Google accused of anti-Trump bias after leaked video of co-founder Sergey Brin emerges

Google co-founder Sergey Brin says Donald Trump's election victory was 'deeply offensive' to him

Right wing conservatives in the US have once again accused Google of being biased against them after a leaked video emerged showing executives from the tech firm bemoaning the 2016 election of Donald Trump.

The video, published by far-right news outlet Breitbart, adds fuel to a growing campaign amongst Republicans that aims to demonstrate how the search giant – along with other Silicon Valley firms like Facebook and Twitter – are "trying to silence" them.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin said in the video that his employees were probably "pretty upset and pretty sad" following the election of Trump, adding that "it sort of sneaks up sometimes, really bad things."

Mr Brin said in the video: "As an immigrant and refugee, I certainly find this election deeply offensive, and I'm sure many of you do too."

Facebook, Google and Twitter have consistently denied partisan censorship on their platforms but US President Trump has repeatedly spoken out about this perceived bias, claiming last month that Google was rigging results to make him look bad.

"Google search results for 'Trump News' shows only the viewing/ reporting of Fake New Media," he wrote on Twitter. "In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/ Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal?"

White House advisor Larry Kudlow later told reporters that the Trump administration would investigate the claims after the president suggested that Google could be prosecuted for not showing enough positive stories.

Republican Kevin McCarthy from California also took to Twitter calling for Google to be questioned in front of Congress, after the search giant refused to send a top executive to a recent hearing of Silicon Valley firms on foreign manipulation of social media.

Google responded to Trump's allegations by saying its search engine is "not used to set a political agenda and we don't bias our results towards any political ideology."

Google's search results are decided by an algorithm that chooses how to rank results through a variety of factors, such as relevance and source. Google does not disclose the exact details of how it works, in an effort to keep people from exploiting it.