Athira Sethu
Kochi, 24 January 2025
On January 23, 2025, many people noticed that former US President Joe Biden was missing from Google search results. When they typed in “US Presidents,” “United States Presidents,” or “US Presidents in order,” they didn’t find the name of Biden. It had listed Donald Trump as the last two presidents, and Biden’s name was nowhere to be seen on the list. However, it successfully displayed former presidents like Barack Obama, George Bush, and Bill Clinton.
This flaw persisted for around a few hours, and all social media handlers posted screenshots right away. As long as nobody knows how much time this bug persisted for, the technical team resolved it by about 2 am ET or 12:30 pm IST.
Google reacted to this by saying the situation was brought about by a “data error” in its system. The company’s spokesman said they located the problem and quickly fixed it.
People did not seem particularly upset even when the problem had been solved and the missing name reappeared in the search result. Many opined that such a missing name was not a mistake but one by the big tech firms to help out President Trump. Some called this a dangerous moment if companies can make people “disappear” from record books by deletion of information. One asked, “Who paid Google to erase an entire presidency?
Also worth noting is the fact that Google had donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, and its CEO, Sundar Pichai, was seen on stage at Trump’s event. The issue was resolved, but it left many wondering how much control big tech companies have over the information we see online.
