Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg disclosed in a communication to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on recently that his company was pressured by the Biden administration in 2021 to censor certain COVID-19 content, such as satirical and humorous posts.

“In 2021, senior members from the Biden Administration, such as the administration, constantly urged our teams for an extended period to remove some content about COVID-19, such as satirical content, and showed significant frustration with our teams when we did not comply, ” Zuckerberg noted.

In his letter to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg described that the pressure he felt in the year 2021 was “inappropriate” and he feels regretful that his company, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was not more outspoken. Zuckerberg further stated that with the “hindsight and new information,” some decisions made in 2021 that “wouldn’t be made today.”

“Like I told our teams back then, I strongly believe that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration from either side – and we’re prepared to resist if something like this happens again, ” he wrote.

President Biden remarked in July 2021 that social media platforms are “killing people” with misinformation about the pandemic.

Though Biden later revised these comments, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said at the time that misinformation spread on social media was a “serious threat to public health.”

A White House spokesperson replied to Zuckerberg’s communication, saying the administration at the time was encouraging “responsible actions to protect public health and safety.”

“Our stance has been consistent and clear: we believe tech companies and private entities should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making their own decisions about the content they share, ” according to the spokesperson.

Zuckerberg further mentioned in the communication that the FBI warned his company about possible Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian firm Burisma affecting the 2020 election.

That fall, he said, his team temporarily demoted a New York Post report alleging Biden family corruption while their fact-checkers could assess the story.

Zuckerberg stated that since then, it has “become clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in hindsight, we shouldn’t have demoted the story.”

Meta has since updated its policies and procedures to “make sure this doesn’t happen again” and will no longer demote content in the US while waiting for fact-checkers.

In the communication to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg stated he will not repeat actions he took in the year 2020 when he helped support “election infrastructure.”

“The idea here was to ensure local election jurisdictions across the country had the necessary resources to help people vote safely during a pandemic,” stated the Meta CEO.

Zuckerberg said the initiatives were intended to be neutral but acknowledged “some people believed this work benefited one party over the other.” Zuckerberg stated his aim is to be “neutral” so he will not make “a similar contribution this cycle.”

The GOP members on the House Judiciary Committee posted the letter on X and said Zuckerberg “has admitted that the Biden-Harris administration influenced Facebook to censor Americans, Facebook censored Americans, and Facebook limited the Hunter Biden laptop story.”

The Meta chief has long been under scrutiny from congressional Republicans, who have accused Facebook and other major tech platforms of being biased against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has stressed that Meta impartially enforces its rules, the perception has become entrenched in conservative circles. Republican lawmakers have specifically scrutinized Facebook’s decision to restrict a report by the New York Post about Hunter Biden.

In testimony before Congress in recent years, Zuckerberg has sought to close the gap between his social media company and policymakers to little effect.

In a 2020 Senate session, Zuckerberg admitted that many of Facebook’s staff are left-leaning. But he held that the company ensures political bias does not influence its decisions.

In addition, he stated Facebook’s content moderators, many of whom are outsourced, are based worldwide and “our global team better represents the diversity of the community we serve than just the full-time employee base in our headquarters in the Bay Area.”

In June of this year, in a win for the White House, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the plaintiffs in a case accusing the federal government of suppressing conservative content on social media had no legal standing.

In the majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett stated, “to prove standing, the plaintiffs must show a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable to a government defendant.” Coney Barrett continued, “since no plaintiff met this burden, none has standing to request a preliminary injunction.”
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
28 |
29 |
30 |
31 |
32 |
33 |
34 |
35 |
36 |
37 |
38 |
39 |
40 |
41 |
42 |
43 |
44 |
45 |
46 |
47 |
48 |
49 |
50 |
51 |
52 |
53 |
54 |
55 |
56 |
57 |
58 |
59 |
60 |
61 |
62 |
63 |
64 |
65 |
66 |
67 |
68 |
69 |
70 |
71 |
72 |
73 |
74 |
75 |
76 |
77 |
78 |
79 |
80 |
81 |
82 |
83 |
84 |
85 |
86 |
87 |
88 |
89 |
90 |
91 |
92 |
93 |
94 |
95 |
96 |
97 |
98 |
99 |
100 |
101 |
102 |
103 |
104 |
105 |
106 |
107 |
108 |
109 |
110 |
111 |
112 |
113 |
114 |
115 |
116 |
117 |
118 |
119 |
120 |
121 |
122 |
123 |
124 |
125 |
126 |
127 |
128 |
129 |
130 |
131 |
132 |
133 |
134 |
135 |
136 |
137 |
138 |
139 |
140 |
141 |
142 |
143 |
144 |
145 |
146 |
147 |
148 |
149 |
150 |
151 |
152 |
153 |
154 |
155 |
156 |
157 |
158 |
159 |
160 |
161 |
162 |
163 |
164 |
165 |
166 |
167 |
168 |
169 |
170 |
171 |
172 |
173 |
174 |
175 |
176 |
177 |
178 |
179 |
180 |
181 |
182 |
183 |
184 |
185 |
186 |
187 |
188 |
189 |
190 |
191 |
192 |
193 |
194 |
195 |
196 |
197 |
198 |
199 |
200 |
201 |
202 |
203 |
204 |
205 |
206 |
207 |
208 |
209 |
210 |
211 |
212 |
213 |
214 |
215 |
216 |
217 |
218 |
219 |
220 |
221 |
222 |
223 |
224 |
225 |
226 |
227 |
228 |
229 |
230 |
231 |
232 |
233 |
234 |
235 |
236 |
237 |
238 |
239 |
240 |
241 |