Trump Atop Worst Censorship of 2024: Election Interference and Beyond
Big Tech aimed for a Silent Night all year long as it silenced users’ free speech. While Americans voted for their political leaders, Big Tech platforms took every opportunity to vote for censorship.
Election-interfering censorship was front and center ahead of the 2024 election, particularly targeting Republican presidential nominee and ultimate victor Donald Trump and his campaign. Google was especially blatant in its election search manipulation. Facebook turned into the Grinch when a church posted an announcement of its Nativity play, and the platform also pulled the trigger on content by a firearms manufacturer. An Israeli news outlet and other groups and individuals condemning Islamic terrorism found themselves in Big Tech’s crosshairs, as did individuals challenging leftist dogma on transgenderism, contraceptives and abortion.
Below are the worst censorship cases of 2024, pulled from MRC Free Speech America’s exclusive CensorTrack database.
1) Meta, Amazon and Google suppressed information on stunning assassination attempt on the GOP presidential nominee. After a man shot Donald Trump and killed rally attendee Corey Comperatore in July, Meta and Google actively suppressed and censored images and information about the shattering event. Meta-owned Instagram and Facebook imposed fact-check interstitials on a genuine and now iconic image of Trump with his fist raised in the air after being shot. But Google also suppressed search suggestions for the assassination attempt on Trump, as The Daily Mail uncovered. Then, mere hours after the second assassination attempt on Trump, Google blocked its AI chatbot Gemini from responding to a question about the attempt. Even more egregious, Amazon’s Alexa denied the fact that Trump was shot. Amazon subsequently admitted the error.
2) Google search results presented majority leftist sources on presidential nominees. In each one of MRC’s exclusive six weeklysearches leading up to Trump’s election, when MRC put the search terms “donald trump presidential race 2024” and “kamala harris presidential race 2024” in Google search, Google buried right-leaning news sites in search results, sometimes as much as 20+ pages deep. This tactic produced a steady diet of hostile news sites about Donald Trump to its users. Google continued its search result manipulation on Election Day and afterwards. Indeed, MRC found that Google had also undermined President-elect Trump’s nominees with overwhelmingly leftist news results for five straight weeks.
3) Google, X and service providers censored the 2024 presidential campaigns. Google search suppressed Trump’s campaign website twice in June and then again in July, during the Republican National Convention. Meanwhile, X restricted the Trump War Room account during the first presidential debate between Trump and Joe Biden, and after Kamala Harris became the Democrat presidential candidate, X temporarily blocked users from following her new KamalaHQ account. Finally, over the July 4th weekend, T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T all prevented the Trump campaign from sending out text messages.
4) Facebook: the Grinch that censored Christmas. Grace Fellowship Church posted a Facebook announcement for its children’s Nativity play: “Join us on Sunday, December 15 at 9 or 10:30 AM as our GraceSquad Children’s Ministry presents ‘Straight Outta Bethlehem’, a Christmas story-inspired musical for the entire family!” Screenshots showed that Facebook asserted the post, which it removed, “goes against our Community Standards on spam.” The platform also claimed the post might use “misleading links or content to trick people to visit, or stay on, a website.” Nor is this the only instance of anti-Christian Big Tech censorship. Radio talk show host Michael Savage said in a live broadcast that YouTube suspended him for a week in September after he shared an old video of him discussing Christmas, the genocide of Christians by Muslims in the Middle East and efforts to help persecuted Christians. YouTube removed it for allegedly being “violent or graphic.”
5) Meta platform took aim at firearms manufacturer. Shortly before Thanksgiving and Black Friday, Facebook suspended gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson, which has been in business since 1852. Smith & Wesson shareda screenshot showing Facebook on Nov. 22 vaguely asserted, “We suspended your Page because some of your activity looks like it doesn’t follow our rules.” The platform further flagged a story and two posts as supposed justification, but later a Meta spokesperson admitted the manufacturer was censored “in error.”
6) Big Tech censored Israeli news and users for reporting on eliminations of terrorists. Facebook suspended Israeli news organization Arutz Sheva based on alleged complaints, which the outlet said may have been antisemitic reporting campaigns. Facebook sent Arutz Sheva complaints with the message “It looks like you shared or sent something that attacks a person, or group of people, based on who they are.” But according to Arutz Sheva, the content on its Facebook page dealt with topics such as an IDF announcement, “the elimination of senior Hezbollah official Nabil Qaouk on September 28th… [and] of the terrorist who murdered a father in front of his children on October 7th,” among other things. Nor is this a one-off. In May, X limited post visibility for two users calling for the destruction of Hamas, including Parents Defending Education President Nicki Neily, who had posted an image showing the five Americans held hostage by Hamas. X Community Notes further fact-checked Donald Trump Jr. when he mocked anti-Israel students who had graffitied “FREE PALASTINE” on a flight of stairs. In May, a TikTok user reported on X that he had commented on a video saying, “Are you holding hamas to any account?” TikTok removed the comment, vaguely claiming a violation, according to screenshots posted by the user.
7) Google accused PragerU of “hate speech” for its documentary warning about radical Islamic jihad. Google banned PragerU from its App Store in June. Google asserted, per screenshots from PragerU, “After a recent review, we found that your app PragerU [redacted] is not compliant with one or more of our Developer Program Policies,” due to “Content or speech asserting that a protected group is inhuman, inferior or worthy of being hated.” The documentary called “Dear Infidels” provided a platform for victims of Islamic terror to tell their stories and expose the horrific reality they suffered. Google again banned PragerU from its App Store on December 20 for alleged “misleading claims.”
8) X censored widow of late Russian dissident. X suspended the account of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s widow in February after she accused Russian President Vladamir Putin of killing her husband. The platform later stated this was done in error and reinstated her account.
9) Big Tech went knives out into the culture wars. Communist Chinese government-tied TikTok, responding to pressure from The Washington Post, deleted content from commentator Brett Cooper and TikTok influencer Nicole Bendayan discussing the harmful side effects of hormonal contraception. In June (Pride Month), TikTok also banned the account for women’s clothing brand XX-XY because it released an ad condemning biological males in women’s sports and urging women to stand against it. Reddit engaged in Pride Month censorship too, as it banned the anti-child-transitioning LGBTQ group Gays Against Groomers (GAG). GAG was again targeted in August, when X limited post visibility for GAG’s post critiquing the drag queen “Last Supper” at the Paris Olympics opening ceremonies. Meta even joined in censoring cultural content. For instance, Facebook fact-checked Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins for correcting ABC presidential debate moderators after they claimed that killing a baby post-birth is not legal in any state. Instagram suspendeddetransitioner and activist Chloe Cole without a specific explanation, though it quickly restored her account.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’scontact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
