CNN’s Chris Cuomo has labeled President Donald Trump’s comments on Google as a pernicious plot “almost completely devoid of any fact or apparent insight.”
Trump tweeted early Tuesday that the “Fake News Media” make up “96 percent” of the news displayed in Google’s search for “Trump News” and accused the search engine of not including Republican, conservative and “Fair Media,” a practice he dubbed illegal.
“Frankly, I’d be more suspicious if the cache came back mostly positive,” Cuomo quipped.
In a statement, Google disputed that it was using its search function to “set a political agenda” and said that its results weren’t biased toward any political ideology.
“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,” the statement said.
“Every year, we issue hundreds of improvements to our algorithms to ensure they surface high-quality content in response to users’ queries. We continually work to improve Google Search and we never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment.”
Google has faced criticism since CEO Sundar Pichai refused to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee next week about social media and Russian interference.
Cuomo noted that, although there were “serious questions” about Google in relation to Russian meddling “that have a basis in fact,” Trump’s latest theory is nothing more than another attempt to “avoid McCain’s legacy and Mueller’s reach.”
“I can tell you for free that this whole deal this morning was as much about distraction as it is about discovery of a pernicious practice by Google,” he said. “This is what he does most. He finds something that can divide, that has a little bit of a fact gap, and then he exploits it to his advantage. Once again, the facts just aren’t on his side.”