WASHINGTON: Google employees discussed how to counter President Donald Trump鈥檚 2017 travel ban by modifying search functions to help people contribute to immigration advocacy groups and contact lawmakers, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
They began the email discussion two days after Trump signed the first version of his travel ban targeting people from seven mainly Muslim countries, the paper reported.
Staff discussed how to tweak search functions and work against 鈥渋slamophobic, algorithmically biased results from search terms 鈥業slam鈥�, 鈥楳uslim鈥�, 鈥業ran鈥�, etc.,鈥� the Journal reported.
They looked at similar measures for the search terms 鈥楳exico鈥�, 鈥楬ispanic鈥�, 鈥楲atino鈥�, etc.鈥�
An email from an employee of the Search Product Marketing division referred to brainstorming inside Google over how to respond to ban.
Trump鈥檚 controversial measure was challenged in court and underwent several iterations before ultimately being upheld by the US Supreme Court.
The report is certain to anger Trump, who has accused Google of blocking conservative viewpoints in its search results.
Google told the Journal that none of the ideas discussed were ever implemented.
鈥淕oogle has never manipulated its search results or modified any of its products to promote a particular political ideology 鈥� not in the current campaign season, not during the 2016 election, and not in the aftermath of President Trump鈥檚 executive order on immigration,鈥� it said in a statement.
鈥淥ur processes and policies would not have allowed for any manipulation of search results to promote political ideologies,鈥� it added.
Google was among 100 tech companies that filed a friend-of-the-court brief in February 2017 challenging the travel ban as harmful to US 鈥渂usiness, innovation and growth.鈥�