Facebook is issuing a correction after eagle-eyed users on X noticed that a photo of former U.S. President Donald Trump was being incorrectly censored.
The now-famous photo of Trump putting his fist in the air during the attempt on his life earlier this month in Pennsylvania was erroneously labeled “altered.”
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“Independent fact-checkers reviewed a similar photo and said it was altered in a way that could mislead people,” a message read on screens beneath the image.
However, the photo in question was not altered and was originally taken by Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci and distributed by the AP.
In response to the pushback, Dani Lever, the public affairs director at Facebook’s parent company Meta, wrote on X the label was “an error” and that the message was supposed to appear on a different, altered version of the image.
This was an error. This fact check was initially applied to a doctored photo showing the secret service agents smiling, and in some cases our systems incorrectly applied that fact check to the real photo. This has been fixed and we apologize for the mistake. https://t.co/y613GuuJpV
— Dani Lever (@Dani_Lever) July 29, 2024
“In some cases our systems incorrectly applied that fact check to the real photo. This has been fixed and we apologize for the mistake,” Lever wrote on X.
The incorrect censorship comes weeks after tech leaders voiced their well wishes for Trump’s recovery following the attempt on his life, including Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
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“This is such a sad day for our country,” Zuckerberg said, at the time. Political violence undermines democracy and must always be condemned.
Zuckerberg is not affiliated with any political party, though a 2019 Time report found that he was secretly recommending potential hires to now-U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 Democratic presidential campaign team.
