Former President Joe Biden’s presidential term was reportedly absent from Google’s list of “U.S. presidents” for a period on Thursday morning.
Newsweek has reached out to Google outside of normal working hours via email for comment.
Why It Matters
These reports come in the midst of a slew of complaints online pertaining to U.S. politics, from claims that TikTok was blocking anti-Trump content, to millions of Meta users complaining that they had been made to follow the Instagram accounts of Vice President J.D. Vance and President Donald Trump, following Monday’s inauguration.
There has also been an increase in discourse around a shift to the right in the tech world, with Meta removing fact checkers and hiring Republican Joel Kaplan, the former deputy chief of staff under President George W. Bush, as their new policy chief.
What To Know
The issue was noticed on the social media platforms, X and Bluesky.
The tone between the two sites was different, with Bluesky users outraged, and X users seeming rather gleeful about the omission.
One Bluesky user wrote: “Go to the search, expand the page, click on feedback.
“Tell Google you see and don’t appreciate their Orwellian revisionist history.”
An X user posted: “What’s going on ? Trump came up twice like Biden never existed at all. Why is this s*** funny.”
Google has not publicly commented on the issues at the time of reporting.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai was in attendance at the inauguration of President Donald Trump on Monday, January 20 along with fellow tech CEO’s, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos and Space X CEO Elon Musk.
Zuckerberg, Bezos and Musk were given priority seats for President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, in what is being considered as a reflection of a new era where the influence of Silicon Valley is on full display.
Some users have expressed concerns about the relationship between Trump and tech CEO’s. This was highlighted by complaints from Instagram users that they had surreptitiously made them “follow” Trump’s and Vice President JD Vance’s profiles on the social media platform.
Meta Communications Officer Andy Stone, responded to the reports on Meta’s Threads: “A reminder: the Facebook.com/POTUS and Facebook.com/White… accounts are managed by the White House. They change when the occupant of the White House changes.”
What People Are Saying
One Bluesky user wrote: “If this stands, this will be one of the boldest and most dangerous moments in the existence of the Internet, as it will be a clear show of force that those in opposition will disappear completely.”
One user on X said: “LMAO, some based engineer at Google is /ourguy/ but is about to lose his job.”
What’s Next
As of 4:00 a.m. ET, Biden’s term has been restored to Google’s list of Presidents.
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