Speaking at the Halifax International Security Forum. Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt announced that Google’s search engine would be deranking stories from the Kremlin-owned media properties Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, the BBC reports. The two properties have been accused of being propaganda arms of the Russian government, which U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously agree tried to influence the 2016 presidential election. After announcing Google would be deranking RT and Sputnik, Schmidt said:
“I am strongly not in favor of censorship. I am very strongly in favor of ranking. It’s what we do. It’s a very legitimate question as to how we rank, A or B, right? And we do the best we can in millions and millions of rankings every day.”