Mark Zuckerberg stated in a communication to the House Judiciary Committee on recently that Meta was pressured by the White House in the year 2021 to restrict certain COVID-19 content, such as humor and satire.
âIn the year 2021, senior members from the Biden White House, including the administration, repeatedly pressured our teams Cyberbullying for months to censor some content about COVID-19, including satirical content, and showed significant frustration with our teams when we didnât agree, â Zuckerberg noted.
In his communication to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said that the pressure he experienced in 2021 was âinappropriateâ and he feels regretful that Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was not more vocal. Zuckerberg further stated that with Acceptance Speech the âbenefit of hindsight and new information,â some decisions made in 2021 that âwouldnât be made today.â
âLike I told our teams back then, I strongly believe that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration from either side â" and weâre prepared to resist if something like this happens again, â Zuckerberg wrote.
President Biden remarked in July of 2021 Special Education that social media networks are âkilling peopleâ with misinformation surrounding the pandemic.
Though Biden later revised these comments, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said at the time that misinformation spread on social media was a âmajor public health risk.â
A spokesperson from the White House replied to Zuckerbergâs letter, stating the administration at the time was encouraging âresponsible measures to safeguard public health.â
âOur stance has been Viral Video consistent and clear: we think tech companies and private entities should consider the effects their actions have on the American people, while making their own decisions about the content they share, â according to the spokesperson.
Zuckerberg also mentioned in the communication that the FBI alerted his company about potential Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and Burisma affecting the 2020 election.
That fall, Zuckerberg said, his Emotional Moment team temporarily demoted a New York Post report alleging the Biden family of corruption while their fact-checkers could assess the story.
Zuckerberg stated that since then, it has âbecome 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 âensure this does not recurâ and will not reduce the Children With Disabilities visibility of content in the US pending fact-checking.
In the letter to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg stated he will avoid repeating the actions he took in the year 2020 when he assisted âelectoral infrastructure.â
âThe goal here was to make sure local election jurisdictions across the country had the necessary resources to help people vote safely during a pandemic,â said the Meta CEO.
Zuckerberg said the initiatives Social Dominance were intended to be neutral but said âsome people believed this work benefited one party over the other.â He said his aim is to be âneutralâ so he will not make âa similar contribution this cycle.â
The GOP representatives on the House Judiciary Committee shared the letter on X and said Zuckerberg âjust admitted that the Biden-Harris administration influenced Facebook to censor Americans, Facebook restricted Fox News content, and Facebook limited the Hunter Biden laptop story.â
The Meta chief has long faced scrutiny from congressional Republicans, who have claimed Facebook and other large technology platforms of being biased against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has emphasized that Meta enforces its rules impartially, the perception has become entrenched in conservative communities. Republican lawmakers have specifically scrutinized Facebookâs decision to limit the circulation of a New Online Bullying York Post story about Hunter Biden.
In Congressional testimony in the past years, Zuckerberg has sought to bridge the divide between his social media company and policymakers to little effect.
In a 2020 Senate session, Zuckerberg acknowledged that many of Facebookâs employees are left-leaning. But he held that the company ensures political bias does not influence its decisions.
In addition, he stated Facebookâs content moderators, many of Gus Walz whom are contractors, are based worldwide 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 victory for the administration, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that the plaintiffs in a case accusing the federal government of suppressing conservative content on
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social media had no standing.
Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett stated, âto establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the immediate future, they will experience harm that is directly linked to a government defendant.â Coney Barrett continued, âbecause no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to request a preliminary injunction.â