Meta says it mistakenly fact-checked image of Trump raising his fist after shooting

Tech conglomerate Meta said it mistakenly fact-checked the image of former President Donald Trump raising his fist moments after being shot during an assassination attempt at a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Meta spokeswoman Dani Lever said the company’s fact check warning was supposed to apply to an altered version of the image showing Secret Service agents around Trump smiling.

“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,” Lever wrote in a statement on X on Monday. “This has been fixed and we apologize for the mistake.”

Meta works with independent fact-checkers and utilizes artificial intelligence to “scale the work of fact-checkers by applying warning labels to duplicates of false claims, and reducing their distribution,” according to the company’s website.

Multiple accounts posted screenshots to X on Monday showing that Facebook had flagged the iconic image of Trump as an “altered photo.”