Lawmakers are looking into whether federal agencies pressured tech companies to censor Trump-related search results.
House Republicans have expanded their investigation to include Facebook’s parent company, Meta, regarding online search platforms in connection to the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
Their main concern is the potential influence of government agencies on tech companies to suppress information about the July 13 shooting.
Both Meta and Google came under scrutiny following the shooting when users noticed anomalies in their platforms’ responses to the incident.
While certain Google searches excluded references to Trump and displayed news articles about Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, Meta’s AI chatbot dismissed the assassination attempt as a “fictional” event, as outlined in the letter.
Earlier in August, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sought clarification from Google regarding errors in its search function. Now, Comer is requesting the same information from Meta, asking for all documents related to its AI chatbot’s development and the internal guidelines governing its approach to search results deemed “harmful or dangerous.”
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“In a few instances, Meta AI continued to provide inaccurate responses, sometimes stating that the event did not occur,” the company noted, stating that it was actively working to rectify the issue, which has now been resolved.
Meta also acknowledged that a fact-check label was mistakenly placed on a genuine photo of Trump taken shortly after he was shot. The company attributed this error to its system mistaking the image for a doctored version circulating on the platform.
Highlighting these explanations in his letter, Comer expressed the committee’s gratitude but reiterated concerns, “particularly in light of a troubling trend of speech suppression and censorship propagated through technology and social media companies.”
As an example, the congressman pointed out Facebook’s suppression of the New York Post’s expose on Hunter Biden’s laptop before the 2020 presidential election. Zuckerberg later disclosed that the decision to censor the story was based on misinformation alerts from the FBI.
“On behalf of the American people, the Committee is committed to fully understanding when and how information is being suppressed or altered by social media companies, whether due to technical glitches, a policy aimed at ensuring safety, or a deliberate attempt to mislead,” Comer wrote.
A Meta spokesperson informed The Epoch Times that the company is cooperating with the Oversight Committee to address their inquiries.
“Americans depend on major internet search engines like Google to access news and information crucial to their understanding of national politics and events—especially during a Presidential election season,” Comer stated.
The Epoch Times has reached out to Google for a response.
