Google chief executive Sundar Pichai has been asked by a US House of Representatives committee why images of President Donald Trump appear at the top of Google Images when the word "idiot" is searched for.
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Pichai refuted claims that the company's search results are politically biased, in response to intense questions from the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
Concerns ranging from the usage of people's data, to a launch of a search engine in China, were raised in the grilling.
Pichai told US lawmakers that employees are not able to influence the results it shows users, amid accusations from some Republicans.
They included Trump, who has previously accused Google of providing "rigged" search results with negative news about himself and fellow Republicans.
"It is not possible for an individual employee to manipulate our search results," Pichai told Congressman Lamar Smith.
The Google boss was asked why images of President Trump appear at the top of Google Images when you search the word "idiot", in a bid to understand how its search algorithms work.
Speaking about bias accusations later in the hearing, Congressman Ted Lieu said: "If you want positive search results, do positive things. If you don't want negative search results, don't do negative things."
Australian Associated Press