Meta Rushes to Fix AI Chatbot's US President Blunder

Meta is scrambling to fix a significant error in its AI chatbot that is causing it to incorrectly identify the current US president, Reuters reports. The issue, deemed urgent enough to trigger an internal "site event" (SEV), prompted Meta to initiate an emergency troubleshooting procedure.

The chatbot's failure to recognize President Donald Trump, who was inaugurated on Monday, has sparked widespread scrutiny of Meta's platforms for signs of politically motivated changes. This incident follows a series of policy shifts and platform changes initiated by CEO Mark Zuckerberg in recent weeks, seemingly aimed at improving relations with the new administration.

When asked to name the US president, the Meta AI chatbot responded: "The current president of the United States is Joe Biden. However, according to the most recent information available, Donald Trump was sworn in as the president on January 20, 2025."

This error prompted Meta to activate its SEV protocol, a procedure used to address critical issues affecting its services. "Everyone knows the President of the United States is Donald Trump," said Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts. "All generative AI systems sometimes return outdated results, and we will continue to improve our features." However, Roberts declined to comment on the specific emergency procedures implemented.

This incident marks at least the third SEV this week related to the US presidential transition, according to a source familiar with the matter. These occurrences have fueled speculation among social media observers about potential politically motivated changes within Meta's platforms.

One such issue involved Meta seemingly forcing some users to re-follow the profiles of President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and First Lady Melania Trump on Facebook and Instagram, even after they had unfollowed those accounts. The company attributed this to an error during the usual process of transferring official White House social media accounts to new control when a new administration takes office. However, the prolonged transfer process and the system's failure to register "unfollow" requests led to a priority SEV1, triggering an urgent fix.

Another significant issue involved Instagram blocking searches for the hashtags "#Democrat" and "#Democrats" for some users, while searches for "#Republican" yielded results without any problem. While acknowledging the issue, Meta clarified that it affected "people's ability to search for a number of different hashtags on Instagram - not just those on the left."