Carol Platt Liebau: Google’s Election Interference Needs to Stop

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Thomas Jefferson understood that for a self-governing people to make the best decisions for themselves and their country, they had to have access to the facts. “A properly functioning democracy depends on an informed electorate,” he wrote.

President Jefferson would be appalled at what’s happening today. Google is the world’s most popular search engine, with 92 percent of market share. It’s autocomplete feature hides suggested results referencing the assassination attempt against Donald Trump.

Users including Elon Musk pointed out that google was autocompleting searches for “President Donald” with “President Donald Duck.” Others have noted that searching for Donald Trump yields favorable articles about Kamala Harris—but searching for Harris produces nothing on Trump.

A Google spokesman claims it’s “working on improvements.” Let’s hope so. Because what’s happening now is dishonest. It’s election interference that hurts our democracy. And it needs to stop.

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