In a series of tweets on Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump claimed without evidence that Google has an anti-conservative bias and accused the company of trying to ensure he loses the 2020 presidential election.
“[Far-right journalist Peter Schweizer] stated with certainty that [Google] suppressed negative stories on Hillary Clinton, and boosted negative stories on Donald Ttump [sic]. All very illegal. We are watching Google very closely!” the last of three tweets read. Trump gave no evidence that Google had worked to sway either the 2016 or 2020 elections.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1158706052768157701?s=20
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1158706058724040704?s=20
The attacks also come at a time that the Trump Administration’s Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice have begun antitrust investigations looking into whether Big Tech companies like Google have too much power.
Trump also said in his tweets that he met with Google CEO Sundar Pichai and that they discussed the search platform’s accusations of working with China. The President pointed to the recent news regarding claims made by a former Google employee that the company has a bias against conservatives.
Former Google employee, Kevin Cernekee, told Fox News in an interview on Monday that, “They are very biased. There is bias at every level of the organization.” Google denied claims made by Cernekee.
“The statements made by this disgruntled former employee are absolutely false,” a Google spokesperson told Digital Trends. “We go to great lengths to build our products and enforce our policies in ways that don’t take political leanings into account. Distorting results for political purposes would harm our business and go against our mission of providing helpful content to all of our users.”
Cernekee claims he was fired from Google for his conservative views, but Google says he was fired for violating company policies, including downloading internal Google documents, according to CNBC. Cernekee has also been accused of trying to gather donations to fund for white supremacist leader Richard Spencer.
“We enforce our workplace policies without regard to political viewpoint. Lively debate is a hallmark of Google’s workplace culture; harassment, discrimination, and the unauthorized access and theft of confidential company information is not,” the Google spokesperson added in an email to Digital Trends.
Trump has a history of attacking tech giants like Google and Facebook, even making comments that the government should sue big tech companies back in June. In a summit he held on July 11, Trump invited 200 conservative social media activists who largely attacked Big Tech. The New York Times reported that the summit focused on how Trump and his supporters feel that their voices have been silenced on popular platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Google.
