Internal memo from Google's CEO insists search results are free from political bias
Google chief Sundar Pichai wants the people working for him to understand this clearly: Google's search results aren't influenced by political bias.
That's the message Pichai focused on sending in a Friday email to all employees. He was responding to reports of a January 2017 email chain that started a few days after Donald Trump instituted his first version of the Muslim ban.
A Thursday report from the Wall Street Journal noted that, in early 2017, employees talked about using Google's search features to respond to Trump's controversial travel ban that focused on predominantly Muslim countries. They sought a way to push back against "islamophobic, algorithmically biased results from search terms ‘Islam’, ‘Muslim’, ‘Iran’, etc." and "prejudiced, algorithmically biased search results from search terms ‘Mexico’, ‘Hispanic’, ‘Latino’, etc."
While the WSJ report does note that the chain included "cautionary notes" that warned using the platform for political purposes, Google still issued a statement shortly after the story published. The spokesperson referred to the chain as "a brainstorm of ideas, none of which were ever implemented."
The statement continued: "Google has never manipulated its search results or modified any of its products to promote a particular political ideology—not in the current campaign season, not during the 2016 election, and not in the aftermath of President Trump’s executive order on immigration. Our processes and policies would not have allowed for any manipulation of search results to promote political ideologies."
Pichai's memo apparently strikes a similar tone. A New York Times report reveals that he shut down any notion of Google engaging in political activities.
"Recent news stories reference an internal email to suggest that we would compromise the integrity of our Search results for a political end. This is absolutely false," Pichai wrote. "We do not bias our products to favor any political agenda. The trust our users place in us is our greatest asset and we must always protect it."
Topics Google
Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
