Former President Donald Trump has criticized Meta and Google, alleging that both tech giants censored information related to the recent failed attempt on his life.
In a series of statements on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump condemned the companies for handling the incident and urged his supporters to take action.
Trump’s grievances stem from several issues he claims have arisen since the assassination attempt on July 13, which took place at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. According to Trump, Meta’s AI software labelled the assassination attempt as “fictional,” while Facebook removed an iconic photo of him raising his fist after the incident. Additionally, Trump alleged that Google’s search bar failed to provide results related to the shooting.
Meta and Google have denied any allegations of bias, attributing the issues to technical errors rather than deliberate censorship.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump expressed his frustration, writing, “Facebook has just admitted that it wrongly censored the Trump’ attempted assassination photo,’ and got caught. Same thing for Google. They made it virtually impossible to find pictures or anything about this heinous act. Both are facing BIG BACKLASH OVER CENSORSHIP CLAIMS.” He added, “Here we go again, another attempt at RIGGING THE ELECTION!!! GO AFTER META AND GOOGLE. LET THEM KNOW WE ARE ALL WISE TO THEM, WILL BE MUCH TOUGHER THIS TIME. MAGA2024!”
The controversy began when users on X (formerly Twitter) reported that Facebook’s AI system had labelled the image of Trump raising his fist as “altered.” The platform included a message indicating that independent fact-checkers had reviewed the photo and deemed it misleading. Meta has since acknowledged the error and stated that they are working on correcting the issue.
“We know people have been seeing incomplete, inconsistent, or out-of-date information on this topic,” a Meta spokesperson said. “We’re implementing a fix to provide more up-to-date responses for inquiries.”
Further criticism was directed at Google after users found that the search engine’s autocomplete feature did not suggest results related to the assassination attempt. Instead, users were shown alternative searches, such as references to the failed assassination of former President Ronald Reagan. A Google spokesperson responded, “We’re working on improvements to ensure our systems are more up-to-date. Autocomplete is just a tool to help people save time, and they can still search for anything they want to. Following this terrible act, people turned to Google to find high-quality information — we connected them with helpful results and will continue to do so.”
The tech companies’ responses have done little to quell Trump’s accusations, and the debate over alleged censorship continues to fuel tensions between the former president and major tech platforms.
