by Jason Cohen
Former President Donald Trump suggested on Friday that Congress could close down Google for its alleged bias and censorship.
Republican Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall demanded in a Wednesday letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai that the company provide answers relating to its apparent “censorship” of the Trump assassination attempt from the tech giant’s “autocomplete” feature. Trump on “Mornings With Maria Bartiromo” said the company could face additional congressional scrutiny and possibly closure for how its handled political issues.
'Google Has To Be Careful': Trump Suggests Congress Could 'Shut Down' Tech Giant Over Apparent Censorship pic.twitter.com/nLuTNv4dz7
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“Google has been very bad. They’ve been very irresponsible. And I have a feeling that Google is going to be close to shut down because I don’t think Congress is going to take it. I really don’t think so,” Trump said. “Google has to be careful.”
Marshall and other high-profile Republicans criticized Google on Sunday after realizing the search engine did not automatically suggest the phrase “assassination attempt on Trump” after typing the words “assassination attempt on Trum….”
Marshall wrote in his letter that he was “not surprised” by Google’s actions given its “demonstrated history of manipulating results and discrimination against conservative ideology.” He also said he believes Google should testify before Congress about what led to the alleged censorship.
Google’s “autocomplete” issue on the Trump assassination attempt seemed to be resolved early Wednesday and the tech giant has denied that censorship occurred. However, Trump told host Maria Bartiromo that Google has not called and apologized to him.
“Autocomplete wasn’t providing predictions for queries about the assassination attempt against former President Trump. That’s because it has built-in protections related to political violence — and those systems were out of date,” Google Communications wrote on X. “After the horrific events in Butler, PA, those predicted queries should have appeared but didn’t. Once the issue was flagged, we started working on improvements, and they’re already rolling out.”
Google did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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Jason Cohen is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
