Republican presidential candidate and former US president Donald Trump announced on Friday that, should he win the election on November 5, he would pursue legal action against Google, arguing that the corporation just publishes “negative stuff” about him.
TakeAway Points:
- Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump announced on Friday that, should he win the election on November 5, he would pursue legal action against Google, arguing that the corporation just publishes “negative stuff” about him.
- This assertion about Google was not backed by evidence at the time it was posted.
- Meanwhile, according to Russia’s digital ministry, Alphabet’s Google had prohibited Russian users from opening new accounts.
Trump to sue Google after winning the election
Trump, in his post on Truth Social, gave no evidence for his assertion about Google.
“It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about” Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, Trump said.
“This is an illegal activity, and hopefully the Justice Department will criminally prosecute them for this blatant interference of elections,” Trump said. “If not, and subject to the laws of our country, I will request their prosecution, at the maximum levels, when I win the election and become president of the United States.”
Trump made a similar claim about Google in 2019, according to the Washington Post. He alleged in a series of posts on Twitter, now known as X, that Google favored negative news stories about him in the 2016 presidential election, according to the Post. Google dismissed the claims at the time.
However, in recent weeks, some supporters of the former president have renewed the allegations. In July, days after an attempted assassination of Trump, billionaire Elon Musk, in a post on X, accused Google of having a search ban on the former president.
Google restricts the creation of new accounts in Russia
Alphabet’s Google has restricted the creation of new accounts for Russian users, state news agencies cited Russia’s digital ministry as saying on Thursday.
Google has been under pressure in Russia for several years, particularly for not taking down content Moscow considers illegal and for blocking the YouTube channels of Russian media and public figures since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The ministry confirms that Google has restricted the creation of new accounts,” Interfax quoted the digital ministry as saying. “Telecom operators have also recorded a significant reduction in the number of SMS messages sent by the company to Russian users.”
The ministry said there was no certainty that SMS confirmations for two-factor authentication would continue working, Interfax reported.
“The ministry recommends that users of Google services create backup copies of their data and switch to using alternative methods of two-factor authentication or to domestic platforms,” the ministry said.
Google in August said it was deactivating AdSense accounts in Russia.
The U.S. company stopped serving ads to users in Russia in March 2022 and paused monetisation of content that exploited, dismissed, or condoned Russia’s war in Ukraine.
It has blocked more than 1,000 YouTube channels, including state-sponsored news, and over 5.5 million videos.
Slower speeds have been recorded on Google’s YouTube video hosting platform in Russia in recent months. Russian lawmakers blame the slowdown on Google’s failure to upgrade equipment, something the company and technology experts dispute.
