Donald Trump is again railing against Big Tech, accusing both Meta and Google of censoring content about him in “another attempt at RIGGING THE ELECTION!!!”
In a post Tuesday on Truth Social, Trump referenced a photo taken after his assassination attempt that a Facebook communications exec previously acknowledged had been mistakenly fact-checked across the social network.
The exec, Dani Lever, confirmed on X that an error occurred.
“This fact check was initially applied to a doctored photo showing the secret service agents smiling,” she wrote on X, “and in some cases our systems incorrectly applied that fact check to the real photo.”
“This has been fixed,” Lever continued, “and we apologize for the mistake.”
The New York Post also reported Monday that after asking about the assassination attempt, Meta’s AI assistant had responded that the event had never happened.
“We know people have been seeing incomplete, inconsistent, or out of date information on this topic,” Lever told BI. “We’re implementing a fix to provide more up-to-date responses for inquiries, and it is possible people may continue to see inaccurate responses in the meantime.”
Still, Trump urged his followers on Truth Social Tuesday to “GO AFTER META AND GOOGLE. LET THEM KNOW WE ARE ALL WISE TO THEM, WILL BE MUCH TOUGHER THIS TIME.”
Trump’s call to action echoes his previous threats against Big Tech, and specifically Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg had called Trump a “badass” for surviving his assassination attempt, but that didn’t stop Trump from threatening to send the Facebook cofounder to prison if he’s elected.
“They have no shame! All I can say is that if I’m elected President, we will pursue Election Fraudsters at levels never seen before, and they will be sent to prison for long periods of time,” Trump wrote earlier this month.
Elon Musk calls out Google for its treatment of Trump searches
On Monday, Elon Musk — who posted a full-throated endorsement of Trump and previously floated the idea of “election interference” by Big Tech — added fuel for Trump’s allegations of censorship targeted at Google.
Musk reposted several users on X who said Google searches for “Donald Trump” had returned a prominent section labeled “News about Harris • Donald Trump.”
Musk and other Trump allies — including Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., as well as Senator Ted Cruz — have also criticized Google over allegations that a search for “assassination attempt on” did not suggest Trump’s name as an autocomplete option, Fortune reports.
Google told the outlet that autocomplete has protections against “predictions associated with political violence, which were working as intended prior to this horrific event occurring.”
The search giant added it was “working on improvements to ensure our systems are more up-to-date.”
A Google spokesperson directed Business Insider to a thread on X, where the company denied “‘censoring’ or ‘banning’ particular terms.”
While it noted it was rolling out certain improvements and updates because “bugs will occur,” it also took a dig at X.
“Many platforms, including the one we’re posting on now, will show strange or incomplete predictions at various times,” the company wrote. “For our part, when issues come up, we will make improvements so you can find what you’re looking for, quickly and easily.”
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