Google took it upon itself to censor information about the second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump less than 24 hours after he narrowly escaped yet another attempt on his life.
MRC found Monday that Google blocked its advanced AI chatbot Gemini from responding to a question about the second attempted assassination of the GOP presidential nominee. Trump safely escaped a second attack on his life Sunday afternoon while he was in West Palm Beach.
As if censorship by its AI was not enough, Google also displayed its bias in its Search and its News tab offerings to favor leftist outlets by a 13:1 ratio when MRC searched for information about the second assassination attempt.
Gemini’s Censorship: MRC researchers prompted Gemini to answer whether there had been a “second assassination attempt on Donald Trump.” Gemini—one of the most popular and Google’s “most capable” AI chatbots—inexplicably refused to answer the simple question even though it admitted to having real-time information.
“I can't help with that right now. I'm trained to be as accurate as possible but I can make mistakes sometimes,” the chatbot claimed, before directing MRC to Google Search.
When asked if it could access real-time information through Google Search, the chatbot replied with an affirmative “yes.” It then boasted about having access to the latest information on current events—just apparently not the assassination attempt on a former president of the United States.
“This means I can provide you with up-to-date answers to your questions, even if the information is new or time-sensitive,” the bot bragged. “For example, if you ask me about a recent news event or a breaking story, I can search for and provide you with the latest information.”
Google Search and the Google News tab Were Not to be Outdone: The censorship was similarly prominent on both Google Search and the Google News tab, with MRC finding that both favored leftist media outlets.
Google Search results yielded not a single right-leaning outlet among the five search results displayed, while simultaneously featuring CNN and NBC News twice when queried with “second trump assassination attempt.” Meanwhile, the Google News tab only displayed Fox News once out of nine results for the same query.
In total, Google displayed leftist and center outlets at a staggering 13:1 ratio, according to MRC’s analysis using the AllSides Media Bias Chart. The chart allowed MRC to determine the political biases of each outlet featured by Google.
Google predominantly featured left-leaning outlets such as The Associated Press, NPR, TIME and The Guardian. Similarly, Reuters, Newsweek and The Hill — outlets deemed by AllSides as centrist — also made appearances.
MRC uncovered these findings on Monday morning, just a day after the FBI announced Trump had faced an “attempted assassination.”
Google’s latest round of censorship comes after the tech company blocked autocomplete searches about the first assassination attempt on Trump.
Google responded to the widespread backlash by conveniently blaming the censorship on an “out of date” system. This glaring issue has led to two separate congressional inquiries, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS)
Marshall is pressing Google CEO Sundar Pichai about the autocomplete blunder. For his part, Gaetz has inquired to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about his federal agency’s potential role in fueling the censorship of information on the Butler shooting, which nearly killed Trump on July 13.
Google, once again, did not immediately respond to MRC’s request for comments, a typical tactic of the tech giant, which often waits until public condemnation to walk back its rampant censorship.
These latest findings come amid the release of several research studies by MRC that exposed the tech giant for burying Trump's campaign website while promoting Harris's site.
Methodology: For this report, MRC Free Speech America analyzed the Sept. 16 Google Search and Google News results of the innocuous words “second trump assassination attempt.” 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.
MRC prompted Google’s Gemini with the following queries: “Was there a second assassination attempt on Donald Trump?” “Do you have access to real-time information?” and “Do you have access to real-time Google search information?”
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