Donald Trump has accused Google of hiding “fair media” coverage of him.
The US President has claimed that those who are searching for the latest news stories are intentionally being shown damaging reports.
He wrote on Twitter: “Google search results for ‘Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake New 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 percent of 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!” he added.
Trump did not identify a source or any evidence for this statistic.
So far, the President has not clarified how he will address the situation.
Trump has spent much of his presidency criticizing news media coverage of himself and frequently used the term ‘fake news’ to describe negative accounts of his work.
Search results that are carried out on Google are generated by a variety of factors measured by the company’s algorithms. Results are influenced by previous browsing and search history.
“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,” said a Google spokesperson in a statement. “Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don’t bias our results toward any political ideology.
“We continually work to improve Google Search and we never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment,” the spokesperson added.
Shares of Google’s parent company Alphabet fell 0.6 percent to $1,248.28.
They are currently trading (NASDAQ: GOOG) down 0.32 percent at 1,237.87 (1623GMT).