Several Republicans pointed out following the July assassination attempt that Google’s search was not showing autocomplete results for the incident, which Newsweek was also able to confirm.
“Americans rely upon prominent internet search engines such as Google to gather news and information critical to their understanding of national politics and events—and never more so than during a Presidential election season,” wrote Comer in a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
“On behalf of the American people, the Committee is dedicated to fully understanding when and how information is being suppressed or modified, whether it be due to technical error, a policy intended to ensure safety, or a specific intent to mislead,” he continued.
“Google users report that autocompleted search prompts related to the assassination attempt of President Trump produced results for failed assassination attempts of former Presidents, including Harry Truman, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan—or even assassinations of historical figures such as Archduke Franz Ferdinand—but omitted from the list of automatically generated search suggestions the recent attempt on President Trump’s life.
“The Committee now writes to request certain documents and information to assist its investigation of this matter to better understand how Google designs its Search product and Autocomplete feature.”
由众议员詹姆斯·科默担任主席的众议院监督和问责委员会将就前总统唐纳德·特朗普暗杀企图的“潜在审查制度”对谷歌和 Meta 展开调查。 几位共和党人指出，在 7 月份的暗杀企图之后，谷歌搜索没有显示该事件的自动完成结果，《新闻周刊》也证实了这一点。 科默在给谷歌首席执行官桑达尔·皮查伊的信中写道：“美国人依靠谷歌等著名的互联网搜索引擎来收集对他们了解国家政治和事件至关重要的新闻和信息，尤其是在总统选举季节。” 他继续说道：“委员会代表美国人民，致力于充分了解信息何时以及如何被压制或修改，无论是由于技术错误、旨在确保安全的政策还是出于误导的具体意图。” 。 “谷歌用户报告说，与特朗普总统暗杀企图相关的自动完成搜索提示生成前总统暗杀企图失败的结果，包括哈里·杜鲁门、杰拉尔德·福特和罗纳德·里根，甚至是暗杀弗朗茨·斐迪南大公等历史人物的结果，但忽略了从自动生成的搜索建议列表中搜索最近对特朗普总统的暗杀企图。 “委员会现在写信要求提供某些文件和信息，以协助其调查此事，以更好地了解谷歌如何设计其搜索产品和自动完成功能。”
