Google: autocomplete and politics

When there are now less than two months to the US 2020 presidential elections, Google announces an ad hoc novelty that affects the search engine and more in detail the auto-complete functionality: no queries will be suggested that could in some way favor the dissemination of misleading information or shift opinion towards a candidate as well as a political faction.

US 2020 presidential elections: no suggestions from Google

Although it may seem like a minor change, taking into account the huge amount of searches submitted every day by users you can understand why it is not. In his speech bigG underlines in any case that it is not a perfect technology and that the variables involved are almost infinite: in other words it is possible that some queries may escape the mesh of the new filter.

We have extended our policies on auto-complete in relation to elections and we will remove suggestions that could be construed as statements about candidates (communicated about voting methods, requirements or status of locations to vote in) and the integrity or legitimacy of the electoral process for example on the safety of elections.

Google provides a couple of examples: queries such as "it is possible to vote by phone" and "it is not possible to vote by phone" will not appear automatically, while typing "donate to" no candidate or political party will be suggested. Users will still be free to send the searches they want, but in some cases they will have to write them in full.