In what many social media users see as Big Tech’s latest move to align with Donald Trump, Google temporarily removed Joe Biden from its ‘US Presidents’ search results.
According to The Independent, searches for terms like ‘US Presidents,’ ‘United States Presidents,’ and ‘US Presidents in order’ failed to include Joe Biden’s presidency, showing Donald Trump as the most recent president instead.
Biden Missing from Google’s Presidential List
On 23 January, eagle-eyed users on social media noticed and raised concerns that Joe Biden was absent from the list of US presidents displayed in Google search results. Instead, the search results showed Donald Trump listed twice as the most recent president, bypassing Biden altogether.
Before Trump’s 2016 presidency, the results displayed the correct chronological sequence of leaders, including Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George Washington. Screenshots of Biden’s omission quickly spread online, fuelling speculation and criticism.
It remains unclear how long Biden was excluded from the search results. However, Google reportedly resolved the issue at around 2 a.m. ET, describing it as a glitch.
Google admitted the mistake, attributing it to some ‘data error.’ A Google spokesperson told CNBC: ‘There was a brief data error in our knowledge graph. We identified the root cause and resolved it quickly.’
Internet Reacts To Biden’s Omission
Before Google fixed the issue, some social media users claimed that removing Biden’s name was Big Tech’s latest attempt to get in President Trump’s good books. ‘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 BlueSky user wrote.
Another wrote, ‘Google United States Presidents and Biden is not on there. This is bigger than social media.’ A separate user commented, ‘Left: It appears Google forgot to include Biden on list of presidents in order. Right: corrected shortly thereafter, lol,’ comparing search results before and after Biden’s removal.
‘Who paid Google to initiate this SEO bullsh*t to help erase an entire presidency?.’ another netizen wrote.
It’s worth noting that Google was one of the big tech companies that contributed to Trump’s inauguration fund. The search engine giant donated £0.81 million ($1 million), and CEO Sundar Pichai took a central position on stage alongside other tech CEOs during the ceremony on Monday.
Meta Accused Of Pushing Trump On Users
Ahead of the search glitch, millions of Meta users also reported that their accounts were automatically made to follow Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. On top of that, Meta allegedly removed the option to unfollow.
‘I, like others, repeatedly unfollowed Trump and Vance on Monday, only to discover that I was following them again,’ said Facebook user Anna Springer on Threads, which is also owned by Meta. ‘Not sure if it was just a glitch or something intentional, but it definitely happened.’
People were not made to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts for the President, Vice President or First Lady. Those accounts are managed by the White House so with a new administration, the content on those Pages changes.
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) January 22, 2025
Meta Communications Director Andy Stone defended the company in an X post, stating, ‘People were not made to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts for the President, Vice President or First Lady.’
On Threads, Stone said: ‘It may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands.’
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