Google's search algorithm made a goof on Thursday that has Republicans fuming; it briefly linked the California Republican Party with Nazism.
The result appeared for anyone who googled "California Republicans" or "California Republican Party," according to Vice News, which noticed the problem on Thursday.
The queries returned a "knowledge panel" on the page that summarized the California Republican Party and mistakenly linked its ideology with Nazism. Conservatives are not happy and accusing Google of political bias with its search results.
"This is a disgrace," tweeted US. Rep Kevin McCarthy, a Republican elected in California who's in line to become Speaker of the House.
Dear @Google,
This is a disgrace ?? #StopTheBias pic.twitter.com/8EZhtOLcOD — Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) May 31, 2018
"Sadly, this is just the latest incident in a disturbing trend to slander conservatives. These damaging actions must be held to account," he said in another tweet.
Google quickly removed the Nazism listing from the knowledge panel, but also said it wasn't entirely to blame. The company's search algorithm was simply summarizing the Wikipedia entry for the California Republican Party, which someone had apparently vandalized.
Indeed, the entry was edited back on May 24 to list Nazism as one the party's underpinning ideologies, according to Wikipedia's own logs.
"We regret that vandalism on Wikipedia briefly appeared on our search results," Google said in a tweet back to McCarthy. "This was not the result of a manual change by Google. We have systems in place that catch vandalism before it impacts search results, but occasionally errors get through, and that happened here."
The incident underscores how Google, despite being the most popular search engine, can still return controversial and factually wrong information. In the past, the algorithms have been caught accidentally promoting fringe websites that claimed former US President Barack Obama was possibly planning a "communist coup d'état," and how other presidents were Ku Klux Klan members.
This time, the bad search results have ticked off Republican when conservative pundits have already been accusing Silicon Valley companies of political censorship. It also occurs as California's primary elections are slated for June 5.
"Evidence is mounting that conservative voices are either being suppressed or, as it appears in this case, being falsely depicted as hateful extremists," tweeted Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee.