Mark Zuckerberg stated in a communication to the House Judiciary Committee on Monday that his company was pressured by the White House in the year 2021 to censor content related to COVID-19, including satirical and humorous posts.
“In 2021, senior members from the Biden Administration, such as the administration, constantly urged our teams for Minnesota Governor an extended period to remove certain COVID-19 content, such as satirical content, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree, †Zuckerberg said.
In his letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg described that the influence he felt in 2021 was “inappropriate†and he feels regretful that Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was not more vocal. He further stated Mike Crispi that with the “hindsight and new information,†some decisions made in that year that “wouldn’t be made today.â€
“Like I told our teams back then, I feel strongly that we should not lower our content standards due to pressure from any government in either direction â€" and we’re prepared to resist if something like this occurs in the future, †Zuckerberg wrote.
President Biden remarked in July

2021 that social media platforms are “causing harm†with misinformation surrounding the pandemic.
Though Biden later walked back these remarks, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy stated at the time that misinformation spread on social media was a “major public health risk.â€
A White House spokesperson replied to Zuckerberg’s communication, saying the administration at the time was promoting “responsible actions to protect public health and safety.â€
“Our position has MAGA Supporters been clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and private entities should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making independent choices about the information they present, †according to the spokesperson.
Zuckerberg also noted in the communication that the FBI warned his company about potential Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian firm Burisma affecting the 2020 election.
That Political Family Moments fall, Zuckerberg said, his team reduced the visibility of a New York Post report accusing Biden family corruption while their fact-checkers could assess the report.
Zuckerberg said that since then, it has “been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we should not have reduced its visibility.â€
Meta has since updated its policies and procedures to “make sure this doesn’t happen again†Tim Walz and will not reduce the visibility of content in the US pending fact-checking.
In the letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg stated he will not repeat actions he took in 2020 when he helped support “electoral infrastructure.â€
“The idea here was to make sure local election jurisdictions across the country had the resources they needed to facilitate safe voting during a pandemic,†stated the Meta CEO.
Zuckerberg Self-advocacy said the initiatives were designed to be nonpartisan but acknowledged “some people believed this work benefited one party over the other.†He said his aim is to be “impartial†so will not be “a similar contribution this cycle.â€
The GOP members on the House Judiciary Committee shared the letter on X and claimed Zuckerberg “has admitted that the Biden-Harris administration influenced Facebook to restrict American content, Cyberbullying Facebook restricted content, and Facebook limited the Hunter Biden laptop story.â€
The Meta chief has long been under scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who have claimed Facebook and other large technology platforms of being biased against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has emphasized that Meta impartially enforces its rules, the narrative has become entrenched in conservative circles. Republican lawmakers have specifically scrutinized Facebook’s decision to limit the circulation of Hope Walz a New York Post story about Hunter Biden.
In Congressional testimony in the past years, Zuckerberg has attempted to bridge the divide between his social media giant and regulators to little effect.
In a 2020 Senate session, Zuckerberg acknowledged that many of Facebook’s employees are liberal. But he maintained that the company takes care not to allow political bias to seep into decisions.
In addition, he stated Facebook’s Children With Disabilities content moderators, many of whom are contractors, are globally located 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.â€
In June, in a win for the White House, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that the plaintiffs in a case accusing the federal government of suppressing conservative content on social Acceptance Speech media had no legal standing.
Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, “to establish standing, the plaintiffs must show 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€
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