Google believes nothing was said in a leaked video of a meeting held shortly after the 2016 election that tarnishes the tech giant’s reputation for impartiality.
The hourlong recording, published Wednesday by right-wing news site Breitbart, has angered conservatives because it captures some Google executives and employees espousing personal views about President Trump and populist movements.
But a Google spokesperson said the perspectives shared during the first “all-hands” meeting following “a long and divisive election season” do not suggest the company conducts business in a partisan manner.
[Opinion: Google News is heavily biased – but it’s not rigged]
“For over 20 years, everyone at Google has been able to freely express their opinions at these meetings,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “Nothing was said at that meeting, or any other meeting, to suggest that any political bias ever influences the way we build or operate our products.”
“To the contrary, our products are built for everyone, and we design them with extraordinary care to be a trustworthy source of information for everyone, without regard to political viewpoint,” the statement added.
Co-founder Sergey Brin is among the Google figures to feature in the video.
“Myself as an immigrant and a refugee, I certainly find this election deeply offensive and I know many of you do, too,” Brin said. “And I think it’s a very stressful time and it conflicts with many of our values. I think it’s a good time to reflect on that and we’re going to hopefully share some thoughts today.”
Brin later states he hopes Google can innovate tools to promote “better quality of governance and decision-making.”
The recording emerged one day after emails exchanged by Google executives detailing how the company was supporting rides to the polls for Hispanic voters in 2016 were obtained Tuesday by Fox News and Breitbart. The initiatives have been categorized as an effort to boost turnout for Hillary Clinton, then the Democratic presidential nominee.
The recording, however, also provides insight into internal conversations about how Google facilitates spreading misinformation and so-called fake news. Critics of the company have faulted it for not understanding the important role it now plays in the political arena.
“A lot of this is a problem of scale and not being able to keep up — human systems fail at many of these things,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in the video. “Investing more in machine learning and AI could be one way we actually make progress on some of this stuff, but I think we should do more.”
[Related: Google to Trump: ‘We don’t bias our results’]
