Back in September 2016, Trump accused Google of tweaking its autosuggestion in favor of Clinton. The Republican nominee voiced concerns that the tech giant was sabotaging his campaign by “suppressing bad news” about his fellow presidential candidate and Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. Based on reports by snopes.com, Google executive Eric Schmidt was quick to retaliate and said that the company always has and will remain absolutely neutral. Schmidt was of the opinion that people who believe the search engine is biased do not have the slightest inkling of the inner workings of the algorithm. Google’s autocomplete algorithm, which gives suggested search terms once you’ve started typing in a query, doesn’t populate any negative terms when paired with a person’s name, the company explained.
That means “Hillary Clinton cri” doesn’t autocomplete to “crime,” and the same logic would apply to “Donald Trump cri.” Trump’s allegations this September are the most recent step in a chain of events that started in June 2016 when he first accused Google. There is, however, a certain amount of credibility in the claims. Robert Epstein, a research psychologist from Harvard, said his research followed up claims in a viral video released by Sourcefed in June, which alleged the tech giant was tinkering with its search suggestions to cast Clinton in a positive light. Several Tech students voiced their concerns about the alleged tampering of information, especially when one has to decide who would be the president of the most powerful country in the free world. Tasauf Turzo, a second year student majoring in electrical engineering, had a different perspective on the issue that was in favor of Google. He said: “I think Google denying manipulation its Autosearch in favor of Hillary is true in a way. This is because google, for all people, filters out ‘offensive or disparaging’ search predictions and ‘crime’ is one of the words Google consistently removes.
This is true no matter who you’re searching. You can find anything negative or bad about Hillary if you search by her name but not when you type in ‘Hillary Clinton’s Crimes’ or stuff like that. This, I think, was quite legitimate and well justified and that is why I think there is no type of manipulation. It is just how Google searches.” A final year environmental engineering major, who wished to be anonymous, was worried about how this will affect the outcome of the November elections, given the scope of Google. “I think that is a dumb idea. It will bias everything. I don’t like either major candidate but Google shouldn’t be selective. I don’t even know why she is even eligible to run since she is under investigation. Everyone should be able to see all sides, good and bad, to base their opinion.” As the world waits with bated breath for November, Trump is not slowing down with the allegations of a rigged campaign. Hillary Clinton is not taking any effort to refute his claims either. Either way, both candidates are playing with fire.
Based on reports by CNN, the Republican candidate’s recent claim that the election is being rigged against him has been a low point of a campaign that has deviated consistently and controversially from political norms. Although Trump is not the first candidate to claim that unseen forces are working deliberately against them, his timing – three weeks before the election – threatens the legitimacy of his potential predecessors and the people who will be running the government with him. Based on reports by CNN, last week, Trump took it up a notch. He tweeted on October 16, 2016: “The elections are absolutely rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary – but also at many polling places – SAD (SIC).” Based on the report by Heather Digby Parton for salon.com, Trump’s words about a rigged election carry a lot more weight this time around because come November this will be the first presidential election in 50 years without the protections of the Voting Rights Act.
