House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., is seeking information from Meta and Google on potential censorship related to the July assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
Comer sent letters on Wednesday to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai requesting documents and information following reports indicating Meta's AI assistant and Google Search's Autocomplete function generated inaccurate or unrelated information regarding the attempt on Trump's life.
Specifically, Comer seeks to understand how Google designs its Search product and Autocomplete features, as well as how the Meta AI chatbot is designed, reviewed, managed and updated, according to a press release from the committee.
"Americans rely upon prominent internet search engines such as Google to gather news and information critical to their understanding of national politics and events—and never more so than during a Presidential election season," Comer wrote to Pichai. "On behalf of the American people, the Committee is dedicated to fully understanding when and how information is being suppressed or modified, whether it be due to technical error, a policy intended to ensure safety, or a specific intent to mislead.
"Google users report that autocompleted search prompts related to the assassination attempt of President Trump produced results for failed assassination attempts of former Presidents, including Harry Truman, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan—or even assassinations of historical figures such as Archduke Franz Ferdinand—but omitted from the list of automatically generated search suggestions the recent attempt on President Trump's life,” he continued. “The Committee now writes to request certain documents and information to assist its investigation of this matter to better understand how Google designs its Search product and Autocomplete feature."
In August 2022, Zuckerberg confirmed that Facebook censored the New York Post story on Hunter Biden's laptop after being warned by the FBI that the social media company should be wary of foreign election interference and misinformation.
In response, the Oversight Committee advanced, and the full House passed, H.R.140, known as the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act, which prohibits federal employees from influencing or coercing private sector entities to censor lawful speech posted on its service. The bill has not yet cleared the Senate.
"The Committee has long been concerned with how large technology companies leverage their businesses to influence public opinion—especially the design and use of content moderation policies within private sector social media companies—and how company policies are shaped and influenced by Executive Branch officials," Comer wrote to Zuckerberg.
"When asked if the assassination on President Trump was fictional, Meta's bot responded that there 'was no real assassination attempt on Donald Trump. I strive to provide accurate and reliable information, but sometimes mistakes can occur.' The Committee requests that Meta produce all internal policies or any other documents related to how the Meta AI chatbot is designed, reviewed, managed, and updated."
Comer set an Aug. 28 deadline for both tech executives to produce the requested documents and information.
Meta told Newsmax on Wednesday that it could not specifically comment on the letter, but that it is "working" with the Oversight Committee.
"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," Meta said in a statement. "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."