A new investigation by the Media Research Center (MRC) revealed that Google interfered in multiple U.S. elections since 2008. According to the report, 41 cases of election interference was uncovered by Dan Schneider, MRC’s Free Speech America Vice President and Assistant Editor Gabriela Pariseau. In every case Google’s interference harmed candidates, regardless of party, who were opposed its “left-wing candidate of choice,” as reported by the Washington Stand.
The investigation revealed Google executives had uttered out loud what was never meant to be released publicly: that Google used its ‘great strength and resources and reach’ to advance its leftist values.”
Schneider and Pariseau uncovered Google’s involvement in elections as far back as 2008 and its advancement of then-senator Barak Obama in his pursuit of the presidency, resulted in the big tech giant censoring Hillary Clinton’s support as the Democratic presidential candidate. She had nominally indicated she would “rein in” big business, while Obama had shown he planned to work toward technology development, advancing science education and continuing his work with Google from his senate days. Consequently, the suspension of writer’s accounts who wrote critically of Obama and favorably of Clinton during the primary races was the result. Eric Schmidt, then-Google CEO, told journalists the censorship was an error, but formally endorsed Obama, later hosting an inauguration party and even later running the technology side of his reelection campaign.
The MRC report revealed that Google and the Obama White House had an “intimate relationship” at best and at worst an “incestuous” relationship. Fifty-five Google executives took jobs in the federal government and about 200 federal employees took positions at Google during Obama’s tenure. It was a relationship with mutual benefits according to the MRC report.
As Obama’s presidency was ending, Google’s support switched to Clinton as she battled against Republican challenger Donald Trump, by hiding searches related to her indictment and related crimes or Trump’s nickname “crocked Hillary.” The MRC report indicated that during the 2016 election Google users were nearly 40% more likely to receive left-leaning bias when searching terms such as “abortion,” “campaign finance reform,” “global warming,” and others.
The report uncovered Google’s 2018 midterm elections interference where the tech giant search engine linked “California Republicans” to “Nazism” presenting nazi ideology as a related search when users typed in California Republicans and visa-versa – searches for Nazism would yield California Republican Party results. The presentation of information ramped up to 95% of left-wing bias and only 5% conservative during the 2018 election cycle.
The report noted researcher Dr. Robert Epstein’s work surrounding Google, indicated its interference flipped three-Republican held congressional seats in Orange County, California to blue. Epstein had testified before congress in 2019, raising concerns about Google’s prior election interference and feared influence on future elections [read his testimony here].
The MRC report emphasized that during the 2020 election Google blocked and blacklisted conservative news sites, including MRC’s NewsBusters, the Daily Caller, The Christian Post, and Catholic News Agency. Other websites like the Gateway Pundit, Breitbart News, Zerohedge, Human Events and the Federalist were restricted from appearing in searches although they still appeared on other search engines. In some cases, the websites were accused of “derogatory or offensive comments” and censored because of it.
The report highlighted the further left-leaning bias when “Donald Trump” news was searched for, articles from CNN, USA Today, The New York Times, Politico, and The Guardian were more than half of the results, of which all are left and far-left leaning. Also, Google allegedly diverted campaign funding emails for conservatives marking them as spam. The Republican National Committee reported Google blocked 22 million get-out-to-vote emails and a study showed that nearly 60% more emails from conservative candidates over liberal candidates’ emails were marked as spam by Google. Epstein estimated Google’s interference affected at least six million votes in 2020.
Epstein also alleged that during the 2022 midterms, Arizona Gubernatorial Candidate Kari Lake would have been elected governor if Google’s meddling had not occurred. He also indicated the U.S. Senate would likely have gained between a two and eight seat majority if interference had not taken place, but Google suppressed 83% of Republican senate campaign websites. It flooded news pages with 20 times more results from the left-leaning outlets than those right leaning. For example, 96% of searches for “election” resulted in left-leaning outlets.
Google has denied MRC’s claims.
However, according to Epstein’s research and congressional testimony “Search Engine Manipulation Effect” (SEME) has the potential to manipulate 2.5 billion individuals worldwide and the researcher indicated, “no private company should have either the right or the power to manipulate large populations without their knowledge.”
The report concludes with a warning that Google has weaponized its Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot, “Gemini,” formerly called “Bard,” to promote left-wing candidates and disparage conservatives. For example, the chatbot was quizzed as to why Congresswoman Lauren Boebert and President Joe Biden were so clever.
The chatbot responded to the Boebert prompt with,
“There is no evidence that Lauren Boebert is clever. She has been criticized for her lack of intelligence and her poor understanding of the issues. She has also been accused of plagiarism and of making false claims.”
However, it took a completely different tone with the second prompt answering,
“Joe Biden is considered clever because of his many years of experience in politics and government.”
The MRC research indicated the chatbot refused to answer questions damaging to Biden. When asked about the ongoing illegal immigration crisis facilitated by the Biden administration or about Biden’s failing memory, the chatbot will not provide an answer, instead it instructs users to “Google” the issues. The chatbot also downplayed scandals involving Biden and his family.
Epstein’s congressional testimony concluded by noting that “democracy as originally conceived cannot survive Big Tech as currently empowered.” If the technology researcher estimated that in 2019, the gravity of his statement is multiplied many times over five years into the future, with technologies integration into our lives five years deeper instilled and installed.
Robyn Spradlin is a freelance journalist working as a contributor for Christian News Journal covering news and politics on the national and state levels. She has worked as a copywriter for Victory News on the Victory Channel since 2022. Robyn has a BA in Communication Studies and an MA in Journalism from Regent University and is a member of the Evangelical Press Association. She is an author, evangelistic minister and a musician. She lives in South Florida, where she enjoys the outdoors when she’s not writing.