Trump took to Truth Social to revel in Facebook and Google getting called out for censoring search terms and an iconic image related to the attempt on his life.
“Facebook has just admitted that it wrongly censored the Trump ‘attempted assassination photo,’ and got caught. Same thing for Google,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “They made it virtually impossible to find pictures or anything about this heinous act. Both are facing BIG BACKLASH OVER CENSORSHIP CLAIMS.” The former president 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 Daily Mail drew attention to Google’s search suppression in a July 28 report. Users who typed the words "assassination attempt on" were given autocomplete search suggestions finishing the search that did not include former President Donald Trump. Instead, Google finished the search with the names: "truman," "reagan," "ronald reagan," "george wallace," "lenin," "gerald ford," "franklin roosevelt," "andrew johnson," "fdr," and "seward."
Notably missing was the most recent assassination attempt against a former president just 15 days prior.
In Google's explanation of how its search autocomplete feature works it claims: "To determine what predictions to show, our systems look for common queries that match what someone starts to enter into the search box." The search giant alleged that it also considers factors such as the language, location and trending interest of the query as well as the user's past searches.
However, Google Trends showed that the number of searches for "assassination attempt on trump" was significantly higher than "assassination attempt on truman" and "assassination attempt on reagan." That was true for searches in the state of Virginia (where MRC researchers conducted the search), for searches conducted in the United States and also for searches conducted worldwide. Researchers also examined searches over the last 24 hours (July 28 and 29), the last 30 days, and the last 20 years.
Google trends repeatedly showed that the assassination attempt on Trump was by far searched more often and by more people than the attempts on former presidents Harry Truman and Ronald Regan. Indeed, it appears that the Daily Mail article on Google's search suppression may be what prompted a July 28 and 29 uptick in users searching for the little-known assassination attempt on Truman.
Google Communications responded to the backlash in an X post claiming, "There was no manual action taken. Our systems have protections against Autocomplete predictions associated with political violence, which were working as intended prior to this horrific event. We’re working on improvements to ensure our systems are more up to date.”
Defending itself, the company downplayed the issue. “Of course, 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," Google added
MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider, however, called Google out for its lackluster response. “Note how Google says ‘no manual action take[n],’ admitting that its algorithm is designed to silence info about Trump.”
Meta similarly repeatedly censored a photo taken by Associated Press photojournalist Evan Vucci after the assassination attempt on Trump.
BREAKING: Meta is now censoring actual photos of the Trump assassination attempt pic.twitter.com/o7yUbN7vsa
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) July 29, 2024
Facebook and Instagram placed fact-check interstitials over a number of posts featuring the photo including one posted by For America. "The same altered photo was reviewed by independent fact-checkers in another post," the platform's notification to users read. Meta has since removed the fact-check interstitials and warnings over the posts.
Meta spokesperson Dani Lever responded to the issue in an X post. “This fact check was initially applied to a doctored photo showing the secret service agents smiling, and in some cases our systems incorrectly applied that fact check to the real photo,” she claimed.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using MRC Free Speech America’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
