In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the Biden administration pressured Facebook to censor COVID-19-related content, including memes and satire, during the pandemic.
Zuckerberg acknowledged discussions on government interactions with media companies and claimed the Biden administration pressured his teams to censor COVID-19 content in 2021. He expressed regret for not speaking out more and stated that Facebook will push back against such demands in the future.
The White House denied the claims of administration pressure on Facebook, stating that it only encouraged responsible actions during the pandemic. However, the Biden administration believed such posts harmed confidence in vaccines among specific groups, and President Biden previously criticized lies on platforms like Facebook as "killing people."
Zuckerberg emphasized the importance of not compromising content standards due to any administration's pressure and vowed to avoid repeating a 2020 donation to support local election infrastructure. He admitted that Meta made a mistake in temporarily suppressing a story about Hunter Biden's laptop in 2020 and has changed its policies to avoid similar errors.
Zuckerberg has been accused by Republicans, led by Rep. Jim Jordan, of bias against conservatives on platforms like Facebook, and has been trying to prove his political neutrality.
Journalist Alex Berenson has alleged collusion between White House members and Pfizer executives to silence his COVID vaccine skepticism, and is suing President Biden, White House officials, and Pfizer executives for violating his First Amendment rights.
Experts warn the 2024 U.S. general elections could be flooded with misinformation on social media due to AI tools producing fake news. The White House responded by stating that tech companies should act responsibly in protecting the public, while the Supreme Court ruled that lawsuits claiming government coercion to remove content are constitutional.
The Biden-Harris administration is still advocating for social media censorship in the name of fighting misinformation and has utilized social media censorship and attacked journalists exposing government actions.
Facebook eventually agreed to intensify actions against COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation, but Zuckerberg assured the House Judiciary Committee that similar censorship under pressure will not recur, and Facebook executives have expressed regret over succumbing to government pressure and vow to resist such influence in the future.
Conservatives have long criticized Facebook and other tech giants for liberal bias and censorship, and tensions over content policing heightened during the pandemic and 2020 election.
The 2016 presidential election transformed social media companies, with Russian actors using these platforms to sow division in the United States.
Zuckerberg's letter is seen as a win for Republicans by the House Judiciary Committee and Truth Social, but his efforts to befriend Republicans may not guarantee their support in the future.
The FBI warned Meta about a potential Russian disinformation operation involving the Biden family and Burisma before the 2020 election, leading to the temporary limitation of content related to Hunter Biden's laptop.
Zuckerberg announced his decision not to make further contributions to support electoral infrastructure in this year's U.S. presidential election.
This article was written in collaboration with Generative AI news company Alchemiq
Sources: USA Today, CBS News, CNN, The Washington Post, NBC News, AP News, Fast Company, LA Times, BBC, Fox News, ABC News, Sky News, New York Post, DW, The Verge, Gizmodo, The Hill.