Trump shares video accusing Google of not promoting his State of the Union addresses
President Trump on Wednesday shared a video that showed Google advertising former President Obama’s State of the Union speeches but not his, escalating his battle with the tech giant over what he claims is bias against conservatives.
Trump shared the video with the caption “#StopTheBias.”
“For years, Google promoted President Obama’s State of the Union on its homepage. When President Trump took office, Google stopped,” the video reads, followed by a montage showing Google’s home page the night of each State of the Union speech dating back to 2012.
But Google said the search engine did promote Trump’s 2018 State of the Union speech on the Google homepage. The search engine acknowledged that it did not promote the speech in 2017.
“We have historically not promoted the first address to Congress by a new President, which is technically not a State of the Union address,” a spokesperson told The Hill. “As a result, we didn’t include a promotion on google.com for this address in either 2009 or 2017.
Trump has in recent days taken on Google as part of broader attacks on social media companies over what he claims is anti-conservative bias.
“I think Google and Facebook and Twitter, I think they treat conservatives and Republicans very unfairly,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday.
He demurred when asked if he would consider regulating Google and other companies.
“We just want fairness. We’re just going to see,” Trump said.
The president first took aim at Google on Tuesday, when he sent a series of early morning tweets characterizing Google’s search results as being biased against the president and other conservatives, a claim the company promptly rejected.
“Google search results for ‘Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media,” Trump wrote. “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,” Trump tweeted.
The president did not cite evidence for his claim, but appeared to be referencing a study that originated on the conservative blog PJ Media. The author acknowledged that the results are “not scientific.”
Trump’s criticism of technology companies comes as other Republicans in Congress, including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), have accused technology firms of being biased against conservatives.
McCarthy quickly shared Trump’s video on Wednesday.
[The Hill]
Reality
Google homepage linking to the GEOTUS address from The_Donald