The Trump administration on Tuesday said it would explore regulating Google — an effort that would challenge protections around free speech online — in response to the president’s allegations that the tech giant manipulates its search results to prominently display negative stories about him and other Republicans.
President Trump in a predawn tweet claimed that search returns for “Trump News” were “RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD,” apparently responding to a report from Fox News. Then, his top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said the White House is “taking a look” at whether, and how, Google should be regulated by the government.
In the United States, regulating search results could violate the First Amendment, said lawmakers from both parties, free-speech advocates and tech experts. The Trump administration’s threat drew rebukes from Democrats and a few Republicans, who said government shouldn’t play a role in monitoring search results or other content online.
Google search results for “Trump News” shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media. 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. Illegal? 96% of....
Google search results on “Trump News” are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!
Trump’s comments marked a major escalation in allegations of anti-conservative censorship against Google, Facebook and Twitter, which some in the tech industry worry could undermine the public’s trust in the Web as a marketplace of ideas.
“Google and Twitter and Facebook, they’re really treading on very, very troubled territory. And they have to be careful,” the president said later Tuesday.
Google denied the allegations and said its search results aren’t politically biased.
Google processes 90 percent of searches globally, and its powerful algorithms return results based on their calculated relevance, a process Google portrays as neutral. Google takes into account signals including a user’s geographic location and browsing history, which is why Trump’s search results look different from what another user might see. Social media platforms differ from a search because information on social media is circulated through friends and brands that users choose to follow.
Riva Sciuto, a spokeswoman for Google, said that when users “type queries into the Google Search bar, our goal is to make sure they receive the most relevant answers in a matter of seconds. Search is not used to set a political agenda, and we don’t bias our results toward any political ideology.”
But Google’s algorithm is shrouded in secrecy, and in the past, Google has faced investigations for giving preference to its own products and services in search results.
The controversy Tuesday also illustrates the tricky political terrain that Google and its tech peers navigate. Regulators and users increasingly demand that Silicon Valley apply a heavier hand in moderating content that appears online to prevent harassment, stop hate speech and ensure civil political discourse. At the same time, those decisions about what to allow, and what to take down, aren’t always obvious — and can create controversy.
In the past, federal courts have found that search engine results are protected speech because they resemble the editorial content produced by more traditional sources of information, such as newspapers and books.
“There’s no question about this. The courts have uniformly ruled that search results are protected speech,” said Eric Goldman, co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University.
Sen. Brian Schatz (Hawaii), the top Democrat on one of the chamber’s tech-focused subcommittees, lambasted Trump’s tweet and threat to regulate as a “crazy, authoritarian idea,” saying it is “unconstitutional, unworkable and antithetical to everything our country stands for.”
However, in 2016, anonymous former Facebook employees suggested that the site often passed over conservative media outlets when choosing stories to curate for its “trending” news feature. Twitter has long denied charges that it limits the reach of tweets from its conservative users but doesn’t tell them, a practice known as shadow-banning.
Social media giants walk a fine line. They try to avoid stepping on the first amendment and yet be a filter for seditious and inflammatory material. The Russians cleverly got through that filter in the 2016 election with their propaganda, posing as American citizens . It's a difficult position for the tech behemoth to be in without adding political bias to the mix.
Exerpts from Washington post article
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