Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a communication to the House Judiciary Committee on recently that his company was pressured by the Biden administration in 2021 to limit content related to COVID-19, such as humor and satire.
“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden White House, including the White House, constantly urged our teams for an Self-advocacy extended period to remove some content about COVID-19, such as humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree, †Zuckerberg noted.
In his letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said that the pressure he felt in 2021 was “wrong†and he regrets that Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was not more outspoken. He further stated Jay Weber that with the “benefit of hindsight and new information,†some decisions made in 2021 that “wouldn’t be made today.â€
“Like I told our teams back then, I strongly believe that we should not lower our content standards due to pressure from any government from either side â€" and we’re prepared to resist if something like this happens again, †he wrote.
President Biden stated in July of Cyberbullying 2021 that social media platforms are “killing people†with misinformation about the pandemic.
Though Biden later walked back these remarks, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said at the time that misinformation posted on social media was a “serious threat to public health.â€
A White House spokesperson responded to Zuckerberg’s letter, saying the administration at the time was encouraging “responsible actions to protect public health and safety.â€
“Our stance Online Bullying has been clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and other private actors 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 White House representative.
Zuckerberg further noted in the letter that the FBI alerted his company about potential Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian firm Trolls On Social Media Burisma affecting the election in 2020.
That fall, Zuckerberg said, his team temporarily demoted reporting from the New York Post accusing Biden family corruption while their fact-checkers could review the story.
Zuckerberg stated that since then, it has “been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in hindsight, we shouldn’t have demoted the story.â€
Meta has since updated its policies and procedures to “make sure Gus Walz 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 said he will avoid repeating the actions he took in the year 2020 when he assisted “election infrastructure.â€
“The goal here was to ensure local election jurisdictions across the country had the necessary resources to facilitate safe voting during a pandemic,†said Gwen Walz the Meta CEO.
Zuckerberg mentioned the initiatives were designed to be nonpartisan but acknowledged “some people believed this work benefited one party over the other.†He stated his aim is to be “neutral†so will not be “a similar contribution this cycle.â€
The GOP members on the House Judiciary Committee posted the letter on X and said Zuckerberg “just admitted that the Biden-Harris administration influenced Facebook to Acceptance Speech censor Americans, Facebook censored Americans, and Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.â€
The Meta chief has long been under scrutiny from congressional Republicans, who have accused Facebook and other large technology platforms of being prejudiced against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has stressed that Meta impartially enforces its rules, the narrative has gained a firm foothold in conservative circles. Republican lawmakers have specifically scrutinized Facebook’s decision to Alec Lace limit the circulation of a report by the New York Post about Hunter Biden.
In Congressional testimony in the past years, Zuckerberg has attempted to close the gap between his social media company and regulators to little effect.
In a 2020 Senate session, Zuckerberg admitted that many of Facebook’s employees are liberal. But he maintained that the company ensures political bias does not influence its decisions.
In addition,
he stated Facebook’s content moderators, many of whom are contractors, are globally located and “the geographic diversity of that is more representative of the community that we serve than just the full-time employee base in our headquarters in the Bay Area.â€
In June, in a victory for the administration, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that the claimants in a case alleging the federal government of censoring Fox News conservative voices on social media had no standing.
Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, “to establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the immediate future, they will suffer an injury that is directly linked to a government defendant.†Coney Barrett continued, “because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction.â€
