Google Admits to Omitting Trump Assassination Attempt from Search Autocomplete Feature
National Review—An attorney for Google’s parent company admitted that the autocomplete tool for its search function did not include the assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump. The admission came after the apparent search issues drew controversy online.
Alphabet Inc.’s counsel informed the House Judiciary Committee that bugs in Google’s autocomplete tool prevented it from predicting searches about the attempt on Trump’s life. The built-in protections that Google installed for searches related to political violence were “out of date,” the attorney said, and prevented the search autocomplete feature from generating results on the assassination attempt against Trump three weeks ago.
Google’s autocomplete feature experienced similar issues when users searched for “President Donald” and related search terms. The attorney said the bugs were fixed after they were brought to Google’s attention.