results toward any political ideology,” according to the statement. “We never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment.”

There are many who believe Trump’s criticism is an attempt to deflect from his response to his handling of the death of Senator John McCain who died for brain cancer Saturday.

Trump and McCain had a rocky relationship and the president issued a tersely worded reaction to the senator’s death on Twitter. He then ordered the flags at the White House to be flown at half staff until just past 12.02 a.m. (0402GMT) Monday. Usually, flags are lowered for distinguished senators until after they are buried.

Trump's criticism comes less than a day after Fox Business host Lou Dobbs claimed Monday that Google is "banning and suppressing" conservative news from the search results.

"Tech Giants Are Crushing Conservatives: 96 Percent of Google Search Results for '@realDonaldTrump' News Are from Liberal Media Outlets," Dobbs wrote Sunday on Twitter.

The "96 percent" figure comes from Paula Bolyard, an author for American conservative news, opinion, and commentary website PJ Media

Bolyard said Saturday she performed a Google search for "Trump" using the search engine's news tab, and then analyzed the results using journalist Sharyl Attkisson's media bias chart.

Attkisson's chart places various American media outlets on a political spectrum that extends from center to left and right.