On Thursday a Google glitch led to the temporary omission of former US President Joe Biden’s name from the US Presidents search results. Netizens claimed that the 46th US President did not appear in the list of presidents for a brief period. The list showed Trump serving as the president for the last two tenures, completely removing Biden’s presidency.
However, apart from this, the list was correct and included Presidents Obama, Bush, and Clinton. Several users posted screenshots of the list, which did not feature Biden’s name. According to the media reports, the error was fixed around 2 AM ET (12:30 PM IST). Acknowledging the glitch, Google said the mistake had been caused due to a “data error.” “There was a brief data error in our knowledge graph,” a Google spokesperson told a leading media outlet.
The tech giant further said, “We identified the root cause and resolved it quickly”. The error was first spotted by users on BlueSky, where many expressed concerns and speculated whether it was an attempt by big tech to support Trump. “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,” a user remarked. Another asked, “Joe Biden was deleted from Google’s list of Presidents. My guess is it is a high-level hack?”“Google ‘United States Presidents,’ and Biden is not on there. This is bigger than social media,” a third added.
“Who paid Google to initiate this SEO bullsh*t to help erase an entire presidency?” a user questioned. Earlier, several users reported that their accounts were forced to follow President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance without an option to unfollow. “I, like others, repeatedly unfollowed Trump and Vance on Monday, only to discover that I was following them again,” a Facebook user wrote.
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