Silicon Valley giants Apple and Google largely shielded Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner from negative news coverage, giving the disgraced leftist political cover until his campaign completely imploded, a new study found.
According to the Media Research Center (MRC), Apple News and Google News, which pull in 215 million monthly hits, largely ignored reports about Platner’s mounting controversies while he was leading in the polls, then abruptly shifted course after his political fortunes deteriorated.
The MRC’s data exposes an astonishing pattern of censorship by omission. From November 1 through May 30, as Platner campaigned to unseat Republican Senator Susan Collins, Apple News and Google News ran a grand total of zero stories in their premier top 20 morning feeds about his disqualifying controversies, despite widespread reporting elsewhere.
According to MRC, stories absent from the aggregators’ featured feeds included reports about:
- An SS-style Nazi Totenkopf
- Scrubbed Reddit posts where he proudly declared himself a “communist.”
- Online rants attacking law enforcement, degrading rural voters, and using sexist slurs.
The only piece of news the aggregators deemed worthy during those critical months was an April 7 Axios article hyped by Google touting Platner’s confidence in the primary, MRC found.
Google and Apple didn’t just ignore the scandals; they reportedly aggressively muted anyone who reported them. The MRC documented that Apple and Google buried at least 112 significant stories from prominent right-leaning news outlets that were trying to expose the truth.
Then the pattern changed when the numbers turned rotten for the Democrats.
The shift followed a June 30 Fox News poll showing Sen. Collins leading Platner 50% to 47%, with 54% of voters expressing concern about his judgment (38% “extremely concerned” and 16% “very concerned”).
On July 7 and 8, both aggregators suddenly dumped 12 negative stories about Platner into user feeds, according to MRC.
Platner officially threw in the towel on Wednesday following new allegations of rape and sexual assault. MRC argued the timing showed Apple and Google surfaced damaging coverage only after his campaign collapsed rather than while voters were still deciding whether to support him.
