Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called President Donald Trump to personally apologize after Facebook censored the iconic fist-pumping post-assassination attempt photo on the social media platform.
Trump revealed the call during an interview with Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo.
Facebook wrongly mislabeled the now-viral photo of the 45th president as “misinformation,” preventing it from being shared.
The photo, taken after a July 13 assassination attempt at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, shows Trump raising a fist with an American flag flowing in the background as blood poured down his face.
The image defined Trump’s bravery during the attack and will be viewed for years to come to mark the pivotal moment in history.
However, when users tried to share the iconic image, Facebook accused them of spreading “misinformation” and blocked them from posting it.
“So, Mark Zuckerberg called me,” Trump told Bartiromo.
“First of all, he called me two times.
“He called me after the event and he said that was really amazing.
“It was really brave. And he actually announced that he’s not going to support a Democrat because he can’t because he respected me for what I did that day.
“I think what I did… to me, was a normal response.”
“He actually apologized. He said they made a mistake… and they’re correcting the mistake,” Trump said.
He added that Google never called him after the search engine’s autocomplete function failed to show results for the Trump assassination attempt.
WATCH:
Meta Vice President of Global Policy Joel Kaplan said in a July 30 statement that Meta “incorrectly” added a “fact-check” label to the assassination attempt photo.
The image quickly went viral and appeared in global news outlets.
Kaplan claimed the social media giant’s AI detector tool “experienced an issue related to the circulation of a doctored photo of former President Trump with his fist in the air, which made it look like the Secret Service agents were smiling.”
“Because the photo was altered, a fact check label was initially and correctly applied,” Kaplan explained.
“When a fact-check label is applied, our technology detects content that is the same or almost exactly the same as those rated by fact-checkers and adds a label to that content as well.
“Given the similarities between the doctored photo and the original image – which are only subtly (although importantly) different – our systems incorrectly applied that fact check to the real photo, too.
“Our teams worked to quickly correct this mistake.”
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone also clarified in a Friday post on X that Zuckerberg has never endorsed a candidate in the 2024 presidential election:
“Mark’s already been public about the fact that he’s not endorsing either candidate, just as he hasn’t in prior elections,” Stone wrote.
Additionally, Meta’s AI chatbot initially refused to answer questions about the shooting.
Kaplan said that while neither error “was the result of bias, it was unfortunate,” and the company understands “why it could leave people with that impression.”
Kaplan attributed the issue to the mass amounts of information in a breaking news situation that can overwhelm an AI chat feature.
“Rather than have Meta AI give incorrect information about the attempted assassination, we programmed it to simply not answer questions about it after it happened – and instead give a generic response about how it couldn’t provide any information,” Kaplan said.
“This is why some people reported our AI was refusing to talk about the event.
“We’ve since updated the responses that Meta AI is providing about the assassination attempt, but we should have done this sooner.”
Google’s AI chatbot called Gemini also refused to answer questions about the shooting that left 50-year-old father and volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore dead.
The shooting also left two others, 74-year-old James Copenhaver and 57-year-old David Dutch, critically wounded.
“I can’t help with responses on elections and political figures right now,” Gemini said about the recent assassination attempt.
“While I would never deliberately share something that’s inaccurate, I can make mistakes.
“So, while I work on improving, you can try Google Search.”
A Google spokesperson previously claimed that Gemini was “responding as intended.”
“As we announced last year, we restrict responses for election-related queries on the Gemini app and web experience,” the spokesperson said.
“By clicking the blue link in the response, you’ll be directed to the accurate and up-to-date Search results.”
https://slaynews.com/news/mark-zuckerberg-called-trump-personally-apologize-facebook-censorship-assassination-attempt-photo/
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