Google Error Omits Presidential Candidates From Search

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A technical bug in the Google Search algorithm resulted in Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson being omitted from searches for U.S. presidential hopefuls. Those who typed “US president candidates” or “presidential candidates”, for instance, into their search bars only found mention of Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

When reached for comment by Engadget, a Google spokesperson confirmed that this omission was the result of a technical error that only identified candidates involved in active primary campaigns: “We found a technical bug in Search where only the presidential candidates participating in an active primary election were appearing in a Knowledge Graph result. Because the Republican and Libertarian primaries have ended, those candidates did not appear. This bug was resolved early this morning.”

While the Democratic National Convention technically isn’t over, this explanation is still a little odd given that Sanders was not excluded from search results even though his campaign is effectively over. That being said, there is no evidence of foul play and Google has fixed the bug.

Google was in hot water earlier this year when a conspiracy theory began making the rounds on social media that the search engine was suppressing negative news about Hillary Clinton. This conspiracy theory proved to be entirely unsubstantiated.

Now that the bug has been fixed, a search for “presidential candidates” returns Trump, Johnson, Clinton, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein as top results.

Featured Photo Chicago-D

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