Republicans have long accused “big tech” firms of censoring conservatives, and a report released Tuesday accused Google of giving Democratic Senate campaigns higher placements on its search ranking than GOP campaigns. It alleged the search platform “suppresses” Republican campaigns in key states that could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.

The report gained traction after Donald Trump Jr. shared it on Twitter Tuesday afternoon.

“When the Republicans take The House this better be on the top of their list of things to fix. Democrats would put people in jail for this level of election interference and in kind financial contribution if it went the other way and benefited republicans. Where is the FEC?” he tweeted.

The Claim

The allegation comes from a study produced by right-wing organization Media Research Center, which describes its goal as “neutralizing leftist bias in the news media and popular culture.” It was reported by the organization’s site News Busters, which says its goal is “exposing and combating liberal media bias.”

The study’s authors conducted a Google search for a candidate’s name alongside “Senate Race 2022.” For instance, when searching for information on Georgia’s hotly contested Senate race, they would search for “Raphael Warnock Senate Race 2022” or “Herschel Walker Senate Race 2022.”

The study found that in a “clean” environment in which cookies are erased, Democratic campaign websites placed higher than their GOP counterparts, equating to bias in the search engine’s algorithm.

The Facts

Google, in a statement to Newsweek, disputed the report and raised concerns about study’s methodology. A spokesperson explained the search format used by the authors is not commonly used. Rather, people would typically just search for a candidate’s name.

“This report is designed to mislead, testing uncommon search terms that people rarely use. Anyone who searches for these candidate names on Google can clearly see that their campaign websites rank at the top of results—in fact, all of these candidates currently rank in the top three and often in the first spot in Google Search results,” a Google spokesperson said.

For instance, a search for “Joe O’Dea Senate Race 2022” yields the Colorado Republican campaign site on the second page of results. But if a user searches simply “Joe O’Dea,” his campaign website is the very first result. Similar searches for other GOP candidates yielded similar results.

There are also a number of other factors that impact search result rankings, Leeza Garber, cybersecurity attorney and lecturer at Wharton School, said in an interview with Newsweek. Search results can be influenced by the device being used, where the device is located, previous searches and previously-clicked links.

Garber also noted that creating a “clean” environment may be difficult for the researchers to do.

“I wonder how they defined clean because it’s so difficult to create a ‘clean’ environment. So many other factors can make a difference on these search results. Things change depending on your city,” she said.

Allegations of big tech companies such as Google manipulating algorithms to benefit their interests have existed for years. In 2017, for instance, the European Union fined Google $2.7 billion for allegedly manipulating its algorithm to favor its own services rather than rival technology companies, according to the New York Times.

Google is also facing new scrutiny over allegations that its email spam filters are biased against Republicans. The Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit against the company on Friday for allegedly sending its emails to users’ spam folders, according to Reuters.

Garber told Newsweek it remains difficult to know exactly whether the algorithm is being manipulated because there is a lack of transparency from big tech corporations about how their search engines work. She added that even if there is no intentional manipulation, there could unconscious bias in Google’s algorithms, which are constantly changing.

“There’s still this major question of transparency,” she said. “And if we had more of a look into how things function behind the scenes, then it would be easier to acknowledge whether it’s some inherent proactive problem or if it’s a mistake or something else.”

A 2019 Stanford University study found no evidence of political favoritism in Google’s algorithm.

The Ruling

Unverified.

Google does not publish its algorithm, so it cannot be proven either way whether the company manipulates it to favor content or political parties it perceives as being favorable to its interests.

However, the Media Research Center study, whose methodology was questioned by Google itself and independent experts, does not provide any definitive evidence to suggest Google deliberately alters its algorithm for partisan effect. The study did not account for a number of other key variables, including location, device used and user’s search history.

Users’ individual search habits and settings largely dictate which results are shown, and other types of searches have been shown to yield more equal results for Senate candidates from both parties.

FACT CHECK BY NEWSWEEK