Google Search Election Interference Rumor

Overview

Google Search Election Interference Rumor refers to an online controversy accusing Google of purportedly omitting search results related to the 2024 Donald Trump Rally Shooting. The company was accused by many of alleged election interference in late July 2024, sparking a series of posts on X / Twitter and Reddit from many Trump supporters, including a viral tweet by Elon Musk alleging that Google has "a search ban on President Donald Trump."

Background

Although is unclear who started the rumor, on July 28th, 2024, several X users and pages posted Google Search suggestion screenshots alleging the tool was being manipulated to "downplay Donald Trump’s assassination attempt" by not showing any phrases related to the 2024 attempted assassination of Donald Trump. For example, the X^[1] page @DramaAlert shared one of the earliest viral mentions of the controversy (seen below), amassing more than 20,000 likes and 1,600 reposts in a day.

Developments

A few hours after the rumor started to spread on the internet, X CEO and entrepreneur Elon Musk^[2] shared a screenshot of the Google Search suggestion "President Donald Duck," captioning it, "Wow, Google has a search ban on President Donald Trump! Election interference?" The tweet (seen below) amassed more than 556,000 likes and 95,000 reposts in a few hours.

Online Reactions

Jokes and parodies related to Google's purported election interference theories became a viral topic on X in late July 2024. For example, on July 28th, 2024, X^[3] user @jarvis_best posted a screenshot of a Google Search suggestion in which he wrote "assassination attempt on" but the results supposedly did not show any phrase related to 2024 Donald Trump Rally Shooting, which jarvis_best captioned with an ironic caption "Full on coverup." The tweet (seen below, left) amassed more than 2,100 likes and 280 reposts in a day.

Elon Musk's tweet showing the Google Search suggestion "President Donald Duck" sparked memes and parodies on the internet in the following days. For example, X^[4] user @narf_alreves uploaded an AI art of Donald Trump as a duck (seen below, right) on July 29th, receiving roughly 20 likes and three reposts in a few hours.

Redditors also shared Musk's tweet about the election interference rumors, like Redditor Leather-Bug3087^[5] who posted a screenshot of Elon Musk's tweet to /r/facepalm on July 29th, 2024, captioning it, "Space Karen would like to speak to the manager of Google!" The post (seen below) received more than 1,200 upvotes and 175 comments in less than a day.

Search Interest

External References