Trump economic adviser: White House "looking at" whether to regulate Google searches
The Trump administration is considering imposing regulations on Google and its search service, White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Tuesday. His comments follow President Donald Trump's complaints that the search giant "rigged" its search results to show negative news stories about him.
Mr. Trump on Tuesday took to Twitter to claim that Google is shutting out conservative news organizations. The internet company is "hiding information and news that is good," he wrote. "They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!"
Asked by reporters if Google needs to be regulated, Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, said that "We're taking a look at it."
In a statement emailed to CBS News, Google said its objective is to make sure its users "receive the most relevant answers in a matter of seconds."
It added, "Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don't bias our results toward any political ideology .... we never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment."
Google search results for “Trump News” shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake New Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of...
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 28, 2018
Google is the latest target in Mr. Trump's complaints that some portions of the news media and social media are biased against conservatives. Earlier this month, Mr. Trump tweeted, "Social Media Giants are silencing millions of people."
Google's search results are tailored to the individual who is searching, such as their location. It's unclear whether Mr. Trump was tweeting the results he received for Googling his own name, or if he was responding to a piece in the conservative blog PJ Media that claims "96 percent of Google search results for 'Trump' news are from liberal media outlets."
....results on “Trump News” are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 28, 2018
To be sure, Mr. Trump's tweet repeated the assertion from PJ Media's article, which didn't include an assessment of the amount of content created by different news organizations nor the size of their readership.