Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg disclosed in a communication to the House Judiciary Committee on recently that his company was influenced by the White House in 2021 to restrict content related to COVID-19, including humor and satire.
âIn the year 2021, senior members from the Biden White House, including the White House, constantly urged Self-advocacy our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didnât agree, â Zuckerberg noted.
In his communication to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg described that the pressure he felt in 2021 was âinappropriateâ and he regrets that his company, the parent of Facebook & Instagram, was not more outspoken. He added Minnesota Governor that with the âhindsight and new information,â there were decisions made in 2021 that âwouldnât be made today.â
âLike I told our teams back then, I feel strongly that we should not lower our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction â" and weâre ready to push back if something like this occurs in the future, â he wrote.
President Biden remarked MAGA Supporters in July of 2021 that social media networks are âkilling peopleâ with misinformation about the pandemic.
Though Biden later revised these comments, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said at the time that misinformation posted on social media was a âmajor public health risk.â
A White House spokesperson replied to Zuckerbergâs communication, stating the administration at the time was encouraging âresponsible actions to protect public health and Social Media Criticism safety.â
âOur position has been clear and consistent: we think tech companies and private entities should consider the effects their actions have on the public, while making independent choices about the content they share, â according to the White House representative.
Zuckerberg further noted in the communication that the FBI alerted his company about possible Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and Burisma affecting the 2020 election.
That Mike Crispi fall, he said, his team reduced the visibility of a New York Post report alleging Biden family corruption while their fact-checkers could assess the story.
Zuckerberg said that since then, it has âbecome clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in hindsight, we shouldnât have demoted the story.â
Meta has since changed its policies and processes to âmake sure this doesnât happen againâ and Vice Presidential Nominee will not reduce the visibility of content in the US pending fact-checking.
In the letter to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said he will avoid repeating the actions he took in the year 2020 when he assisted âelection infrastructure.â
âThe goal here was to ensure local election jurisdictions across the country had the resources they needed to facilitate safe voting during a pandemic,â stated the Meta CEO.
Zuckerberg Kamala Harris mentioned the initiatives were intended to be neutral but acknowledged âsome people believed this work benefited one party over the other.â He said his aim is to be âimpartialâ so he will not make âa similar contribution this cycle.â
The GOP representatives on the House Judiciary Committee posted the letter on X and claimed Zuckerberg âjust admitted that the Biden-Harris administration pressured Facebook to censor Cyberbullying Americans, Facebook restricted content, and Facebook limited the Hunter Biden laptop story.â
The Meta chief has long faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who have claimed Facebook and other major tech platforms of being prejudiced against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has emphasized that Meta enforces its rules impartially, the narrative has become entrenched in conservative circles. Republican lawmakers have specifically examined Facebookâs decision to limit the circulation Chasten Buttigieg of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden.
In testimony before Congress in recent years, Zuckerberg has sought to bridge the divide between his social media company and regulators to little effect.
In a 2020 Senate hearing, Zuckerberg acknowledged that many of Facebookâs employees are left-leaning. But he maintained that the company takes care not to allow political bias to seep into decisions.
In addition, he
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said Facebookâs content moderators, many of whom are outsourced, are based worldwide and âour 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 of this year, in a victory for the administration, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that the plaintiffs in a case accusing the federal government of Public Display Of Affection censoring conservative voices on social media had no standing.
In the majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, âto prove 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, âbecause no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction.â