In his letter to House Judiciary Committee, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently alleged, that the Biden-Harris administration “repeatedly pressured” Meta’s teams to censor COVID-19-related posts.
Talking about the pressure, Zuckerberg said ‘In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured 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 didn’t agree. Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions, including COVID-19-related changes we made to our enforcement in the wake of this pressure.
He further revealed that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, the platform would not make certain changes today. He also expressed regret for not being “more outspoken” about the situation.
‘I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today. Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.’ said Zuckerberg.
Later, The House Judiciary Committee, led by Republicans, shared the Meta CEO’s letter on the social media platform X, stating ‘Mark Zuckerberg just admitted three things: 1. Biden-Harris Admin “pressured” Facebook to censor Americans. 2. Facebook censored Americans. 3. Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story. Big win for free speech.”
Mark Zuckerberg just admitted three things:
1. Biden-Harris Admin “pressured” Facebook to censor Americans.
2. Facebook censored Americans.
3. Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Big win for free speech. pic.twitter.com/3RrEqsf5OT
— Dm@x (@seautocure) August 27, 2024
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Meanwhile, Zuckerberg also remembered another incident in the letter, where he alleged that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned Meta about a potential Russian disinformation campaign concerning the Biden family and Burisma leading up to the 2020 election.
As a result, Meta demoted a story about corruption allegations involving Joe Biden’s family. Later, Zuckerberg claimed, that the reporting was not Russian disinformation and that the story should not have been demoted.
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(With Inputs From ANI)
