GOOG Alphabet Inc

By Douglas MacMillan 

President Trump continued his criticism for a second straight day that Google's search engine is biased against conservatives, while saying he prefers not to pursue regulation of the internet giant.

Mr. Trump posted a video to Twitter on Wednesday that showed Google's home page promoted live broadcasts of former President Barack Obama's State of the Union addresses on YouTube, but didn't extend those promotions to Mr. Trump's speeches before Congress.

The post, which included the hashtag #StopTheBias, followed Mr. Trump's claim Tuesday that Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., surfaces news and search results that are unfavorable to himself and other conservatives because of what he sees as the company's left-leaning bias -- a claim Google denied. Mr. Trump in a series of tweets Tuesday signaled potential government action if Google didn't change its alleged practices.

The president reiterated the bias claim Wednesday, telling reporters at the White House that he would like to see Google, along with Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc., treat conservatives more fairly. "They are really trying to silence a very large part of this country and those people don't want to be silenced," Mr. Trump said. "You know what we want? Not regulation, we want fairness."

A White House official said the Republican president has made clear he wants his administration to look into the issue, and several officials were tasked with finding options for potential action against social-media companies.

Google said this week that its search results don't reflect any political ideology and it never ranks results to manipulate political sentiment.

The company on Wednesday also disputed the claim in Mr. Trump's tweet regarding State of the Union Addresses. A Google spokeswoman said the company did highlight the live stream of Mr. Trump's address on Jan. 30 this year. She said Google promoted neither Mr. Trump's speech to Congress in February 2017 nor Mr. Obama's in February 2009 because the first such speech by a new president isn't considered a State of the Union Address.

Archived versions of Google's home page on Internet Archive, a nonprofit that preserves historical snapshots of webpages, don't cover the time period of Mr. Trump's State of the Union this year. Snapshots of the page from earlier that evening don't show promotion of Mr. Trump's speech. Google declined a request to provide a screenshot showing promotion of this year's speech.

Internet Archive snapshots of Google.com during the days of President Obama's State of the Union addresses from 2012 through 2016 show promotional links to watch the speech "tonight on YouTube" throughout the day.

Mr. Trump on Wednesday also mentioned his interest in a congressional hearing scheduled for Sept. 5, when executives including Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg are scheduled to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee about election interference.

Kent Walker, Google's senior vice president for global affairs, planned to join the hearing. But last week, Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.), who heads that committee, said he had rejected Google's offer to send Mr. Walker, apparently in an effort to force a more senior executive to appear.

Sen. Burr on Wednesday included the name of Alphabet's CEO, Larry Page, on the committee's list of witnesses who are invited to the hearing. Mr. Walker's name wasn't included.

Write to Douglas MacMillan at douglas.macmillan@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 29, 2018 20:51 ET (00:51 GMT)

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