President Donald Trump is wrongly claiming that Google shunned his State of the Union speech but promoted Barack Obamas addresses.
In a tweet Wednesday, Trump posts a video that shows Google promoting Obamas State of the Union address on its homepage from 2012 to 2016, while seemingly failing to do the same for Trump in 2017 and 2018.
#StopTheBias, Trump tweets.
#StopTheBias pic.twitter.com/xqz599iQZw
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2018
But its not the case that Google never promoted Trump.
There are multiple archived versions of Googles homepage showing the tech company highlighting his State of the Union address in 2018.
A look at the claim:
VIDEO TWEETED BY TRUMP: For years, Google promoted President Obamas State of the Union on its homepage. When President Trump took office, Google stopped.
THE FACTS: The video is incorrect as to Trump.
Theres no dispute that Google promoted Obamas State of the Union speeches from 2012 to 2016, according to webpages captured by the Wayback Machine, an internet archive site.
In a statement, Google said it has not historically promoted the first address to Congress by a new president, which is technically not a State of the Union address, so it didnt do so in either 2009, when Obama first took office, or 2017, Trumps first year as president.
For 2018, several web pages captured by Wayback Machine show the Google homepage advertising a livestream of Trumps speech with the words: Live! Watch President Trumps State of the Union address on YouTube.
The archive site shows the webpages in Greenwich Mean Time, which is several hours ahead of the Eastern time zone in the U.S. That means the relevant images of the Google homepage promoting Trumps prime-time Washington speech on Jan. 30 are dated one day later, on Jan. 31, Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine archive site, told The Associated Press.
Separately, Google, which is based in Mountain View, California, provided a link to a Trump-focused Reddit page that features an image of the Google homepage advertising his 2018 State of the Union address.
Trumps tweet follows his accusations on Tuesday that Google and other U.S. tech companies are rigging search results so that they highlight negative coverage about him. His statements, offered without valid evidence, echo a conservative talking point that California-based tech companies run by CEOs with liberal leanings dont give equal weight to opposing political viewpoints.
(AP)
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3 Responses
It is so sad that the electoral college burdened the US with the dolt we currently have as a president. His first rants about Google were fake news and so is this. Most fascists choose to limit news sources, that way they can control the conversation and of course the people. He and his henchmen will probably attempt to do the same.
What a loser.
Yes there is a bias in the reporting of Trump, and possibly in the google algorithm, because while google can and does ban some people, it has FAILED to ban Trump’s numerous fake opponents, and has done so arbitrarily, therefore with bias.