FACT FOCUS: Google autocomplete results around Trump lead to claims of election interference

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By MELISSA GOLDIN

With fewer than 100 days until the 2024 election, social media users are claiming that a lack of Google autocomplete results about former President Donald Trump and his attempted assassination is evidence of election interference.

Many posts include screenshots showing what the autocomplete feature, which predicts what users are trying to type, has generated for text such as “attempted assassination of tr” or “president donald.” Among the pictured results for the former phrase are references to other assassination attempts, including that of Harry Truman and Gerald Ford, but nothing for Trump. The latter provides two options — “president donald duck” and “president donald regan.”

Multiple high-profile figures, including Trump and sitting members of Congress, promoted the claim across social media platforms, collectively amassing more than 1 million likes and shares by Tuesday. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Google attributed the situation to existing protections against autocomplete predictions associated with political violence, noting that “no manual action was taken” to suppress information about Trump.

Search engine experts said there are many reasons that could explain why some autocomplete results concerning the former president were not appearing.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

CLAIM: Google is engaging in election interference by censoring autocomplete results about former President Donald Trump, including the assassination attempt at his Pennsylvania rally on July 13.

THE FACTS: It is true that Google’s autocomplete feature as of Monday was not finishing certain phrases related to Trump and the assassination attempt as shown in screenshots spreading online, but there is no evidence it was related to election interference.

By Tuesday, some of the same terms were providing relevant autocomplete results. The text “president donald” now also suggests “Donald Trump” as a search option. Similarly, the phrase “attempted assassination of” includes Trump’s name in autocomplete predictions. Adding “tr” to the same phrase though makes the option disappear.

Completed searches about Trump and the assassination attempt done on both Monday and Tuesday yielded extensive relevant results regardless of what autocomplete predictions came up.

Google told the AP that its autocomplete feature has automated protections regarding violent topics, including for searches about theoretical assassination attempts. The company further explained that its systems were out of date even prior to July 13, meaning that the protections already in place couldn’t take into account that an actual assassination attempt had occurred.

Additional autocomplete results now appearing about Trump are the result of systemic improvements — rather than targeted manual fixes — that will affect many other topics, according to the company.

“We’re rolling out improvements to our Autocomplete systems to show more up-to-date predictions,” Google told The Associated Press in a statement. “The issues are beginning to resolve, and we’ll continue to make improvements as needed. As always, predictions change over time and there may be some imperfections. Autocomplete helps save people time, but they can always search for whatever they want, and we will continue to connect them with helpful information.”

Search engine experts told the AP that they don’t see evidence of suspicious activities on Google’s part and that there are plenty of other reasons to explain why there have been a lack of autocomplete predictions about Trump.

“It’s very plausible that there’s nothing nefarious here, that it’s other systems that are set up for neutral or good purposes that are causing these query suggestions to not show up,” said Michael Ekstrand, an assistant professor at Drexel University who studies AI-powered information access systems. “I don’t have a reason not to believe Google’s claim that this is just normal systems for other purposes, particularly around political violence.”

Thorsten Joachims, a professor at Cornell University who researches machine learning for search engines, explained that autocomplete tools typically work by looking at queries people make frequently over a certain period of time, providing the most frequent completions of those queries. Beyond that, a search engine may automatically prune predictions based on concerns such as safety and privacy.

This means that it’s plausible that Google’s autocomplete feature wouldn’t have accounted for recent searches about the assassination attempt on Trump, especially if its systems indeed had not been updated since before the shooting.

“Depending on how big the window is that they’re averaging over, that may simply not be a frequent query,” Joachims said. “And it may not be a candidate for autocompletion.” He added that it’s typical not to update a search model on a daily basis, given the costs and technical risks involved.

A 2020 Google blog post about its autocomplete feature describes how the system reflects previous searches and why users might not see certain predictions, including those that are violent in nature. The post also explains that predictions may vary based on variables such as a user’s location, the language they speak or rising interest in a topic.

Both Ekstrand and Joachims agreed that proving bias in a complex system like Google’s search engine from the outside would be extremely difficult. It would require much more data than just a couple of searches, for example, and would risk setting off the company’s protections against data scraping, reverse engineering and fraud.

“In general, claims that platforms are taking particular targeted actions against specific people on political bases are hard to substantiate,” Ekstrand said. “They sometimes, I’m sure, happen, but there’s so many other explanations that it’s difficult to substantiate such claims.”

Joachims noted that the demographics of Google’s user base could impact the results of such a study if they skewed toward one side of the political aisle or another and therefore searched more for their preferred candidates. In other words, the way the system works would make it difficult to probe the system.

Technical issues aside, limiting autocomplete predictions as a method of political influence could simply be bad for business.

“Even if Google would like to do that, I think it would be a very bad decision because they could lose a lot of users,” said Ricardo Baeza-Yates, a professor at Northeastern University whose research includes web search and information retrieval.

___

Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

Olympics: Team USA’s gymnastics gold medal through the eyes of Suni Lee’s family and friends

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St. Paul gymnast Suni Lee offered up the word — redemption — last month at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Minneapolis. That’s what the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris were all about for the U.S. women’s gymnastics team. Redemption.

After taking the silver medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, largely because the GOAT Simone Biles had to drop out of the competition at the last minute, Team USA vowed to be standing atop the podium in the end this time around.

The quintet of Lee, Biles, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey, and Hezly Rivera made it happen on Tuesday night at Bercy Arena, winning the gold medal with a dominant performance that left absolutely no doubt. As the celebration unfolded for Team USA on the mat, more than 4,000 miles away, Lee’s family and friends matched the intensity inside Unison Restaurant on the outskirts of St. Paul.

“It’s so emotional to see her out there,” Lee’s cousin Nicole King said as her eyes welled up with tears. “We’re so proud of her. She worked so hard for all of this over the past few years. We knew she could do it, and to actually see it happen is really exciting.”

Though a handful of Lee’s immediate family were in Paris to watch her in person, nearly 100 people gathered back home on Tuesday afternoon for the spectacle.

Roughly a dozen rows of chairs were lined up in front of a large projection screen with a handful of tables positioned off to the side for additional seating. Most of the adults proudly rocked shirts with “Team Suni” emblazoned on the front as they fixated their eyes on the television broadcast.

As excited as Lee’s family and friends were back home, the competition started with Team USA on vault, and Lee was not a part of that rotation. The restlessness inside inside Unison Restaurant was palpable as everybody patiently waited for the focus to shift to uneven bars.

A boisterous chant of “USA! USA! USA!” broke out as Lee was finally shown warming up on screen.

The leaders of the chant were the Xiong sisters. They like to consider themselves Lee’s biggest fans and showed up decked out in red, white and blue, equipped with a drum they banged on whenever they felt the group wasn’t loud enough.

“The last time she was in the Olympics, it was still COVID, so we watched together in a cabin up north,” May Lee Xiong said. “As soon as we heard about this today, we knew we wanted to join in on the fun.”

The cheers disappated when it was Lee’s turn on uneven bars and silence filled the room. The tension built as she floated through the air, and while Lee had to battle through a minor mistake early on, she stuck the landing to produce a massive roar.

“It’s a lot to take in,” Lee’s uncle Peter Lee said midway through the competition. “I’m so nervous right now.”

Naturally, the most stressful event of the bunch followed, and Team USA moved to balance beam. Though a fall from Chiles produced some gasps, Lee followed it up with a nearly perfect effort to take the edge off, then Biles provided the exclamation point.

Frankly, with Team USA boasting a commanding lead, floor exercise felt more like a coronation. After Lee, Chiles, and Biles all finished solid routines, the only thing left to do was celebrate yet another accomplishment for the hometown hero.

“She’s definitely an inspiration,” said Lee’s nephew Keydrick Thao while surrounded by some of his cousins. “She’s out here achieving really great things, and I think when we as a family see her do that, it makes everybody want to aspire to achieve really great things, too.”

Maybe the coolest part came after Team USA officially won the gold medal. As Lee celebrated in Paris with her teammates, her family and friends back home hopped on FaceTime with her mom and dad, who were in the stands soaking in the moment.

It was emotional for everyone involved, especially considering everything Lee had to go through to work her way back from the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

“Just seeing her compete again is a blessing,” Lee’s aunt Bernie Vang said. “She has a family back home that is always going to support her. We don’t care if she wins or loses. We love her no matter what.”

‘Hilo de la Sangre,’ a Latin art exhibit on display at the MN Museum of American Art in St. Paul

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“Hilo de la Sangre” (Thread of the Blood), a Latin art exhibit organized by Grupo Soap del Corazon, founded by Xavier Tavera and Dougie Padilla in 2000, will be on display from Aug. 1 to Dec. 1 at the Minnesota Museum of American Art in the Nancy and John Lindahl Gallery in downtown St. Paul.

The exhibit brings together 15 Latin visual artists to portray the significance of blood as a material foundation of life — a carrier of complex lineages, a signal of violence and death as well as a cultural and spiritual symbol of sacrifice and atonement, according to the MMAA.

Xavier Tavera, curator of the exhibit said that “a thread of blood” is an important concept. So, he contacted a number of Latin artists and gave them the title with no direction on where to take their art. For the artists, their displays are intended to encourage conversations regarding culture, ancestry, heritage, hierarchy, immigration, gender and personhood.

Tavera said he wants people to understand how Latin people see things in a very specific way. The artists aren’t putting out violence for the sake of violence — but to raise awareness of what they’re personally going through.

“I want people to come with us in this journey and explore a little bit about our culture and what we think is dear to us,” Tavera said.

From 1 to 2 p.m. on Oct. 13, Dr. Karen Mary Davalos, a University of Minnesota professor of Chicano and Latino Studies, will moderate a discussion with the exhibiting artists.

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Paris Olympics: Here’s what’s on TV on Wednesday, July 31

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Here is the Paris Olympics TV schedule for Wednesday, July 31.

Highlights include the swimming finals in the women’s 1500 free where Katie Ledecky is a favorite after winning gold in the event in Tokyo (2:15 p.m., NBC) and the U.S. men’s basketball team faces South Sudan (2:45 p.m., USA).

Wednesday, July 31

ARCHERY

8:05 a.m. EST

USA — Individual: Round of 64, 32

8:45 a.m. EST

E! — Individual: Round of 32

9:50 a.m. EST

USA — Fencing, Archery

10 a.m. EST

TELEMUNDO — Boxeo y Atletismo

BADMINTON

4:15 a.m. EST

USA — Group Play: Singles, Doubles

BASKETBALL

11:15 a.m. EST

E! — Basketball, Basketball 3×3

2:45 p.m. EST

USA — Men’s Group C: USA vs. South Sudan

BASKETBALL 3X3

3:05 a.m. EST

NBC — NBC Late Night (July 30)

6:30 a.m. EST

USA — Pool Play

11:15 a.m. EST

E! — Basketball, Basketball 3×3

3 p.m. EST

E! — Pool Play

4:30 p.m. EST

NBC — Men’s Pool Play

7 p.m. EST

USA — Pool Play

BEACH VOLLEYBALL

4 a.m. EST

E! — Pool Play

6 a.m. EST

TELEMUNDO — Voleibol de Playa y Clavados

9 a.m. EST

NBC — Pool Play

4:45 p.m. EST

USA — Pool Play

9 p.m. EST

USA — Beach Volleyball, Shooting

BOXING

10 a.m. EST

TELEMUNDO — Boxeo y Atletismo

CANOEING

1:45 p.m. EST

USA — Slalom: Women’s Canoe Final

8 p.m. EST

USA — Slalom: Women’s Canoe Final

CYCLING

7:10 a.m. EST

USA — Final: BMX Freestyle

8:45 a.m. EST

USA — Final: BMX Freestyle

DIVING

5 a.m. EST

E! — Women’s Synchro 10m Platform Final

6 a.m. EST

TELEMUNDO — Voleibol de Playa y Clavados

EQUESTRIAN

10 a.m. EST

E! — Dressage: Grand Prix

FENCING

9:50 a.m. EST

USA — Fencing, Archery

4:30 p.m. EST

E! — Men’s Team Sabre Bronze/Gold Finals

FIELD HOCKEY

7:15 a.m. EST

E! — Women’s Pool B: Australia vs. USA

GOLF

6 a.m. EST

GOLF — Golf Central – Paris Preview

GYMNASTICS

11:30 a.m. EST

NBC — Men’s All-Around Final

11 p.m. EST

NBC — Primetime in Paris (July 31)

HANDBALL

6 p.m. EST

USA — Men’s Group Play

ROWING

5:50 a.m. EST

E! — Finals: Quadruple Sculls & more

SHOOTING

10 a.m. EST

TELEMUNDO — Boxeo y Atletismo

9 p.m. EST

USA — Beach Volleyball, Shooting

SOCCER

Midnight EST

USA — Men’s Group A: USA vs. Guinea

11 a.m. EST

TELEMUNDO — Fútbol PaBrasil vs. España
UNIVERSO — Fútbol PaJapón vs. Nigeria

12:30 p.m. EST

E! — Women’s Group B: Australia vs. USA

1 p.m. EST

UNIVERSO — Fútbol PaAustralia vs. Estados Unidos

3 p.m. EST

UNIVERSO — Fútbol PaColombia vs. Canadá

11 p.m. EST

USA — Women’s Group B: Australia vs. USA

SURFING

3:05 a.m. EST

NBC — NBC Late Night (July 30)

SWIMMING

5 a.m. EST

USA — Heats: Women’s 200m Fly & more

10 a.m. EST

NBC — Heats: Women’s 200m Fly & more

2:15 p.m. EST

NBC — Finals: Men’s & Women’s 100m Free & more

11 p.m. EST

NBC — Primetime in Paris (July 31)

TABLE TENNIS

6:45 a.m. EST

E! — M&W Singles: Round of 32

TRIATHLON

2 a.m. EST

USA — Women’s Final

10 a.m. EST

TELEMUNDO — Boxeo y Atletismo

10:45 a.m. EST

NBC — Women’s Final

VOLLEYBALL

8 a.m. EST

UNIVERSO — Voleibol Masculino

11 a.m. EST

USA — Women’s Pool Play

5 p.m. EST

NBC — Women’s Pool Play

WATER POLO

1 p.m. EST

USA — Women’s Group: Italy vs. USA

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