Before and after Election Day 2024, Big Tech platforms voted for election interference.
Google was the most egregious election censor, as MRC Free Speech America found the tech giant repeatedly burying right-leaning sources in search results. Google-owned YouTube targeted interviews of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and his ally X owner Elon Musk. Not to be outdone, communist Chinese government-tied TikTok censored videos critiquing Democrats, and Meta’s Instagram banned a TPUSA-affiliated account just before the election.
Below are the worst examples of censorship recorded by MRC surrounding Election Day 2024, the months of October and November, in our exclusive CensorTrack database.
1) Google consistently buried right-leaning media outlets in search results before, during and after Election Day. Throughout October, each time MRC researchers entered the search terms “donald trump presidential race 2024” and “kamala harris presidential race 2024” utilizing the Google Search engine, Google rigged the results, requiring users to wade through a torrent of leftist media articles before reaching a piece published by a right-leaning media outlet. Even on Election Day, MRC exposed the same biased search manipulation. And even following the election, Google continued its biased search manipulation when the same two prompts were used. In the week following Election Day, Google also suppressed right-leaning media results in searches for President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks.
2) YouTube suppressed anticipated interviews of Trump and Musk. Podcast host Joe Rogan interviewed Trump on his popular podcast, but Google’s YouTube platform search suppressed the interview about a week before the election. The interview was one of the most anticipated episodes of Spotify’s most popular U.S. podcast (The Joe Rogan Experience). MRC researchers tested YouTube’s search function after the platform supposedly fixed the problem, but the Rogan interview with Trump was still being suppressed. Users began reporting that searches such as “Joe Rogan Trump” did not show the interview at the top soon after the podcast was posted. YouTube instead provided clips and commentaries about the interview from other sources, as well as media reports about the interview from leftist news outlets such as MSNBC.
Rogan also interviewed Musk, who has since been chosen by Trump to head the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.). The day after the election, MRC discovered that YouTube had placed an age restriction on the first interview Rogan conducted of Musk, long before Musk had ever teamed up with the Trump campaign. Age restrictions can severely suppress viewership. CEO of Good Kid Productions Rob Montz previously explained in 2022, “In practice, age restriction is a death knell: The video can’t be embedded on external websites; viewers have to sign in before they can watch it; and it receives scant – if any – boost from YouTube’s recommendation algorithm, which is a crucial source of views.”
3) TikTok censored a video of a Holocaust survivor condemning Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris. X user @ashsingh1221 replied to a Trump War Room post that included a video of a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor saying Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris should apologize for comparing Trump to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Ash replied, “Pretty sure they're about to BAN me on TIKTOK very soon. I guess they don't like hearing the TRUTH. This is exactly why I recently signed up for @X.” Ash included a screenshot showing that TikTok had disabled the sound on the same Holocaust survivor video when it was shared on the communist Chinese government-tied platform. The TikTok message shown in the screenshot claimed, “This sound violates our Community Guidelines.” TikTok did not specify further, but it did deny Ash’s appeal, according to a subsequently shared screenshot.
4) TikTok removed a journalist critique of a controversial statement from President Joe Biden against Trump supporters. Bongino Report journalist Evita Duffy-Alfonso shared a screenshot of her TikTok censorship notice about a video she shared on the platform of her reaction to Biden labeling Trump supporters as “garbage.” Duffy-Alfonso’s caption was, “The American people aren't 'garbage,' but our ruling class is.” TikTok imposed a censorship notice that announced, “Removed for violating Community Guidelines.” TikTok did not specify further on precisely what in the video violated its rules.
5) Meta’s Instagram banned right-leaning account just before Election Day. An X user shared screenshots showing that Instagram suspended the brand-new Turning Point USA Walsh University account on Nov. 2 without any explanation. “We suspended your account, Turning Point USA Walsh University[.] 180 days left to appeal or we’ll permanently disable your account,” Instagram’s notice read. Under “Why this happened,” Instagram merely asserted, “Your account, or activity on it, doesn’t follow our Community Guidelines on account integrity.” The platform subsequently denied an appeal, and according to the screenshot, the account was “permanently disabled.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
