The Republican-led House Oversight Committee on Wednesday opened an investigation into whether Google and Meta concealed information about the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
Big tech companies came under fire for alleged censorship last month after Meta’s AI assistant claimed the attack on former President Donald Trump was “fictional” or didn’t answer questions at all, The Post reported, while Google’s search engine omitted the usual list of suggested search results when asked about the July 13 shooting in its search bar.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the Oversight Committee, Letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Metaboss Mark Zuckerberg Citing a report from The Washington Post, they demanded hard information about the inner workings of the black-box algorithm that powers Google’s search engine.
“On behalf of the American people, the Committee is committed to fully understanding when and how information is suppressed or altered, whether due to technical error, security policy, or express intent to mislead,” Comer said in the letter to Pichai.
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg was asked to provide documentation on how his company’s AI assistant takes in newsworthy events, as well as how it is trained to limit or block results that Meta deems harmful or dangerous.
Comer said the House committee was concerned about the meth scandal “against the backdrop of a disturbing pattern of speech suppression and censorship that is rampant through technology and social media companies,” such as the Washington Post’s exclusive reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020.
He also accused Mehta of mistakenly censoring a now-famous photo of Trump raising his fist while surrounded by Secret Service agents after the shooting. Facebook initially labeled the post that featured the photo as misinformation, but later acknowledged it was a “mistake” and removed the label.
In his letter to Pichai, Comer pointed out that Google’s autocomplete search prompts related to the assassination attempt on Trump showed attempts to kill former presidents Harry Truman, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, as well as assassinations of historical figures such as Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but did not show an assassination attempt on Trump himself.
He asked the company to provide details about whether the search tool’s autocomplete feature incorporates newsworthy events and whether it tries to “avoid results that Google considers harmful or dangerous and wants to limit or exclude.”
Asked for comment, a Google representative pointed to a lengthy thread from July 30 in which the company disputed claims that the Autocomplete issue was related to censorship.
“Autocomplete didn’t provide predictions for searches about the assassination attempt against former President Trump,” Google wrote in the thread. “This is because Autocomplete has built-in protections for political violence, and the system was outdated.”
“Following the horrific incident in Butler, Pennsylvania, those predictive queries were supposed to appear but didn’t. Once the issue was reported, we began working on improvements which are already being rolled out,” the statement added.
A representative for Mehta said Wednesday that the company is cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s investigation.
Joel Kaplan, Meta’s vice president of international policy, said in a blog post last month that the company’s chatbot is programmed not to answer questions about the assassination attempt and to avoid providing users with inaccurate information.
“This is why some people reported that our AI was refusing to talk about the incident,” Kaplan said. “We have since updated the answers Meta AI provides about the assassination attempt, but we should have done so sooner.”
Last month, The Post ran a test using Meta’s AI tool called “Is Trump Assassination Fiction?”
Bott responded: “There was no actual assassination attempt on Donald Trump. I strive to provide accurate and reliable information, but sometimes mistakes happen.”
“Certainly, there are no credible reports or evidence of a successful or attempted assassination of Donald Trump,” Bott added.
When The Washington Post asked, “What happened with Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania?” the chatbot responded: “On July 28, 2024, a shooting occurred at Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. One person was killed and two were injured. The suspect was shot and killed by a police officer.”
Meanwhile, upon request, Meta’s chatbot freely provided detailed information about Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign.
President Trump has responded scathingly to the situation, accusing Google and Meta of censorship and election interference, and calling on his supporters to “go after” the companies.
“Facebook has admitted that they mistakenly censored Trump’s ‘assassination attempt photo’ and got caught. So has Google,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on July 30. “They made it virtually impossible to find any photos or anything related to this heinous act. Both companies are facing significant backlash over their alleged censorship.”
He continued, “Another attempt to rig the election!!! Go after Meta and Google. Let them know we know what they’re up to. We’ll be tougher this time. MAGA2024!”
