Published 09:03 IST, November 6th 2024
Google Admits 'Where Can I Vote' Feature Favoured Kamala Harris Over Donald Trump
Amid controversy and outrage on social media over claims that Google is biased toward VP Harris, the tech giant has issued a clarification, calling it a glitch.
- World News
- 2 min read
Google has admitted to a ‘technical glitch’ after reports surfaced claiming its search engine appeared to favor Kamala Harris , the Democratic candidate, over Republican candidate Donald Trump in search results. When users searched for "Where can I vote for Harris?" Google displayed specific voting locations, while a similar search for Trump didn’t yield same information. Instead, Trump-related searches directed users to news links from networks like CNN, CBS, and NBC, without offering local polling sites.
Elon Musk brought attention to the issue, alleging that Google's search engine showed voting information biased towards Harris. Multiple users on X posted the concern to which google admit and called it a glitch.
Google has since acknowledged the issue, calling it a technical glitch and offering an explanation. The company stated that ‘Harris’ is also the name of a county in Texas, and this overlap may have triggered specific voting location results for searches with the word ‘Harris.’ Google further explained that this wasn’t limited to Harris; a similar pattern was observed with the search term ‘Vance,’ which is also the name of a county and happens to match the last name of a Republican candidate.
Updated 09:19 IST, November 6th 2024