Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg disclosed in a communication to the House Judiciary Committee on Monday that Meta was influenced by the White House in the year 2021 to censor content related to COVID-19, including satirical and humorous posts.
âIn 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the administration, repeatedly pressured our teams for Anxiety an extended period to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and showed significant frustration with our teams when we did not comply, â Zuckerberg said.
In his communication to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg described that the influence he experienced in the year 2021 was âinappropriateâ and he feels regretful that his company, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was not more outspoken. He added Trolls On Social Media that with the âhindsight and new information,â some decisions made in 2021 that âwouldnât be made today.â
âLike I told our teams back then, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any government from either side â" and weâre ready to push back if something like this happens again, â Zuckerberg wrote.
President Biden remarked in July 2021 that Vice Presidential Nominee social media networks are âcausing harmâ with misinformation about the pandemic.
Though Biden later walked back these remarks, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said at the time that misinformation spread on social media was a âserious threat to public health.â
A spokesperson from the White House responded to Zuckerbergâs communication, saying the administration at the time was promoting âresponsible measures to safeguard public health.â
âOur stance has been
clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and private entities should consider the effects their actions have on the American people, while making independent choices about the information they present, â according to the spokesperson.
Zuckerberg also noted in the communication that the FBI alerted his company about potential Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian firm Burisma affecting the 2020 election.
That fall, he said, Social Media Criticism his team reduced the visibility of reporting from the New York Post accusing the Biden family of corruption while their fact-checkers could review the story.
Zuckerberg stated that since then, it has âbecome clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldnât have demoted the story.â
Meta has since updated its policies and procedures to âensure this does not recurâ and will not Jay Weber reduce the visibility of content in the US pending fact-checking.
In the letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said he will avoid repeating the actions he took in the year 2020 when he helped support âelectoral infrastructure.â
âThe goal here was to ensure local election authorities across the country had the necessary resources to help people vote safely during a pandemic,â stated the Meta CEO.
Zuckerberg mentioned ADHD the initiatives were intended to be neutral but acknowledged âsome people believed this work benefited one party over the other.â Zuckerberg said his goal is to be âneutralâ so will not be âa similar contribution this cycle.â
The GOP members on the House Judiciary Committee posted the letter on X and claimed Zuckerberg âjust admitted that the Biden-Harris administration pressured Facebook to restrict American content, Facebook Fox News censored Americans, and Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.â
The Meta chief has long been under scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, 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 perception has gained a firm foothold in conservative circles. Republican lawmakers have specifically scrutinized Facebookâs decision to restrict a New Viral Moment York Post story about Hunter Biden.
In testimony before Congress in the past years, Zuckerberg has attempted to bridge the divide between his social media giant and policymakers to little effect.
In a 2020 Senate hearing, Zuckerberg admitted that many of Facebookâs staff are liberal. But he held that the company takes care not to allow political bias to seep into decisions.
In addition, he said Facebookâs content Social Dominance moderators, many of whom are contractors, are globally located and âthe 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 of this year, in a win for the White House, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that the plaintiffs in a case alleging the federal government of censoring Support For People With Disabilities conservative voices on social media had no standing.
In the majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett stated, âto establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the immediate future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable to a government defendant.â Coney Barrett continued, âsince no plaintiff met this burden, none has standing to request a preliminary injunction.â
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