Donald Trump Threatens Google: “They Have to Be Careful or They’ll Be Shut Down”

Donald Trump has had a long history of feuding with major social media platforms. He attacked Facebook, Google, and Twitter while he was still in the White House. In fact, in 2021, his account on the latter was permanently banned. Twitter’s management at the time cited the “risk of inciting violence” as the reason. In response, Trump founded an alternative platform, Truth Social, which is now his main way of communicating with voters.

Now, the Republican Party candidate in the US presidential election has brought heavy guns against the world’s largest Internet search engine. In an interview with Fox News a few days ago, Trump threatened that “Google needs to watch out” because “it’s behaving very irresponsibly.

Google is very bad. They have been very irresponsible and I have a feeling that Google will be shut down soon because I don’t think Congress will accept this situation

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What has Trump so riled up? In late July, the former US president publicly accused Google and Meta of censoring information about the assassination attempt on his life. Trump argued at the time that both platforms made it difficult for users to access content related to the events that took place in Pennsylvania on July 13.

Facebook Admits It Wrongfully Censored Trump Assassination Attempt Photo and Got Caught. Same with Google. They Made Searching for Information About That Heinous Act Nearly Impossible

– Donald Trump wrote at the time on the Truth Social platform.

Evidence supporting Trump’s claims were supposed to be screenshots shared by his supporters online. They pointed out that when the word “attack” was entered into the search engine, Google’s autocomplete function did not suggest information about the attack on Trump. Instead, it suggested content about the attacks on John Paul II and Martin Luther King.

Google has publicly denied these allegations. A company spokesman explained that in the case of the attack on Trump, a preventive filter for phrases related to political violence, which applies to all politicians, was activated. Now that the attack on Trump has become a fact, the autocomplete function is working correctly and does not cut out content related to the event.

Trump is still waiting for an apology

Trump, however, is not convinced by these explanations. In an interview with Fox News, the former US president stated that he has not yet received a phone call from Google with an apology. Interestingly, he did receive such a call from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who was supposed to apologize to him for Facebook’s mistaken censorship of a photo of the attempted attack.

Donald Trump also attacked Google in a conversation with popular American streamer Adin Ross. During the interview, he called on his supporters to stop using Alphabet’s tools. “There’s something wrong with Google,” the Republican candidate said.

Republican Senator JD Vance, who would become vice president of the US if Trump were to win the election, also does not have the best opinion of Google. In February of this year, Vance publicly called for “breaking up Google”, accusing the company of “monopolistic practices”.

JD Vance’s accusations against Google are not without foundation. Especially in the face of the decision of the American court, which recently confirmed that the Mountain View company violated antitrust law.

“The court concluded that Google is a monopoly and has acted like a monopoly to maintain its dominance,” U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington said Monday. Google now controls about 90% of the internet search market and 95% of the smartphone market.

Alphabet has already announced that it will appeal the verdict. The entire legal battle, including the next levels of the American court system, could last until 2026. And that’s not the end of it. The ruling that Google is a monopoly also opens the way to another lawsuit that could force a limitation of its dominant position. This could mean, for example, forcing the division of the parent company.