If you need any more evidence of Big Tech’s dishonesty, look no further than what Google has been doing over the past several weeks. For years, it’s been apparent to everyone on the right (and many on the left) that Google products like YouTube and Gmail – especially after 2020, but starting long before – have been unacceptably biased against conservative views and voices.

All this time, Google has insisted that these feelings were an illusion. Their products and guidelines, they claimed, were above reproach, and operated with a noble even-handedness toward everyone across the political spectrum. Suggestions to the contrary, they said, were unfounded.

When examples of bias became too obvious to hand-wave away – for example, when Gmail began systematically sending Republican campaign emails to the spam folder while letting Democrat emails go through – Google shrugged, chalked it up to the inscrutable ways of the algorithm, and insisted there was nothing to be done.

Now, with a new administration in town, Google has started to change its tune. When a whirlwind of political news ensured that their admissions would go relatively unnoticed, Google suddenly discovered that – surprise! – there has been unacceptable bias on their platforms.

Take the Gmail example. In 2020, Republican Rep. Greg Steube famously asked Google’s CEO—in a congressional hearing, no less—why his own parents couldn’t get his campaign emails. The tech exec said don’t worry, “there is nothing in the algorithm that has to do with political ideology.” Meanwhile, mounting evidence, including an independent study in North Carolina that looked at 300,000 campaign emails, showed that Gmail was filtering Republican emails at an extremely disproportionate rate.

This is serious. Google’s censorship has come with a steep cost—not only to Republicans, but to the integrity of our electoral system. When GOP candidates can’t contact voters because their emails are sent to spam, they struggle to raise the money they need to run and win. Republicans have likely lost millions of dollars in small-dollar donations—the donations that make a decisive difference in political campaigns. That gives Democrats, especially incumbents, an even bigger advantage and a greater chance of winning. In short, by silencing these conservative voices, Google has shoved American politics to the left.

In August, we got the most blatant example to date. The New York Post reported that Gmail was flagging emails with links to WinRed, the Republican fundraising platform, as dangerous and suspicious, while identical emails with links to ActBlue, the Democrat platform, were let through. Again, Google spokesmen insisted that this was fine. Their filters “are in place to keep our users safe” and “look at a variety of signals.” Hardly reassuring.

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson decided he’d had enough, and informed Google that Gmail’s bias may violate federal law. Lo and behold, a few weeks later Google announced that it would be scrapping the “blacklist” that it claimed was responsible for sending the GOP emails to spam. For good measure, they then declared that their policies on free speech had “evolved,” and that they’d be lifting YouTube bans the Biden administration had asked them to put in place over users’ political speech – another move they’d resisted for years.

These are good developments, but anyone who still believes that Google is operating in good faith needs to have their head checked. Google insisted for years that there was nothing amiss, and nothing to be done. It took blatant, potentially illegal, examples coming to light – and the attention of Chairman Ferguson – for them to tacitly admit that this was untrue. 

Google has shown itself to be untrustworthy, and in serious need of oversight. Republicans should work to ensure that Google’s nice-sounding promises are carried out, starting with a requirement that Google treat Republicans and Democrats equally, with real consequences if they fail to do so. The only reason Google has been able to get away with this election meddling for five-plus years is because no one has held them accountable. If Big Tech companies know they’ll have to pay huge sums for such unfair and undemocratic political favoritism, they’ll think twice before doing it again. These requirements should be able to be independently verified – we shouldn’t just take Google’s word for it that it’s doing a great job. 

Google already acts like a quasi-monopoly, and its products – from YouTube, to Chrome, to Android, to Google Search, to Gemini AI, to the Google Play Store, to its monopoly on ad tech – influence far too much of our daily lives already. If Google is using its influence to put its thumb on the scales of American political life, that is a huge and urgent problem, and calls into question the assurances they make in every other area of importance.

The tech behemoth has done nothing to earn the public’s trust, and in fact, Americans have every reason to believe it’s lying. Google has spent years silencing GOP political campaigns. It’s not enough to claim that the problem is solved. The federal government must prove that this wrong has been righted—for good.

Terry Schilling is the president of American Principles Project.

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

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