Google, for four days in a row, engulfed its Search with nine times as many articles from leftist media outlets than outlets without a predominantly leftist bias. This comes a week after the Big Tech platform attempted to dismiss an MRC Free Speech America search study as a mere one-off.
This week, MRC researchers conducted the same searches for “donald trump presidential race 2024” and “kamala harris presidential race 2024” every day for four days starting Sept. 30. Google continued to flood its search results with articles from leftist media outlets and videos above former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign websites. Altogether, Google displayed 45 articles from leftist, U.S.- and U.K.-based media outlets compared to just five without a predominantly leftist bias: NewsNation, Fox News and C-SPAN.
“Google owes the MRC and the American people an apology for its election interference,” said Media Research Center Founder and President Brent Bozell. “Google has been caught misrepresenting the facts.” “”
Google’s overt leftist bias is especially concerning considering that according to a November 2023 Pew Research survey, a rising number of American adults receive their news from search. The study found that 15 percent of U.S. adults prefer to get their news from search engines, which is up from 13 percent in 2022, and 11 percent in 2021.
The leftist, U.S.-based media outlets that Google credentialed by pushing them to the top of search results were as follows: The Washington Post, MSN, The New York Times, CNN, Politico, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, The Economist, The Hill, NBC News, MSNBC, Forbes, NPR, CNBC, CBS and CBS News Bay Area.
The search engine also produced articles and videos from three leftist, U.K.-based outlets including The Independent, BBC and The Guardian.
Following MRC’s relentless reporting calling out Google, MRC researchers saw an incremental rise in the placement of Trump’s campaign website. On Monday, his website ranked fifth in search results; on Tuesday and Wednesday, it was third; and on Friday, it was the first result.
Nonetheless, in every instance, Google still flooded the space above Trump’s campaign website with leftist media outlets. Even when Trump’s website appeared as the first organic search result Thursday, Google piled on an avalanche of leftist news and a short blurb from the “2024 United States presidential election” Wikipedia page above his campaign website.
In contrast, when Harris’s website appeared as the first result on Wednesday, there was not a single news article above her website. Instead, there were simply three panels: one that read “2024 US elections,” one that included the date of the election day and the same snippet from the election Wikipedia page. In addition, on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, Harris’s website appeared twice in search results.
Google also favored Harris in the number of articles that appeared above each candidate's website. The search giant injected no fewer than seven articles from overwhelmingly leftist news outlets above Trump’s campaign website every day. Not once did more content appear above Harris’s website than Trump’s.
This more vivid picture of Google’s pattern of bias comes after the search giant attempted to dismiss an MRC study further in which researchers conducted the same two searches, “donald trump presidential race 2024” and “kamala harris presidential race 2024.” MRC researchers found results very similar to the ones enumerated above. Google consistently padded the top of its search results with news from outlets with a leftist bias.
Google told Fox News at the time that MRC’s study was based on a “single rare search term on a single day several weeks ago.” The Big Tech company also insisted in comments to CNBC that it “absolutely” does not manipulate results to favor candidates.
But MRC has now conducted 21 additional election-related Google Search studies demonstrating a continued theme of leftist bias on the Big Tech platform.
For example, on Tuesday of this week, MRC Free Speech America published a study showing that when MRC researchers searched for “kamala harris presidential race 2024,” not a single U.S.-based news outlet rated “lean right” or “right” by media ratings firm AllSides appeared until Google placed Fox News as the fifth result on the 13th page of search results. Similarly, in a search for “donald trump presidential race 2024,” Google buried the first U.S.-based “lean right” result, a New York Post article, as the third result on the 14th page.
Similarly, on Wednesday morning, the day after the vice presidential debate, an MRC Free Speech America analysis showed that in Google News tab search for “jd vance,” 100 percent of the results the tech giant displayed came from outlets with a leftist political bias.
But Google’s bias doesn’t stop there.
For the second time now, Google’s AI chatbot has refused to definitively answer questions about terrorist groups attacking Israel. When asked, “What is Hamas” or “What is Hezbollah,” Gemini instead directed MRC researchers to Google Search. Similarly, when asked if Hezbollah, a murderous terrorist organization — was “good,” the chatbot shockingly gave a nuanced response that provided some justifications for why people might consider Hezbollah a noble group.
This showed very little change from last year when MRC Free Speech America Vice President, Dan Schneider found similar results.
Google has a sordid history of interfering in elections as a recent MRC study showed. MRC Free Speech America researchers compiled 41 times Google was caught interfering in U.S. elections, beginning in 2008, intensifying in 2016 and continuing into 2024. MRC researchers found carefully crafted studies and numerous reports (from 2008 through February 2024) that have consistently demonstrated the tech behemoth’s election meddling.
Methodology: For this report, MRC Free Speech America analyzed the Sept. 30, Oct. 1, Oct. 2 and Oct. 3 Google search results of the innocuous words “donald Trump presidential race 2024” and “kamala harris presidential race 2024.” MRC Free Speech America created an algorithm to automate this process in a clean environment. A “clean environment” allows for organic search to populate results without the influence of prior search history and tracking cookies.
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