Lee, Johnson Ask Google for Answers About Political Bias on Platform

August 7, 2020

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), members of the Senate Commerce Committee, sent a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai Thursday asking for answers regarding alleged political bias within the company’s search function.

“At the [House Committee on the Judiciary] hearing, many Members of Congress questioned you regarding alleged political bias within the search function of your platform. You reiterated several times in your verbal testimony that ‘any work we (Google) do around elections is non-partisan,’ and any form of political bias occurring on the platform ‘goes against Google’s core values.’ Unfortunately, for you and the democratic discourse in this country, there are numerous examples to support that the contrary is occurring,” the senators wrote.

“The integrity of our elections is of the utmost importance. Voters depend on platforms like Google to research and gather information about elections—who the candidates are, what those candidates support, voter registration deadlines, election dates, polling locations, etc. If it is true that Google is using its market power and search algorithms to surreptitiously influence election results, that would be a serious violation of the public trust.”

Full text of the letter is below, and can also be found here.