Google search results omit Biden’s presidency

On By Littum

Former President Joe Biden’s reign in the Oval Office was completely removed from Google search results for the term “US presidents” for a time Thursday morning.

The error was fixed around 2:00 a.m. ET, it’s not clear how long Biden was written out of Google’s history. The list gave President Donald Trump having served as the last two presidents of the United States before normal service resumes, naming Presidents Obama, W. Bush, Clinton, etc.

The deletion by the Biden administration was first noticed by BlueSky users, many of whom believed it was big tech’s latest attempt to cozy up to Trump.

On Monday, the biggest names in Silicon Valley, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai ‘First Buddy’ Elon Musk joined to watch Trump be inaugurated as the 47th president. Musk later stole the headlines after an appearance at a rally where he made a “strange greeting”.

The search results that met many users in the early hours of Thursday

The search results that met many users in the early hours of Thursday (Google)

The outrage at the liberal enclave BlueSky was palpable in the early hours of Thursday.

“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 wrote.

“Joe Biden was deleted from Google’s list of presidents. I guess it’s a high-level hack?,” said another.

“Google US presidents and Biden not in. This is bigger than social media,” wrote another.

In the days leading up to the search bug, millions of Meta users began complaining that their accounts were forced to follow President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, and were banned from unfollowing.

“I, like others, repeatedly unfollowed Trump and Vance on Monday, only to find myself following them back,” said Facebook user Anna Springer on Threads, which is also owned by Meta. “I’m not sure if it was just a mistake or something intentional, but it definitely happened.”

Meta Communications Director Andy Stone offered a defense in a post on X.

“People were not forced to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts of the president, vice president or first lady,” Stone said on X. “These accounts are managed by the White House, so with a new administration, the content will on these pages changes.” “It can take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands,” Stone said on Threads.