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Former president Joe Biden\u2019s reign in the Oval Office was completely removed from the Google search results for the term \u201cUS Presidents\u201d for a time on Thursday morning. <\/p>\n
The glitch was fixed around 2am Eastern time; it\u2019s not clear for how long Biden was written out of Google\u2019s history. The list gave President Donald Trump as having served as the last two presidents of the United States. The list was correct before that, naming Presidents Obama, Bush, Clinton and so on. <\/p>\n
The erasing of the Biden administration was first noticed by BlueSky users, many of whom believed it was big tech\u2019s latest attempt to cosy up to Trump. <\/p>\n
On Monday, the biggest names in Silicon Valley, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, joined \u201cFirst Buddy\u201d Elon Musk to watch Trump be inaugurated as the 47th president. Musk later stole the headlines following an appearance at a rally in which he made an \u201codd salute\u201d.<\/p>\n
The search results that greeted many users in the early hours of Thursday, with Biden missing (Google)The outrage on the liberal enclave of BlueSky was palpable in the early hours of Thursday. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf 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,\u201d wrote one user. <\/p>\n
\u201cJoe Biden was deleted from Google list of Presidents. My guess is it is a high level hack?,\u201d said another. <\/p>\n
\u201cGoogle United States Presidents and Biden is not on there. This is bigger than social media,\u201d wrote another. <\/p>\n
In the days leading up to the search glitch, millions of Meta users began complaining that their accounts were forced to follow President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, and were forbidden from unfollowing. <\/p>\n
\u201cI, like others, repeatedly unfollowed Trump and Vance on Monday, only to discover that I was following them again,\u201d said Facebook user Anna Springer on Threads, which is also owned by Meta. \u201cNot sure if it was just a glitch or something intentional, but it definitely happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meta communications director Andy Stone offered a defense in a post on X. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople were not made to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts for the President, Vice President or First Lady,\u201d Stone said on X. \u201cThose accounts are managed by the White House so with a new administration, the content on those pages changes.\u201d<\/p>\n
And on Threads, Stone said: \u201cIt may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inboxSign up to our free IndyTech newsletterSign up to our free IndyTech newsletter I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our\u00a0privacy policy Former president Joe Biden\u2019s reign in the Oval Office was completely removed from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n