Exclusive– Marsha Blackburn: Sundar Pichai ‘Less than Truthful’ about Manipulating Google’s Search Results

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told Breitbart News in an exclusive statement on Wednesday that Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s congressional testimony was “less than truthful” regarding his statement that Google does not “manually intervene” on any search result.

Breitbart News senior tech reporter Allum Bokhari revealed in an exclusive report on Wednesday that, despite Pichai’s sworn testimony, Google and YouTube use “blacklists” for “controversial YouTube queries” which contain a list of search terms the Silicon Valley giant considers sensitive. In one instance, YouTube downranked pro-life videos from its top ten search results for “abortion.” Further, Bokhari revealed that Google employs “huge teams” dedicated to the manual intervention of its search results, which serves as an apparent contradiction to Pichai’s sworn testimony.

Pichai testified under oath in December before the House Judiciary Committee and assured lawmakers that Google does not “manually intervene on any particular search result.”

Sen. Blackburn previously served in the House as one of the largest critics of Silicon Valley bias and has proposed that Congress rein in social media censorship of conservative and alternative viewpoints. Now, the Tennessee conservative serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee as well as the Senate Commerce Committee, both of which have broad jurisdiction over social media and telecom companies.

Blackburn told Breitbart News that Pichai’s testimony “was less than truthful” and charged that Internet users should know how the company manipulates its algorithms.

“Silicon Valley has a deep-rooted anti-conservative bias. This is not another unfortunate coincidence as Silicon Valley and liberal elites would have us believe.  Rather, it is further evidence of Big Tech employees manipulating their platforms to suppress conservative viewpoints, which is unfair to their users,” Blackburn told Breitbart News. “This is disturbing and suggests Google CEO Sundar Pinchai’s testimony before Congress was less than truthful. The people who use his company’s search engines deserve to know the truth about how the content they see is generated.”

The revelation about Google’s manipulation of its search results arises as President Donald Trump’s Attorney General (AG) nominee William Barr said on Tuesday that he remains interested in “reassessing” or learning more about the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) anti-trust policies.