Big Tech Censorship Is Back For 2024

Facebook and Google were recently caught suppressing Trump content.

Brandon Goldman
July 31, 2024

Donald Trump’s assassination attempt was censored on Google and Facebook
The censorship mirrors the 2020 election, when the intelligence community and Big Tech shut down the Hunter Biden laptop story
Conservatives see this as a precursor of more censorship, as the presidential election nears

The story

The ongoing debate about social media censorship heated up again after the assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump in Butler, PA. Google faced backlash last weekend over its “autocomplete” throttling of searches related to the assassination attempt.

When typing a phrase in the search bar like “assassination attempt on Tru… ,” no results appeared to complete the phrase ending, “Trump.” Google apparently fixed the censorship, at least partially, but members of Congress have taken note.

Additionally, Facebook took responsibility for labeling as “misinformation” a photo of bloodied Donald Trump with his fist in the air. A third-party fact-checker deemed the photo was doctored, causing Facebook to censor it and reduce its reach. The company called the action a mistake.

Meanwhile, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has been suppressing news about Donald Trump’s assassination attempt via its AI assistant. When prompted about the event, the bot calls it fictional, saying, “There was no real assassination attempt on Donald Trump. I strive to provide accurate and reliable information, but sometimes mistakes can occur.”

The adage goes, “History may not repeat, but it rhymes.” Big Tech’s recent shenanigans look more like a repetition of 2020’s election interference than a rhyme. With the presidential election rapidly approaching, the nation’s biggest corporations seem poised again to interfere — to the detriment of former, and possibly future, president Trump.

The politics

Elon Musk immediately slammed Google and Meta for attempting to throttle pro-Trump content on their platforms. Upon seeing the alleged censorship, Musk said, “Wow, Google has a search ban on President Donald Trump! Election interference?”

Google denied directly censoring content related to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, responding, “Our systems have protections against autocomplete predictions associated with political violence.” Yet, autocomplete results still show the failed assassination of former president Reagan, shootings of Archduke Ferdinand and Bob Marley, and the attempted assassination of former president Ford.

Donald Trump lashed out against the tech companies: Google and Meta are “facing BIG BACKLASH OVER CENSORSHIP CLAIMS.” Trump 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.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) accused Google of “gaslighting” Americans, while Donald Trump Jr. claimed “Big Tech is trying to interfere in the election AGAIN to help Kamala Harris.”

Left-leaning media sources and politicians are ignoring the story. “Online search expert” Barry Schwartz asserts that Google’s censorship makes sense. Despite evidence to the contrary, Schwartz says, “You can search wherever you want, and Google will show … you [results], but it won’t do an autocomplete ‘suggestion’ that you do violence toward politicians.”

The missing context

The new revelations about censorship of Donald Trump’s assassination attempt raise alarms among conservatives about the broader effort of major institutions to disrupt the presidential election.

After the 2020 debacle, when the Hunter Biden laptop story was dismissed and suppressed by American intelligence and the news media, many fear that the same operations will take place to prevent Donald Trump's return to the White House.

It’s no secret that the largest tech companies have animosity towards former president Trump. Despite some Silicon Valley leaders finding an ally in JD Vance, Google and Meta remain solidly aligned with the left.

Since 2019, employees at major tech companies including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple donated 20 times as much money to Biden as they did to Trump. Google demonstrated its woke bona fides previously with its Gemini AI tool, while Facebook and Twitter booted Donald Trump off their platforms in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

Why it matters

Ample evidence proves the bias of America's major tech companies against Trump. Conservatives fear that recent events signal more censorship ahead. Republicans in Congress and right-leaning news media will be keeping a close watch for further censorship of pro-Trump content.

With Vice President Kamala Harris still trailing Donald Trump in the polls, mainstream media may be more than willing to cover for her to pave the road to her victory in November.