Two of the United States’s leading news distributors suppressed negative coverage of former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner for months, according to a new study.

Platner was the Democratic Party’s nominee in the race against Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in the 2026 election. He ended his campaign last week after months of controversies, which culminated with one of his ex-girlfriends accusing him of rape.

Apple and Google News published zero stories on their daily morning news drop for millions of smartphone users between November and May about the high-profile controversies that rocked Platner’s campaign, including headlines about his Nazi tattoo and contentious Reddit posts, according to an analysis by Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group. The two news sites declined to promote more than 100 stories that scrutinized Platner during that time frame, according to the group.

MRC accused the leading news aggregators of “intentional censorship” for the blackout that it said began during the Democratic Party primary when polling indicated only Platner would defeat Collins in a hypothetical matchup. The blackout “slightly ebbed” after the New York Times’s May 30 report on sexting allegations against Platner, and “completely collapsed ” after polling published on June 30 showed he would likely no longer defeat Collins, according to the group. MRC said that news aggregators then promoted 12 negative stories about the embattled candidate on July 7 and 8.

“For months, while Platner looked like the one Democrat who could beat Susan Collins, the two most powerful news apps in America buried scandal after scandal,” MRC President David Bozell said.

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Tagged: Media BACK TO HOMEPAGE