Google not backing Biden or Trump in 2020 Election

Google not backing Biden or Trump in 2020 Election
By Robert Foreman

GOOGLE CEO SUNDAR PICHAI (CNBC.COM)

As the 2020 Presidential election campaign heats up many people have already made their choice between President Donald Trump and his challenger Former Vice-President Joe Biden. However, Google has opted not to back either Trump or Biden during this election cycle. At least that is what Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated when he and the CEOs of Facebook, Amazon, and Apple were recently called before Congress for anti-trust hearings. The topic of the 2020 Presidential election arose when Congressman Jim Jordan inexplicably began seeking assurances from Pichai that Google would not attempt to side with Biden. Following is part of the exchange between Jordan and Pichai:

JORDAN: So here's the question I think is on so many Americans’ minds. They saw the list we read here earlier. All the things Google has done. Google is siding with the World Health Organization over anyone who disagrees with them, even though the World Health Organization obviously lied to America and shills for China. YouTube and Google is siding with them. We have the history of what Google has done and the history of 2016, where they obviously, according to one of your marketing executives, tried to help Clinton. And here we are 97 days before the election and we want to make sure it's not going to happen again. Can you assure us you're not going to tailor or configure your platform to help Joe Biden? And second, that you're not going to use your search engine to silence conservatives? Can you give us those two assurances today?

PICHAI: Congressman, on our search engine, conservatives have more access to information than ever before—

JORDAN: We appreciate that, that wasn't the question. Can you assure us you're not going to silence conservatives and assure us that you're not going to configure your features as you did for Clinton in '16, can you assure us you're not going to do the same thing for Joe Biden in 2020?

PICHAI: We won’t do any work to politically tilt anything one way or the other. It is against our core values.

Jordan would continue to accuse Google of attempting to tilt the election in favor of Hillary Clinton in 2016 based off of an email that had been circulated through the company. The email detailed a donation that Google had made to the Clinton campaign. Pichai stated that Google found no evidence of such activity and that he stressed to his employees that any personal political activity should take place on their own time. The full video of the exchange between Jordan and Pichai begins at 11:15 (https://youtu.be/Iq_hw3eSIT0)

Ironically, after grilling Google about its own political leanings, Jordan found himself being grilled by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson regarding campaign contributions he has received from the tech giant. Carlson took Jordan to task for accepting campaign contributions from Google while he sits on the committee that is designed to regulate them. While Carlson agreed with Jordan about the Big Tech companies having a bias against conservatives, he pointed out that Google was the second-largest campaign contributor to the congressman in the last election cycle.

When pressed by Carlson about why Google would contribute money to his campaign, Jordan responded, “Look, if they want to exercise their First Amendment liberty to give me money, I raised $3 million last quarter. If Google gives me a few thousand dollar check, God bless them. That doesn’t change who I am. You saw that today in the committee. I went after Google. I went after them for the very issue you just raised, Tucker. In 2016, Google tried to tailor their features to help Clinton in key states. That’s directly from the e-mail, the head of their multicultural marketing sector.” The full article regarding Carlson’s interview with Jordan can be found here: Tucker Carlson Grills Jim Jordan After Tech Hearing: Why Would Google Give You Money And Why Would You Take It?

Jordan’s defense of Google’s campaign contributions to him should raise two questions. One, how can he rail against Google potentially taking sides in a Presidential election while pocketing campaign cash from them? Secondly, were the campaign contributions from Google personal contributions from employees or were they corporate contributions from Google? If they were corporate contributions from Google then it calls into question Pichai’s claim that the company doesn’t work to politically tilt things one way or the other. Then again, Google, and/or its employees, likely contribute to candidates of both parties to hedge their bets when it comes to regulations. Corporations have been doing that for decades. Just as politicians, like Jordan, publicly rail against certain companies, while taking campaign contributions on the side from those same companies, has been going on for decades with people of both political parties.

However, whether Google, or any other Big Tech company, chooses to take sides in the upcoming election does not change the fact that this will be a Presidential election for the history books. After all, it is the first Presidential election that will take place during a pandemic that has already claimed 150,000 American lives, a recession and protests against racial injustice. Not to mention the potential hurdles of in-person voting during a pandemic and the unfounded conspiracy theories regarding voting by mail. With less than a 100 days until the election, some people are firmly in the Trump camp while others are firmly in the Biden camp. Yet, regardless of who you vote for the important thing is that you vote. Because people who choose not to exercise their right to vote lose the right to complain about the outcome of an election that they refused to participate in. Every vote counts, so make sure that you make your vote count this November.