'Gas-lighting American people': Users accuse Google of 'election interference' after no search results on Trump's assassination attempt

It has been alleged by Google users that the search engine has omitted results of the July 13 assassination attempt on former US president Donald Trump.

What is the accusation?

Users have accused Google of failing to provide any information on the former US president's shooting in its autocomplete feature that drops down on the search bar with probable search results.

It is for a fact that when one types the phrase "assassination attempt of" on Google, there are options like Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Theodore Roosevelt but nothing on assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

Credit: Screengrab from Google.

Moreover, Donald Trump does not show up in the search menu even when one types - "assassination attempt of Tru".

Credit: Screengrab from Google.

This has brewed a controversy among Trump supporters who have slammed Google for "active election interference" by "gas-lighting the American people..."

How did people react to it?

Calling the lack of any result on Trump's assassination in the search bar "Truly despicable", Donald Trump Jr has also responded on Google's alleged attempt to "erase the attempted assassination of Trump".

"Big Tech is trying to interfere in the election AGAIN to help Kamala Harris. We all know this is intentional election interference from Google. Truly despicable."

The fact that autosearch did not show any result on the shooting attempt on Trump that shook the United States has left Republicans frustrated.

Meanwhile, Dr Roger Marshall, the US Senator for Kansas has said that he will be making an official inquiry into Google this week as he questioned the search engine's intention behind "suppressing the search about the Trump assassination attempt?"

Tesla CEO Elon Musk also noted a similar pattern on Google search results. However, it was not with respect to the assassination attempt but with how autosearch did not show up Trump's name at all despite him typing "president donald". In fact, only two options came up when Musk searched on Google and they were "president donald duck" and "president donald regan".

Responding to these allegations, a Google spokesperson told The New York Post that the system protects users against autocomplete predictions in case of content that make be “associated with political violence.” However, they assured that no such manual action has been taken in this matter.

Meanwhile, US Vice President Kamala Harris's election campaign said on Sunday it has raised $200 million and signed up 170,000 new volunteers in the week since she became the Democratic Party's presidential candidate.

President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid on Sunday last week and endorsed Harris for the November 5 vote against Republican former President Donald Trump.

(With Reuters inputs)