CV NEWS FEED // Social media giant Meta has wrongly flagged the iconic post-assassination attempt picture of former President Donald Trump as “altered” on its platforms Facebook and Instagram.
The indisputably genuine July 13 picture taken by Associated Press (AP) Chief Photographer Evan Vucci shows Trump with blood on his face from a bullet wound and holding his fist out in front of an American flag.
Vucci took the picture mere seconds after a would-be assassin tried to take the former president’s life.
Per screenshots taken by various users, “fact checkers” on Meta’s platforms placed a warning under postings of the picture stating: “Altered Photo.”
The warning message continued: “The same altered photo was reviewed by independent fact-checkers in another post.”
Among the “fact checkers” cited included those from USA Today and AFP United States. The latter is a part of the French news agency Agence France-Presse, which Meta has described as “Facebook’s most expansive global partner.”
A Meta spokeswoman confirmed via the competing platform X (formerly Twitter) on Monday that the flagging of the picture “was an error.”
“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,” Lever wrote.
She stated that the situation has “been fixed and we apologize for the mistake.”
Meta’s CEO, chairman, co-founder, and plurality owner is controversial billionaire Mark Zuckerberg.
The Federalist co-founder and CEO Sean Davis called Meta’s apparent mislabeling of the iconic picture “downright Soviet.”
“Here’s how the game works: Deep State tells Big Tech to suppress speech that’s crushing the regime’s lies and propaganda,” Davis wrote in an X post late Monday morning:
Big Tech goes into its back end and tells its bogus, regime-approved “fact checkers” to write up lies targeting the speech the regime doesn’t like. The bogus “fact checkers” comply, and then Big Tech—citing the bogus “fact checkers”—shuts down the reach of everyone targeted by the Deep State.
Journalist and political commentator Kyle Becker wrote that Meta “is once again committing Election Interference.”
“Meta’s ‘fact-checkers’ also lied to Americans about election integrity, [COVID]-19, and Hunter Biden’s laptop,” Becker noted. “They are now lying to Americans about the Trump assassinat*on attempt and committing Election Interference. Again.”
A pair of popular X accounts noted that just a week-and-a-half ago, Zuckerberg praised the very picture of Trump his platform apparently later marked as “altered.”
“Seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life,” the billionaire told an interviewer.
During the same interview, Zuckerberg also said he would not endorse either major party candidate in November’s presidential election.
Earlier this month, The New York Post reported that an unnamed “photo editor at [a] major news outlet said media outlets should scale back on running the iconic image of [Trump].”
Per the Post, the anonymous editor told Axios that the photo was “‘free PR’ for [Trump’s] reelection bid,” and dubbed it potentially “photoganda” – an apparently newly-coined portmanteau of “photo” and “propaganda.”
The Post continued: “The photo editor who spoke to Axios said that it was ‘dangerous for media organizations to keep sharing’ the images ‘despite how good’ they are.”
>> GOOGLE ALLEGEDLY RESTRICTS SEARCH RESULTS ON TRUMP SHOOTING <<
The revelation that Meta wrongly flagged the Trump photo came at the same time a chorus of social media users presented apparent evidence that multiple technology corporations engaged in censorship to the detriment of the former president’s campaign.
This weekend, CatholicVote reported:
Observers noticed over the weekend that Google was not showing any search suggestions for the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
Multiple accounts posted pictures of their search query “assassination attempt on tr,” “assassination attempt on trum,” and other similar phrases.
Google “denied allegations of censorship and instead asserted that it was attempting to mitigate political violence,” CatholicVote noted.
However, the search engine did not appear to restrict search results for both “January 6” and “attempted kidnapping of Michigan Governor [Gretchen Whitmer].”
The initial observations about Google’s alleged censorship set off a flurry of accusations involving both Google and Meta.
The Federalist’s Davis took to X Monday afternoon posting twin screenshots of Google results for both “Donald Trump” and “Kamala Harris,” his likely Democratic opponent.
“If you search Google for information about Donald Trump, it only produces news results that mention Kamala Harris,” Davis wrote. “If you search Google for Kamala Harris information, it also only produces news results that mention Kamala Harris. How convenient.”
On Sunday, X owner Elon Musk pointed out that Meta’s artificial intelligence (AI) company Meta AI appeared to engage in eerily similar behavior.
CatholicVote reported:
Meta AI failed to answer a question about the Trump shooting due to it not having “access to the most up-to-date information.”
However, Meta AI was able to provide detailed information when asked about Kamala Harris’ presidential bid – which she launched over one week after the assassination attempt on Trump.