Google Hit With Probe Over Allegation of Censoring Conservatives

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has launched an investigation into Google on Thursday, claiming that the tech giant is censoring conservative speech.

Bailey announced the probe on X (formerly Twitter), claiming Google is “waging war on the democratic process” and told Fox Business that the search engine is manipulating results to “de-emphasize information about the Trump campaign prior to Election Day.”

“I am launching an investigation into Google—the biggest search engine in America—for censoring conservative speech during the most consequential election in our nation’s history,” said Bailey, adding, “It’s time to fight back.” The post has since received 1 million views.

The investigation will reportedly include subpoenas examining Google’s algorithms and their impact on conservative content visibility in search results.

Google strongly rejected the allegations, with a company spokesperson calling the claims “totally false” in a statement to Reuters. “Search serves all our users, and our business rests on showing useful information to everyone—no matter what their political beliefs are,” the spokesperson said.

Newsweek reached out to Google and Attorney General Bailey via email for comment.

The Missouri investigation comes amid escalating tensions between Google and conservative figures, most notably Donald Trump. In a recent Bloomberg News interview at The Economic Club of Chicago, the Republican presidential nominee said he had personally contacted Google CEO Sundar Pichai to complain about search results showing negative stories about him.

Trump alleged that Google only displays “bad stories” about him even when positive coverage exists. “They only have bad stories. In other words, if I have 20 good stories and 20 bad stories, and everyone’s entitled to that, you’ll only see the 20 bad stories,” he told John Micklethwait, Bloomberg News’ editor-in-chief.

This is not the first time Google has faced accusations of anti-conservative bias. In July, following an X post sharing screenshots of his searches on Google, Senator Roger Marshall launched an investigation into the company after claims that its search features omitted results related to an attempted assassination of Trump.

“On July 27, 2024, Google failed to provide consistent search suggestions related to President Trump in the aftermath of the July 13 assassination attempt near Butler, Pennsylvania,” said Marshall in a letter addressed to the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.

“This failure to provide relevant and consistent results for users seeking information is only the most recent example in a long line of Google’s attempts to editorialize content related to conservative presidential candidates,” he said.

Marshall went on to say that a report from the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog group, found that “Google has influenced or interfered in U.S. elections over 40 times in the last 16 years.”

Similarly, there was the Prager University versus Google/YouTube case in 2020 in which the university alleged discrimination against conservative content. The nonprofit educational and media organization claimed that, by classifying some of their videos as “Restricted Content,” YouTube was censoring “conservative viewpoints and perspectives on public issues.”

The courts ultimately ruled in Google’s favor, finding that, as a private company, Google has the right to moderate content on its platforms.