Just over two weeks ago, the life of former President Donald Trump was almost taken by an assassin's bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania. Despite the severity of this incident, Google and Facebook allegedly suppressed information about it. Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) urgently demanded answers from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, questioning the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) potential involvement in the alleged censorship.
Earlier this week, the public was alarmed when autocomplete results about the Trump assassination attempt were not filled in on Google, leading many to suspect the search engine was concealing information about the shooting. The Associated Press suggested that Google automatically has protections when searching for recent violence, and even before the shooting, autocomplete options were out of date. Thus, the absence of autocomplete options when searching for the shooting was not a deliberate act.
Similarly, Facebook came under fire for flagging the famed picture of a bloodied Donald Trump pumping his fist as' misinformation.' This photo, taken shortly after the assassination attempt, was a powerful symbol of Trump's resilience. However, a Meta spokesperson said the flagging initially applied to a doctored version showing the Secret Service agents smiling. However, users on X (formerly Twitter) did not buy it.
Rep. Gaetz was notably incredulous about the explanations, accusing DHS and Sec. Mayorkas of having 'self-interest in keeping this story under wraps and your department's history of strong-arming tech organizations to censor,' evidently alluding to the suppression of information surrounding Hunter Biden's laptop during the 2020 Election.
As a result, Rep. Gaetz demanded all correspondence between DHS and Meta, Facebook, Google, and Twitter from the day of the shooting on July 13th to July 31st, and any correspondence between DHS and other federal agencies about online commentary about the shooting.
The Florida Congressman further noted, "On July 29th, 2024, an unnamed USSS counter sniper emailed your department personnel complaints that the USSS is not being cleaned up and that the resignation of a single high-level supervisor was not adequate to address deep structural concerns."
Gaetz expects answers by August 16th.
