Ex-engineer at tech giant says glitch which blocked some conservative websites from appearing in their search may have exposed a secret internal list which suppresses certain outlets

Google may have a 'secret blacklist' of conservative news outlets, a former engineer at the company has claimed, which he says was exposed on Tuesday when certain websites briefly vanished from Google search results.

Mike Wacker, a Google engineer who was fired from the company in June 2019 amid a row over his conservative ideology, said the brief incident on Tuesday suggested a 'blacklist'.

'It appears to have revealed the existence of another blacklist that disproportionately targets conservatives,' Wacker told Mediaite.

'The glitch is that sites on this blacklist disappeared from Google search results, but the existence of the list is very much by design.

'And that raises a major question: Why was this blacklist created in the first place, and what else is it used for?'

Websites including Breitbart, The National Pulse, The Drudge Report, and Human Events vanished from Google's listings on Tuesday morning for several hours.

At least one left-leaning website, Occupy Democrats, was also affected.

Legacy media outlets — including The New York Times and Washington Post — did not appear to be harmed.

Dr. Robert Epstein, a researcher who has argued Google has the power to sway up to 10 per cent of American voters in the 2020 election, agreed with Wacker.