(Scypre.com) – In a letter dated August 26, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, revealed that the Biden administration had pressured the company to censor content related to COVID-19 during the pandemic.
This pressure was apparently tied to requests from the White House to remove misinformation regarding the coronavirus and vaccines from Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Zuckerberg admitted to the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee that he regretted not speaking out against this pressure earlier, as well as other decisions made in relation to content removal during the pandemic.
The conflict between Meta and the Biden administration became particularly public in July 2021 when President Joe Biden accused social media platforms like Facebook of “killing people” by allowing misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines to circulate. Other high-ranking officials, including then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, criticized the platform for not doing enough to combat the spread of misinformation. Despite Meta’s claims of taking “aggressive steps” to address these issues, criticism from the administration persisted, although it eventually softened as the pandemic continued.
In his letter, Zuckerberg emphasized that his company was “pressured” into censoring content and expressed that Meta would resist similar demands in the future. He pointed out that senior officials from the Biden administration repeatedly pressured Meta’s teams over several months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and were frustrated when the company did not comply.
“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret we were not more outspoken about it,” Zuckerberg wrote. He also acknowledged that with the benefit of hindsight and new information, different decisions might have been made.
The White House responded by stating that the administration had consistently encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety during the pandemic, emphasizing that tech companies should consider the impact of their actions on the American public while making independent choices about the information they present.
In recent months, Zuckerberg has made efforts to appeal to conservative users, praising former President Donald Trump’s response to an assassination attempt as “badass” and participating in right-wing podcasts. The Judiciary Committee, chaired by Representative Jim Jordan, a staunch Trump ally, described Zuckerberg’s letter as a “big win for free speech” and claimed that the Meta CEO admitted Facebook had “censored Americans.”
Additionally, in his letter, Zuckerberg noted that he would refrain from making any contributions to support electoral infrastructure in the upcoming presidential election. During the 2020 election, Zuckerberg had contributed $400 million through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, his philanthropic venture with his wife, to support election infrastructure—a move that sparked criticism and lawsuits from groups that viewed the contribution as partisan.