Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., joins ‘The Bottom Line’ to discuss the bipartisan task force investigating the Trump rally assassination attempt.
Former President Trump took to Truth Social in response to censorship of the media relating to the failed attempt on his life, urging his supporters to “go after” two Big Tech companies.
Trump lashed out at Meta and Google on Tuesday morning following outcry from social media users on Monday. Users reported that images and searches of the assassination attempt were being censored or marked as digitally altered.
“Facebook has just admitted that it wrongly censored the Trump ‘attempted assassination photo,’ and got caught. Same thing for Google,” Trump wrote on his proprietary social media platform Truth Social. “They made it virtually impossible to find pictures or anything about this heinous act. Both are facing BIG BACKLASH OVER CENSORSHIP CLAIMS.”
FACEBOOK ADMITS ‘MISTAKE’ IN CENSORING ICONIC TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT PHOTO: ‘THIS WAS AN ERROR’
Facebook accounts incorrectly labeled the image of former President Trump raising his fist following this month’s assassination attempt as “altered.” (X screenshot / Fox News)
He continued, “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!”
Users across X shared reports that their Facebook accounts were labeling the image of Trump pumping his fist in the air after the July 13 assassination attempt as “altered,” accompanied by the message “Independent fact-checkers reviewed a similar photo and said it was altered in a way that could mislead people.”
A company spokesperson admitted that incorrect fact checks were being applied to the photo and warned that further “inaccurate responses” to the media could appear before a fix is made.
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A Meta spokesperson confirmed the error on Monday. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, left, | Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images / Fox News)
“We know people have been seeing incomplete, inconsistent, or out of date information on this topic,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement on the controversy. “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.”
Meta Public Affairs Director Dani Lever later explained on X it was done in error as the systems were meant to detect a separate version of the image.
“This was an error,” Lever said. “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. This has been fixed and we apologize for the mistake.”
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Screenshots show Google’s autocomplete search feature results for the failed assassination attempt on former President Trump. (Getty Images; Google screenshot / Fox News)
The altered image Lever referenced featured the Secret Service members surrounding Trump smiling. USA Today and AFP United States previously fact-checked the images as “altered,” though it confirmed the accuracy of the original image.
The incident occurred as Big Tech companies face accussations for taking part in election manipulation to help Democrats. On Monday, Google users were surprised to find the website’s autocomplete feature omitting references to the July 13 assassination attempt.
Instead, it recommended other search results, such as the failed assassination of former President Reagan. The keywords “Trump assassination attempt” also did not offer any additional results.
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Screenshots show Google search results for the failed assassination of former President Trump. (Google/screengrab / Fox News)
A Google spokesperson later told FOX Business that there was no “manual action taken on these predictions.”
“Our systems have protections against Autocomplete predictions associated with political violence, which were working as intended prior to this horrific event occurring,” the spokesperson wrote. “We’re working on improvements to ensure our systems are more up to date.”
The company spokesperson added the autocomplete feature is “just a tool to help people save time” and they can still search for anything they want.
Fox News Digital’s Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.