‘We never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment’: Google responds to Trump’s claim that the company is ‘suppressing the voices of conservatives and hiding information’

• In a series of tweets Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump accused Google of “silencing the voices of conservatives and hiding information and news that is good.”
• Google issued a statement in response, saying search was “not used to set a political agenda and we don’t bias our results toward any political ideology.”
• Trump also said his issues with Google “will be addressed,” but he hasn’t expanded on that.

Google has responded to two tweets President Donald Trump sent early Tuesday accusing the company of intentionally “silencing the voices of conservatives and hiding information and news that is good” with its search results.

“Search is not used to set a political agenda, and we don’t bias our results toward any political ideology,” Google told Business Insider in a statement, adding that it prioritized relevancy and quality.

Trump, appearing to cite a figure from an unscientific study carried out by a conservative opinion blog, claimed that 96% of Google’s search results of his name were “from National Left-Wing Media,” calling it a “very serious situation” that “will be addressed.” He did not explain how the government might act on the issue.

Here are Trump’s tweets in full (which were deleted and reposted later Tuesday with “Fake New Media” changed to “Fake News Media”):

"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% 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!"

PJMedia recently counted Trump-related search results and found that 96% of the most visible news articles were from publications that PJMedia found to skew liberal.

Here is Google's full statement:

"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. Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don't bias our results toward any political ideology. 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."